Grown Over

7.25” x 12”, oil on linen (2008) Humber River, Caledon, Ontario, Canada

When my daughter Andie was young we headed out for a mini-adventure down the Humber River, from Bolton to Kleinburg. We canoed and camped overnight on one of the waterways’ many bends. It was great father-daughter bonding, and her first chance to take the bow of the canoe in moving water. It was a trip of discovery, one of them being this abandoned bridge, so grown over that we could barely be it as we floated by. Later I retraced our route using Google Earth and found that I could access it on foot from a nearby road. As I approached the old structure I envisioned a view for a painting from the river’s edge, looking up. Instead, I found myself attracted to this scene, with angles and textures of the bridge drawing me into an intimate composition.