Silver Lake

This is my latest outdoor painting. It will hang on the opposite side of my garage door from the Native American family.

This painting is a memory of an actual evening on a northern lake which was painted by Nature entirely in pink and silver. I was alone in a canoe in the middle of the lake and a Canada goose traced a long-reaching, but delicate V ahead of my boat. It was a completely peaceful evening. It made me think more about Finnish myth than Native American, but the land is actually quite similar and was settled by Finns. However, this was definitely a goose and not a swan.

The painted spirit figure at the head of the canoe is called a manboard. Some Native people who built (or still build) birchbark canoes install a manboard, although far from all canoe builders practice this. Sometimes they are painted to resemble a spirit figure - the spirit of the canoe and a guide on open waters.

There is a great deal of metallic silver and gold paint in this piece, which makes it quite difficult to photograph due to the highly reflective surface. But it will look good in changing outdoor light.

Acrylic on marine plywood, 48 x 80" (121 x 203 cm.)