Status of Original Painting – Private Collection

Size: 13.25 x 20  inches

Medium: Watercolour on 300 lb Arches

Description:

This is the rugged, rocky coast of Newfoundland. I was struck by a myriad of beautiful colors, sharp and ragged edges, and how the dazzlingly bright light between the sea stacks invites us onward into a place beyond that portal. The reference photo came from the same excursion that inspired my recent painting “Amid the Stacks.”

It’s a stereotype that sons and mothers-in-law don’t get along. But this wasn’t the case for Margot MacDonald and me. She’s always been one of the biggest fans of my artwork, and all of my various endeavors. Friendly, generous, animated, feisty, witty, and humorous; even these adjectives seem inadequate to describe her. Add a distinctive Scottish brogue and a capably sharp tongue on her diminutive frame, and you might start to get a sense of this charming woman.

Margot suffered a disabling stroke just as I was finishing my last painting, “In Colored Stages.” I’d done a painting of Tobermory, Scotland for her back in 1998, but I decided that I wanted to dedicate this next painting to her. Simultaneously with that decision, a doubly suitable title, “Toward the Light,” came to my mind.

I put everything else on hold so that I could devote myself to this painting and complete it as soon as possible. Time was of the essence. While I was working on it, the Tobermory painting was returned to me, all part of the circle life.

I’m absolutely delighted that Margot was able to see this new painting completed (and these words) before she died.

Godspeed, Margot.