The Meadow Art Studio

There’s a saltwater thread that runs through everything I paint.

It began in Little Bay, a small fishing village tucked into the rocky folds of northern Newfoundland. A one room schoolhouse. I grew up with the lullaby of waves and the smell of salt cod on the breeze, with a father who by day was a Mining Engineer, in his spare time was a frustrated oil painter and a family who knew how to listen to weather and sea. That was my first palette—grey rocks, teal water, rusted nets, and the pale pink blush of clouds at dusk.

Then came the rest of the world, as I chased adventure and happiness.

The dozens of trips to Ireland on O’Shaughnessy Society clan reunions. The wonderful heart soaring times in Dublin where I understood heart memory cells and family trauma being encoded in DNA for the first time. In Ireland, I found myself painting beside the ruins of my ancestors’ castles—crumbling stone walls draped in ivy and memory. I dipped my brush in a jar of rainwater from a sacred well and painted as the mist rolled in over the hills. There was something deeply healing about that moment—like I was weaving myself back into the lineage of women who came before me. Art became a kind of ancestral singing.

The life altering moments visiting Grosse Ille in the middle of the St. Lawrence at the Irish Memorial National Historic Site [Canada’s secret, shameful version of Ellis Island and the horrors of what happened to the Irish survivors there] . I have stood on the mass grave of over 10,000 Irish souls and I felt time stand still as I contemplated what people can do to each other. O’Shaughnessy is one of the surnames listed on the memorial. It is said the biggest Irish graveyard in the world is at the bottom of the St. Lawrence River. It was here also that my female ancestors sang out to me and prepared me.

I have been to Lourdes, to Knock and to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre Sanctuary in Quebec City. All for healing and to ask for miracles, granted.

Years spent working on Holland American as clinic crew, travelling the world covering their full time nurse leaves, and being treated like gold by the hardest working below deck hands. Back and forth over twenty times through the Panama Canal. In Alaska, I painted on the deck of a ship beneath a low-hanging moon, its silver light turning the ocean to silk. Humpback whales surfaced beside the vessel, their songs vibrating through the cold night air. I painted quickly, with some anxiety to be fast, my brush moving in rhythm with the sea and the sounds that rose from the deep. The moonlight, the ocean, the whales—they all became brushstrokes.

Living under the midnight sun in Alaska, and travelling inland to all the old mining towns and falling in love with the lore of the saloon and the gold girls and all of the lost stories of adventurous women.

In Morocco I mixed paint with spices, and fell in love with the country despite how difficult it was for me to travel there. I bravely persisted and criss crossed the entire country. Eventually covering my long blond hair with a DIY scarf arrangement. I narrowly escaped likely being sold to a Russian brothel in Marrakesh, and only got away with the help of a few masked Bedouin girls who I gave my scarves to as they marvelled at my hair.

In Mexico, Spain, Portugal and more there were so many beaches, so many incredible memories of fabulous food, sunsets and perfect light. Always the painting, and an occasional cooking class with locals thrown in.

Hawaii trips so many times I can smell the Plumeria if I close my eyes right now. My very favorite places in Taos, New Mexico and Sedona, Arizona with the incredible red air and light. Months of happiness moments spent mastering the Encaustic process. Too many other adventures and memories to mention here. Painting, for me, is a lot like singing—or humming—a quiet, intuitive act that helps me return to myself. It’s how I regulate, how I grieve, how I celebrate. It’s how I rebalance my energies when the world gets too loud or too fast.

Now I live on Galiano Island, where I’ve let the waves find me again. It’s not so different from Newfoundland if you squint—a craggy coast, kind people, shifting skies, and the endless call of the sea. My work has changed over time, but the thread remains: water, memory, texture, and colour.

Art, like life, is a migration. I just follow the tides.