I have lost track of the number of times I’ve read Annie
Dillard’s poignant and spiritual collection of writings, ‘Pilgrim at Tinker
Creek’.
I, too, am ‘a frayed and nibbled survivor’. My art is a
necessity, at times painfully so, lodging an idea in my head, then poking and
prodding me until I get it down.
And so goes my voyage.
My first memory of being in a canoe was the summer I turned
seven. Our family’s 16-foot Chestnut canoe, the scent of wood and canvas, sun
on water, and holding my very own paddle, stirred within me the concept of
journey, voyage, passage.
Of pilgrimage.
I suppose,
spiritually, I see myself as a canoe, still afloat, (in spite of a few
scrapes), but moving through water, bumping the shoreline here and there,
occasionally needing to be portaged, always searching the far shore for a
landing place.
This body of work, (mixed-media on canvas and wood),
explores the well-travelled canoe routes of Trinity Lake. These routes are my
roots, they are with me always, and though not found on any map, still somehow
a part of me and of my journey taken.
Anne Renouf
Indian River Ontario
Spring, 2016
