Status of Original Painting – Sold at Charity Auction

All prices are in Canadian dollars

Size: 8 x 20.75  inches

Auction Price: $500

Medium: Watercolour on 300 lb Arches

Description:

In the background we see a small lighthouse atop Squarry Island. This is on the north side of the entrance to Bonavista Harbour, and some six kilometers south of the far larger and well recognized Cape Bonavista Lighthouse that I have painted before.

The original lighthouse on Squarry Island was a square-based pyramidal wooden tower, painted white, which emitted a fixed red light. Lightkeeper Thomas Abbott looked after it from 1905 until his death in 1914. In 1920, an automated light was installed and it flashed red every three seconds. But then in 1966 the ocean’s fury destroyed the tower. Its replacement is the square, red-white-red skeletal tower seen now. However, the light was deactivated in 2016 and so the lighthouse is no longer functional. Hence, the title “Light’s Out.”

For anyone wishing to nitpick grammar, the common expression “Lights Out” refers to bedtime, start of a movie or play, knocked unconscious, etc. But this lighthouse’s single light is out permanently, hence the “Light Is Out” or “Light’s Out.”