David Blackwood 

Lone Mummer with Lantern
2005-2008
Oil tempera on panel
38 x 27 inches
HI RES

March: the Glover’s Place on Bragg’s Island
2007, Etching and aquatint
Edition of 50
Image size: 15 x 36 inches ( 38.1 x 91.4 cm)

This etching shows Granda Glover’s house, shop, store, flake and stage on Bragg’s Island, a small outport island in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland. (A flake is a platform used for drying fish. A stage was similar to a dock) The small shed in front of the house was a storage place for rubber boots, clothes, drums of kerosene and gasoline (kerosene was used as lamp oil and the gasoline powered the cod trap engines). The view in the print is looking south towards St. Brendans and Pitt Sound Head.

Uncle Edgar Glover’s house is to the left. On the extreme left is Uncle “one eyed Leo” Glover’s house, and on the extreme right is his the house of his brother Uncle Lewis Glover. Aunt Mag Feltham’s house is on the point on the upper left middle ground.

On the horizon to the left of Granda Glovers house is Deer Island, and to the right of that is Greens Island. To the right of Greens Island are the Gooseberry Islands.

The small figure on the stage is watching the departure of the seabird hunters. This stage is the setting for the earlier prints ‘Visitation’ and ‘Granda Glovers Place on Bragg’s Island’.

The wind charger on Glover’s Hill was short lived. It charged a battery which provided one light bulb in the small Glovers General Store, which supplied all three islands. The wind charger is depicted in the print ‘Bragg’s Island’ which was released in June 2007.

Bragg’s Island 2007
Etching and aquatint, edition of 50
Image size: 6 x 4 inches
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David Blackwood’s maternal grandparents operated a general store on Bragg’s Island. This store served not only Bragg’s but the two closest islands as well. People would arrive by boat, sometimes rowing themselves back and forth, to purchase supplies. The wind charger or wind generator depicted in the etching provided enough power to charge a battery which allowed a single light bulb to operate in the Glover's general store on Saturday evenings, when they remained open until 8:00pm as a convenience for their customers. The wind charger was a ‘modern’ convenience put in place by the Glover’s youngest son. Normally the store was lighted by kerosene lanterns.

The fisherman were usually too busy from Monday to Saturday to shop, although David’s grandmother, Alfreda Glover, would come from her house to serve any customers who needed supplies during the week. As Sunday was a day reserved for rest and church, the main shopping was done on Saturday night. The store was a true general store selling everything from salt, sacks of flour and barrels of molasses to clothing, thread and fabric.

Blackwood's depictions of the life, the landscape, and the people of Newfoundland have produced, over the past four decades, a body of work which holds a special place in the Canadian imagination. His strangely beautiful images have come to represent to many of us the essence of Newfoundland's landscape and traditional culture. Part personal biography, part cultural document, part mythic narrative, his work forms an ongoing chronicle of the distinctive stories, both epic and personal, which have shaped his life and the life of his native province. He is widely regarded as Canada's most accomplished printmaker.

Links
    David Blackwood's Biography
    Purchase Blackwood Books and Posters
    Available Etchings A to J
    Available Etchings K to S
    Available Etchings T to Z

Exhibitions
    Blackwood Recent Etchings
    "Near and Far" Exhibition
    Outport Relics and Related Works
    A Sense of Place Exhibition
    "Down on the Labrador" Exhibition
    "Mummer's Veil" Exhibition
    "Visits and Discoveries" Exhibition
    "Bragg's Island Revisited" Exhibition

Art Work   
    Blackwood Archival Prints   
    More Blackwood Art
    Drawings by David Blackwood
    Blackwood Rare Impressions
    Blackwood Monotypes and Watercolours
    Blackwood Paintings

Seabird Hunters from Pound Cove 2005
Plate Size 12 X 18 Inches
Etching and Aquatint
Edition of 75

The Great Mummer Eunice Burden in Wesley Hall 2006
Etching and aquatint, edition of 75 prints
Size: 14 x 11 inches (plate size) 35.6 x 27.9 cm.
Sheet size: 18 5/8 x 15 3/4 inches 47.4 x 40 cm.

'Study for Three Mummers', 2006
Mixed media on prepared paper
6 x 12 inches, 15.2 x 30.5 cm (image size)
17 x 22 inches, 43.2 x 55.9 cm, (sheet size)

'Three Mummers', 2006,
Etching and aquatint
6 x 12 inches, 15.2 x 30.5 cm. (image size), (three plates printed on one sheet), edition of 75
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