Jelly Beans, wallpaper scraps and oil pastel on canvas panel, 2024
Colorful homes and sheds with laundry blowin in the wind dot every cove, tickle, bight and narrow from the gulf of St. Lawrence to the shores of the Atlantic. Once a navigational aid, they have come to represent the joy of a fleeting season.
Iceberg by Boat, wallpaper scraps and glitter on canvas panel, 2024
Climate change is influencing where and when the icebergs flow. Arriving St. Anthony during traditional peak season, we’d missed the steady march but heard a fisherman spotted a megaburg in the mist about 4 miles offshore. Onboard a tiny yellow trawler, Captain Keith raced to the scene where big waves and nausea circled the behemoth.
Cliff Dwellers, wallpaper scraps, glitter and oil pastels on canvas panel, 2024
The landscape of windy Cape St. George gives way to tuckamore trees, kittiwake gulls and protected nesting sites in towering cliffs. While you feel like you are being swept away, trees are clinging to rocks, twisting in coastal winds, providing shelter to scurrying life. Bushwack trails lead to thousand bird views.
Maine-ly, white pine bark, wallpaper scraps and oil pastels on canvas panel, 2024
If you’re in a tent and it’s off season, you can get into Lamoine State Park without a reservation. You’ll be nestled in a forest with a dappling of sun, so get out and charge those solar panels on an adventure in Acadia and Bar Harbour.
Killing Fields, oil pastels and glitter on canvas panel, 2024
Giant hogweed is beautiful. It is everywhere in Gros Morne National Park. Fields of it. It even grows on the path to the bathhouse in Green Point Campground. Who knew that stopping to admire a bloom would burn the skin so severely that it would blister and linger for weeks? Why was there no sign? Don’t touch the hogweed.
Gros Morne, pressed flowers and leaves, oil pastels on canvas panel, 2024
From the Trout River to the Tablelands, from Rocky Harbour to Cow Head, Gros Morne National Park was one tree, rock, flower and shoreline after another. Different but the same. Where were the Canyons and Arches and Sands and Old Growth? Gross Morne is more a mood than a monument.
Rock Lobster, paint and glitter on canvas panel, 2024
The ceremony is straightforward. Bring a wad of cash, put your name on a list and be prepared to wait. The lobsters at Sansome’s Lobster Pool are caught fresh in the adjacent cove and stored in plastic crates in the big pool in the barn before being boiled in giant pots in a metal shed. A meek teenager or a salty lady with a throaty disposition delivers the bright red crustacean with a pot of frothy butter.
Viking Burn, burnt paper plate, camping receipt and oil pastels on canvas panel, 2024
At the tip of the Northern Peninsula, L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site delivers archaeological remains, costumed interpreters and Viking sagas in the first landing on North America. Back at camp, Pistolet Provincial Park offers biting, swarming mosquitoes in a wet bog. Practicing the ancient art of burning coils to ward off these evil predators, a paper plate burns and a receipt sails to the shimmering Strait of Belle Isle.
Vinny and the Whales, wallpaper scraps and glitter on canvas panel, 2024
Shivering on a cold and rainy black-rock beach on the tip of the Avalon Peninsula in St. Vincent, a frolicking pod feasted on small, shimmering sardine-like fish called Capelin by corralling them against the shoreline.
Twillingate, wallpaper scraps, camping receipts and brochure flowers on canvas panel, 2024
Once known as the capital of Iceberg Alley, the flow has shifted and Twillingate is now a beacon for more humble attractions, such as Long Point Lighthouse. After a cod au gratin lunch and afternoon of meandering quilt, crochet and woodworking shops, we sat on a rock outcropping near the lighthouse, watching the seagulls feed, eating a ginger cookie from the Crow’s Nest Cafe before returning to our shady, mosquito infested campsite at Dildo Run Provincial Park.
