The Scarborough Bluffs

No Swimming

22" x 30", watercolour 1996

One chilly fall day my friend, Kim, and I went to the Scarborough Bluffs to look around and see what we could shoot for possible future paintings, and I shot a couple of rolls of film in a couple of hours or so. Ultimately, I decided I'd do two paintings: a "clean" one and a "dirty" one, both paintings inspired by the beauty of the cliffs as well as the "No Swimming" sign and garbage at the site. Scarborough's beaches have been on-again/off-again clean and filthy and this was during a no-so-nice time.

The bottom painting is straight from the photos taken at the Bluffs, but it was way too cold to have Kim in a swimsuit there, so we went back to her warm house and I took some pics for that painting (as well as others; click on her name in the "labels" below to see some of them).

Before, Below, Beside
15" x 20", watercolour, Collection of The City of Scarborough

The title here is a play on the Rush song "Between, Beneath, and Behind" but that's where any connection ends (as big a Rush fan that I am, I'm not actually very familiar with that song, its title resonated just enough with me to inspire my own title).

Both of these paintings were in a show at Scarborough's City Hall the following spring and the city bought the bottom "clean" one (and my only existing photos of it are blurry; no chance for a re-shoot).

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