Fireplace watercolour that Forrestall painted at White Point lost in blaze

by: Elisa Barnard

Tom Forrestall, pictured at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2008, says he's more worried about the staff at White Point Beach Resort than the fate of one of his paintings that used to hang in the main lodge, which was destroyed by fire on the weekend.

The Tom Forrestall painting destroyed in the White Point Beach Resort fire Saturday depicted a blaze in a cabin fireplace.

The Nova Scotia artist, who always travels with his watercolours, was staying in a seaside cabin at the resort during New Year’s in 2009-10 and got caught in a snowstorm.

"We got cabin-locked by the storm, and I was looking at the fireplace, and the storm was raging on," Forrestall said in a phone interview from his Dartmouth home.

Although he is known for his egg tempera paintings, he calls watercolour "the most enjoyable side of painting."

"You’re dealing directly with the real experience of the thing. In that work, the whole focus was on the wood and the burning and the brightness, and you looked right into the flame, which is tricky to do (in paint)."

The resort’s owner, Robert Risley, was so taken by it, he bought the watercolour, valued at $4,000 unframed, and hung it in the entranceway of the main lodge.

"Risley put a beautiful, elaborate frame on it. I was greatly honoured it was in an area where it brought pleasure to so many people. I heard from people who liked it.

"When I heard about the fire, I thought, ‘That painting is gone, too.’ "

Forrestall has no photograph of it.

However, he said the loss of the artwork is minor compared with the loss of employment and the loss of the historic Liverpool-area structure.

"When I think of the overall lodge and all the people that worked there and the families that depend on it, that’s the great part of it; mine is a very small part. I’m delighted to hear they’re going to rebuild and I’d be delighted to go back.

"Perhaps some good will come out of the ashes. I’m sure of it."

The artist, who spent five weeks painting watercolours in Israel last fall, just wrapped up an exhibit of watercolours, egg tempera paintings and new "rotator" paintings in Vancouver.

All of his sketchbooks, about 300, are going to Mount Allison University’s rare book collection, and Virgil Hammock, a professor emeritus of fine arts at the Sackville, N.B., university, is writing "a book on the books."

Forrestall is showing his Israel watercolours in Toronto next spring at a private home. He has a show opening next May 5 at Kinsman Robinson Galleries in Toronto and an exhibit of watercolours at the Art Gallery of Sudbury next summer.

Filmmaker Zac Barkhouse is making a film focusing on Forrestall’s conviction that the rectangle is the wrong shape for a painting. He has made shaped paintings and is now making rotating paintings that can be shifted on the wall and viewed in different ways.