Yesterday we did a 10 hour return road trip in a hire van to Lac-Mégantic in the Eastern Townships region of Québec. A long trip, but with beautiful Fall foliage keeping us entertained much of the way there and back. The reason? To collect the first piece of original art I’d ever bought. From the super talented and very well known Canadian artist, Wynne Parkin.

As soon as I set eyes on ‘A Real Canadian Moose’, I just had to have it because it was so unique. Wynne was showing it as part of her large exhibition at the Lac-Mégantic sports centre, and I only stumbled across it on a friend’s Facebook post. Between you and me, I have a ‘thing’ for male bodies sporting animal heads. I think this all stems from my fascination with the ancient Egyptian gods and the beasts of Greek mythology when I was a youngster.

Moving quickly on….with a bit of to-ing on fro-ing on Facebook Messenger with Wynne, I managed to secure it. And before I knew it, there we were with her in Lac-Mégantic.

There’s a great story about ‘the Moose’ painting. It actually has a brother that Wynne created, that sits on the wall of an MP’s office,  fifteen minutes drive away from me over on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. The MP had seen the original Moose painting, and commissioned Wynne to create one for him, but in ice hockey outfit!

Lovely to meet you Wynne, and thank you for selling me that fabulous painting. You can check out Wynne’s huge wealth of creativity by visiting https://wynneparkin.com/

The True Canadian Moose now takes pride of place in our lounge (and funnily enough hangs very close to a large half-man half-goat Satyr sculpture I have!)