After seeing "Maudie" I put a number of things on hold and this came in the other day. It's about the preservation effort by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia for Maude Lewis' house. It's very well illustrated and worth a look for Maude Lewis fans. I was also introduced to Dan McKinnon, a Nova Scotia singer/songwriter, who composed the song "This House" for the opening of the Scotiabank Maud Lewis Gallery.
It's a great song and of course available on our wonderful Apple Music which probably has all his stuff as they have all everyone's stuff. What a wonderful thing this streaming music is! We have yet to not find something and we search all sorts of international artists. I'm really enjoying his music and listening to it now as I make this post.
Here are the words which are reprinted in the book.
This House
This house from where you watched the world go by
This house touched here and there with childhood’s eyes
Every surface your blank page, a self-painted gilded cage
With bluebirds flying free
Painted flowers on the stair blooming everywhere
Now here for all to see within this house
These hands could only do so much
These hands now curled and spent around the brush
Did you paint away the pain, paint away the tears and the misery
While painting stories from the past, times that did not last
Childhood’s memories within these hands
These eyes witness to the passing ways
These eyes now glancing from a stranger’s gaze
They saw the oxen and the cart, they were the window to your heart
Open wide enough to breathe
Painting brightly coloured scenes, pictures found in dreams
Only you could see with these eyes
This house now silent witness to your life
This house once filled with hardship and with life
Yet does it guard unspoken dreams
Preserve silent memories unseen by curious eyes?
Quietly waiting for the brush
Your loving tender touch to caress it one more time
This house
© Dan McKinnon
