Michael E.Cartwright Painter

Alter egos

Dalkeith Historical Society met on Wednesday,July 6,2011 inside St.Paul's chapel to finalize some details for the weekend of the Bicentennial Celebrations (Dalkeith Days July 21-23) Soon,Icon Blue Nose will be helping them on the quest to restore and maintain the chapel.Shown on the alter are various sizes of the Icon to be made available throughout the area.Members from left to right Frances Fraser,Rose Marie Deley,Peggy Phillips,Jean MacLennan,Joelle Claudon,Douglas Irvine,Maggie Dean,Denny Allen,Tish Nicholson,Clara Taylor,Nicole St.Pierre and Jaques Lavigne

Working photo for painting below

This photo taken the summer of 1997 on the Montebello waterfront.As it was my girlfriend I began to ask friends if they wanted to see a picture of my girlfriend? Besides being a challenging painting it began to develop into a story that I always insist on in my work.The stories give the work identity in the oral tradition people can relate to without any knowledge of Canadian Art History and they can relax in knowing it is an ordinary event in my life.Viewers can,if they want,ask questions such as "is she camera shy?" or what?Actually she has just discovered a beautiful bug and is asking me to come and have a look.

The evolution of the boat portrait

When I was painting boats in the late 70's and eighties I couldn't seem to get them "big enough" until there began to be problems with size.They seemed to out dimension the houses and walls of the people who commissioned them so often that I got the point to reduce.Three feet by four feet was reduced to a manageable 22"x28" or 28"x32" and the price hovered somewhere in the four hundred to six hundred range depending on complexity.Every boat is different and if it is a sunk one often little to go on.Most of the fishing boats seen here were photographed in Halifax harbour as I stood on the wharf and the boat went round and round until I thought I had the water that the boat pushes in a nice alignment with everything else.Then I gave the thumbs up and everyone went to work......