Kelly's Inukshuk (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) SOLD

5 April, warm, sunny, and windy, finds us revisiting the larger of the two ponds at Lakeland Estates in the south end of Ottawa.  This is the third year that we have been monitoring the health of these urban lakes for Larry Pegg, a friend of ours who has been resident there since the mid-eighties when the "Estate" was established around two retired gravel pits.

Its developer stipulated that the lakes be managed on ecologically responsible principles by the residents, and this was very important to Larry and Angela's daughter Kelly, who made this inukshuk on the lawn behind their house.

Larry commissioned this painting in memory of Kelly.  I feel as if I am visiting with her as I sit in the sun beside her lively arrangement of stones.  The lake glitters in the sun, and there are two other stones, one standing nearby, and one crouching a little farther away.  Sometimes the inukshuk looks like a little person, standing stalwart and gesturing to the right.  Sometimes the middle stone turned into a swimming fish, and the stone above it became a resting rabbit.

Switch, the German Shepherd, came to visit on his perpetual campaign to persuade someone to throw his frizbee, and for a while he lay beside the standing stones, watching me and wondering whether painting could perhaps be my way of preparing to play with a polite and patient dog.