Change Islands Workshops 2002 In March of 2002 I was invited to go to the Change Islands, Newfoundland to provide the local residents with a series of floorcloth workshops. The objective of the trip was to teach new techniques and provide input to local artists that had been re-introduced to the craft of floorcloth making by Herb Bown, of Stages and Stores.
I jumped at the opportunity to go, as I had never been to Newfoundland before and the Change Islands are just about as far east and north that you can get in this province, very remote.
Armed with my favourite brushes and a supply of various tools, my husband and I departed from Ottawa early on the morning of March 5th. We stopped over briefly in Halifax, then went on to St. John’s where we boarded our third and final plane which would take us to Gander. Not being an avid flyer I was pretty much a wreck after the first two planes, and as we boarded this "schoolbus" with wings I was decidedly nervous. It was a "beachcraft", with single seats down each side of the plane, the pilots appeared to be not a day over 18, and even from the very last seats in the plane, where we were seated we could see out the front of the plane. As we approached Gander the turbulence was quite pronounced, to the point that the plane was veering from side to side as we prepared for landing. I was not the only nervous person, from the back I could see every head in front of me leaning into the aisle trying to look out the front. Amazingly we landed, and it was at the airport too!
We were met at the airport by Wallace Bown, who had our car rental all straightened out and ready for us. We followed Wallace to his home in Victoria Cove, where his wife Linda had an excellent dinner ready for us, much appreciated after a day of starving on airplanes. We spent the night in their home and the next day headed off to where a ferry would take us over to the Change Islands. The ferry was due to depart at 2:30 p.m. but because the icebreaker that cleared the path for it had been called away, it was delayed and it was 4:45 before we finally boarded. By 5:30 we had docked at the Change Islands, Wallace led us to the home of Pearl Kearley where we were to board for the next 4 nights.
Pearl lives in a 140 year old home on the northern island. The main floor of the house is heated by an oil furnace, but not the upstairs. When I climbed into bed that night it was quite comforting to find that she had made the bed up with about 6 heavy blankets, quilts and comforters, they were surely necessary in this northern climate. Pearl's culinary skills were also greatly appreciated, she provided us with breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The workshops were held in the local school, the A. R. Scammell academy, and on Thursday morning I met my first 5 students. Workshops ran from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, with the number of students steadily increasing as word got around, by Friday evening I was beginning to loose track of who was painting what. The weather turned for the worse on Friday morning, with gale force winds and a wind chill factor of about -40 Celsius. With each gust of wind on Friday night I could feel the walls in the house shaking. I fell asleep wondering if I was going to end up in the Land of Oz, or worse yet, somewhere floating in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Saturday morning the winds were gone and it was bright and sunny. I headed off to the school hoping for a relaxing day, but it was not to be so. At one point there were 11 or 12 people in the room, all painting to their hearts content. By 9:30 Saturday evening 16 people had created 23 terrific floorcloths. We decided to pack it in, it had after all been three pretty intense days for me, and I suspected that my husband would want to catch the 8:00 a.m. ferry back to the mainland on Sunday so that we could tour around a bit. It was hard to say goodbye to my new friends, but I knew that we would be keeping in touch, so many questions, so little time!
