Description:
Intrepid painter Helen Opie takes a trip on the tall ship Picton Castle, equipped with foul-weather gear, small-craft experience, and a painting journal. The daily watercolours capture both routine and exciting moments as Picton Castle cruises from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia to Massachusetts and back. A dozen essays expand upon the visual record and share the artist's experience when she is literally at sea.
Brief description: Helen Opie has lived in Granville Ferry since 2003, moving here from Mader's Cove in South Shore Nova Scotia, after having arrived in Nova Scotia from Charlotte County NB, where she first began to understand that she might be one who thinks she has to draw lions. She majored in studio art at Oberlin College in Ohio because she was too dyslexic to manage all the writing of papers required in other major subjects, and went onto get an M Ed (elementary school teaching) from Boston University, again choosing a topic, children's literature, that did not require reading a great deal of dense material. The older she gets, the more she realizes how differently her life has been lived because of this difficulty with print, and perhaps a related difficulty in verbal thought construction. Although she can, and does, "run off at the mouth", she is also willing to stop when asked to. She fits the ADHD adult description very well, but having developed coping skills such as pictorial list making, and her own design of a combined weekly planner-calendar, she manages to muddle through life fairly well, and with the support of many kind friends. She is surprised to find she is as old as she is (born 1933) and is fascinated in watching how old age requires new learning. (all this digital stuff), new perspectives (even the middle-aged don't remember World War II, or when Edward (V VIII ) abdicated the British throne), and new adaptation (all real typewriters were manual, and few were actually portable; cars had tire chains for driving on snow; there was no frozen food, just ice in aluminum ice trays in the fridge).
Review Quotes:
Helen Opie's book is a wonderfully intimate portrait of life on board the sailing barque, Picton Castle. Her watercolour sketches provide an intimate and affectionate record of her trip, capturing every aspect of the work of the crew and the character of the ship. Her colourful and detailed renderings, in the tradition of the great shipboard artists of the past, are accompanied by written descriptions and personal reflections that offer insight into her experience as a welcome observer on the voyage. This is a beautiful and contemplative book.
Captain Keith McLaren, author of A Race for Real Sailors:
The Bluenose and the International Fishermen's Cup 1920-1938
Opie's wisdom, and vulnerability of age, take the helm through the outcomes of slipping, crashing, hurting, and rising above it all to chronicle through a journal of spontaneous watercolours that capture the essence of moments "Aboard Picton Castle".
Wayne Boucher RCA
No path is ever the same in both directions, says Helen Opie in Aboard Picton Castle. It's one of the many observations she makes in her voyage on the 179-foot floating school. Her watercolour sketches capture life on the Atlantic and at the stops along the way. We see through the eyes of the artist as she documents 24 days and reflects on a lifetime. Not so much travel writing as travel art.
Lawrence Powell, journalist, writer, editor