Bog Dance (oil on canvas 11 x 14 in.)

19 June finds me at the Bio-blitz open house, finishing a second painting of the bog near Albright in the Grand Lake Meadows PNA from one of my photos - the bog "Where Elfin Skimmers Live". I had nearly finished it yesterday morning, so it is not difficult filling in the dancing strokes of the forest,  and the blue and white sky above the tops of the Black Spruces - between conversations with people who stop to watch me work and ask about my paintings.

All around me swirl conversations - about meadows, forests, beetles, mice, plants, roads and maps, where people have been and what they have seen. Then the chatter was silenced as the president of the New Brunswick Museum introduced this year's Bio-blitz as the first of two to be held in this Protected Natural Area, and she introduced other speakers - Don McAlpine, the organizer of the Bio-blitzes, and someone from the New Brunswick Nature Trust, and a very gracious
local municipal councillor. A number of partners and funders were mentioned.

We are all inspired with a sense of pride and privilege, and I feel a strong urge to help similar two-year, two-week-long all-taxon inventories to happen all over Canada. This year we have 60 participants, mostly from New Brunswick, but also from as far afield as Texas and British Columbia, including students and professors, government researchers, independent researchers, and five artists (painters, photographers, and a poet).

Visit the New Brunswick Museum's Bio-blitz blog and see what we all are doing!

Dear supporters and patrons of my art,

This 12 x 14 inch oil painting is available, framed, for $525 from Art Etc at the Art Gallery of Burlington.   

For more information, contact Rhonda Bullock,
Art Sales and Rental Coordinator, (905) 632-7796 #301

Sales of my paintings support our research and conservation work,

Aleta