Day 24: Not A Good Day To Be A Lobster

I moved Colette's Russell Spanner Catalina (c.1952) dining table set into the living room of Humber House.

 The table was set for LOBSTER NIGHT!

It looked pretty festive.

Campbell's Soup Can plastic tablecloth; mason jar glasses; a lottery ticket for each guest; stainless steel bowl for lobster shells; hot biscuits in a basket; Canadiana napkins (w/fox, grizzly, goose, maple leaf and oars); La Vielle Ferme red wine; cork placemats from IKEA; vintage, marigold Carnival glass divided plates; lobster tools; orange and white tulips and a tree branch; twisted wood; Newfoundland slate.

I bought this awesome tea towel in the gift shop at the Port Aux Basques ferry terminal last year.

The woman who worked there was so sweet.

She showed me a picture of her son who is Captain on one of the ferries.

Hunting, fishing, swimming, a moose, a lighthouse, a Pitcher Plant and a Newfoundland dog.

 

The food was served quickly.

It all looked and tasted amazing.

We had potato salad, of course.

There was A LOT of butter.

We played Classic Country songs like this:

Wanda Jackson - Right or Wrong

And this:

Willie Nelson - Always On My Mind

And this:

Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn - After the Fire is Gone

And this:

Loretta Lynn - Fist City

When everyone left, it reminded me of Christmas.

My dining room studio with a green velvet armchair.

Day 23: Ice Ice Baby

The Bay of Islands froze over this year.

Locals say it hasn't happened in a long time.

I took my colleague for a drive along the North Shore Highway to visit Meadows.

We walked out on the ice and looked back at Colette Urban's saltbox houses and the shed.

It was a new perspective and felt strange.

Standing on the frozen water,

looking at the shore,

made me feel slightly nervous.

Like vertigo.

But the view of Meadows was worth it.

 Out on the ice were a large group of snowmobilers and pick-up trucks.

Patrick went to find out what was going on.

He talked to a guy on a Yamaha Mountain Max.

The man's wife showed up and they all had a laugh.

Apparently, the snowmobilers were doing a quarter mile race on the ice.

Back in the old days, before global warming, the Bay of Islands and other bodies of water like it in Newfoundland, used to regularly freeze over solid in the winter.

This was used as an opportunity to tow houses across the ice/land to another location.

The frozen Bay of Islands reminded me of this David Blackwood print.

Hauling Job Sturges House, 1979 etching and aquatint on wove paper 43.9 x 88 cm
Gift of David and Anita Blackwood, Port Hope, Ontario, 1999
99/948 Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario

Meanwhile, back at Humber House.

I turned my dining room into a studio.

I've been making some new works.

Paintings.

Untitled (In Your Face), 2014, wood and paint, 9" x 6.25" x 3"

Drawings.

Untitled (Duet), 2014,  coloured conté on white and black rag paper, 30" x 22" (each)

Untitled (Lying Excuses), 2014, wood and paint, 12.75" x 6.75" x 1.25"

Untitled (Ouch), 2014, wood and paint, 3.5" x 4.5" x 1"

This is an old drawing of mine from when I was a student at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Untitled, 1995, gouache, acrylic and ink on paper, 6" x 6"