Status of Original Painting – sold at charity auction

All prices are in Canadian dollars

Size: 12.5 x 21  inches

Price: $ 1,000

Medium: Watercolour on 300 lb Arches

Description:

No, it’s nothing naughty, and it’s legitimate. Dildo Cove is part of the quaint town of Dildo, located on Trinity Bay in Newfoundland. I went there on a drive recently and captured photos for several paintings that I might do, and this is the first of them.

The small town has borne that odd name since at least 1711, but it doesn’t refer to what you’re probably thinking. Then again, no one can really explain what the town’s name is supposed to mean, except that it’s not THAT. It might have referred to the pin on which an oar pivots, or a cylindrical tube, or something else, but the origin has been long forgotten. Residents have endured certain notoriety for the name, which has periodically been reinforced by stories in magazines and newspapers, but a campaign to change the name failed. Instead, it has been embraced for years in the annual “Dildo Days” summer festival and its Captain Dildo mascot.

The highway sign indicating that Dildo is 12 km away can be subjected to some predictable graffiti: