Public Collections - W. David Ward

"Near the town of Little Hearts Ease, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, this abandoned fishing boat captured my imagination and compelled me to put paint to canvas. Its battered hull, awash in the sparkling blue sea, seems emblematic somehow of a way of life gone by. Only vestiges of the old-world now remain, swept aside by the inexorable tide of time."

Although this painting "Awash" was created in 2004 (The text above was written at the time of its first showing), the scene itself was from a visit to Newfoundland in May 1991 – one of two trips that year paid for by the American publishing house, Greenwich Workshop. The idea had been that I would gather material for a collection of new paintings, from which they create a series of prints. Potential images were always vetted by the dealers however, before they were produced, and, though I did create a number different paintings from this trip, none of them were actually published. According to the print galleries in the early 1990s, my new works did not have "sufficient commercial appeal."
I was disappointed at the time of course, but I did feel a certain pride that my work wasn't "commercial" and, a short time later, I signed with a Canadian publishing company.

Ironically, this image was ultimately produced in the form of a Jig-saw puzzle. I hasten to add, it was the only time I licensed an image to be produced in this fashion. The inventory is long since out of stock and I have not had other images reproduced this way. Though I may sound a little disparaging of such things, I certainly don't mean to be. It was swayed, in this case, because of the other artists involved. In the catalogue my image appeared next to the west coast painter Carol Evans, and exceptionally talented artist with whom I've exhibited, on a couple of occasions, at the Whiterock Gallery (Vancouver). As much as I respect Carol's work however, it was the other names that clinched this deal: Emily Carr, E. J. Hughes, Lawren Harris and Alex Colville. I cannot tell you what a thrill it was to have my painting published along side works by these other "Iconic" Canadian artists.

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