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Cottage Canoe

30" x 24", oil on canvas, 2009, private collection

This was painted as a gift for Kathryn Winning (that's her at the back of the canoe during a trip she, Krista, and I took to her cottage up north). I became good friends with Kathryn soon after meeting –and subsequently painting many pictures of– her daughter, Ashley. Separately, Krista had become friends with Kathryn as well, and it was when Kathryn was directing one of Krista's plays in Toronto (Love in Swift Current) that the chain of events began that would lead to Krista and I getting together (and getting married and starting Small Pond Arts!). Kathryn really pushed for us to get together and has been a great and supportive friend of ours, so, in appreciation of all of that, I painted the three of us in a canoe on a very happy trip and planned to give her the painting upon our move to Prince Edward County in 2010, but she now lives on a boat and there's no place for a painting there. Until she has a wall to hang this on, it's on display at Small Pond HQ.

This wasn't intended as a self portrait (unlike this and this), but there it is (and there I am), anyway.


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