Seal Cove Artist Residency

08/21/2026

Tomorrow (Friday 21st) 5-7pm - come join us for the opening of Human Nature - beautiful and mesmerizing work by Tomoko Charron and Natt Cann!

08/21/2026

08/21/2026

Perseverance, painted by Eric Allaby in 1999, depicts the schooner after a catastrophic gale in December 1819. Waterlogged and nearly dismasted, the vessel was guided toward Nova Scotia without a compass by its sole surviving crew member, Captain McDonald.

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Perseverance, peinte par Eric Allaby en 1999, représente la goélette après une tempête catastrophique en décembre 1819. Inondé et presque démâté, le navire fut dirigé vers la Nouvelle-Écosse sans boussole par le capitaine McDonald, seul membre survivant de l’équipage.

Eric Allaby, Perseverance, 1999. Bleumortier family collection.

08/19/2026

Grand Manan’s cod fishery before Confederation: twelve-foot boats, eighty-pound cod, and pickled tongues. A fascinating piece of island history from Backyard History.

🐟 In the years before Confederation, Maritimes cod fed the world. It was often caught by men in little twelve-foot boats. Imagine that: one fisherman with a line and hook in a little boat. Out at dawn, back at dusk.

When Moses Perley visited Grand Manan in 1850 to report on the fishery, he asked the obvious question: why not build bigger boats? The answer was that they couldn't. "Such boats would not do," he was told. "The boats had to be hauled up above the tide in stormy weather or they would be quickly dashed to pieces."

The cod they brought back were enormous — up to 80 lbs — and Americans couldn't get enough of them. An 1857 guide to the province boasted that Fundy cod was "always selected for the finest tables in America."

New Brunswickers weren't especially keen on cod, Perley reported. Except the tongues. Pickled cod tongues were a delicacy.

📸 A century later, painters were still drawn to imagery. This remarkably striking painting, called 'The Doryman,' is by Finnish-Nova Scotian William E. deGarthe. Painted in 1955, it doesn't specifically list a location, but many of deGarthe's paintings are set in Peggy's Cove.

(Photo Reference: William E. deGarthe, Nova Scotia Archives Documentary Art Collection: 1986-352 no. 15)

08/19/2026

No. 28: a stringing shed originally worked in by Billy Bleumortier, Peter Bleumortier’s great-grandfather, alongside Russell and Mancel Harvey.

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No 28 : un hangar de filetage où travaillaient à l’origine Billy Bleumortier, l’arrière-grand-père de Peter Bleumortier, ainsi que Russell et Mancel Harvey.

Source: Gerald L. Pocius, Seal Cove Smoked Herring Stands, 1995.

08/19/2026

For everyone wondering what SeCo has been up to, now is your chance to find out. Join artist and founder Peter Bleumortier as he explores his family history, Grand Manan’s local art history, his own practice, and how it all led him to establish an artist residency in Seal Cove.

Tuesday, August 25 at 7:30 pm at the Grand Manan Museum.

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Pour tous ceux qui se demandent ce que SeCo prépare, voici l’occasion de le découvrir. Joignez-vous à l’artiste et fondateur Peter Bleumortier, qui présentera son histoire familiale, l’histoire de l’art local de Grand Manan, sa propre pratique artistique et le parcours qui l’a mené à fonder une résidence d’artistes à Seal Cove.

Le mardi 25 août à 19 h 30 au Musée de Grand Manan.

Image: Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, P81/1053

08/18/2026

Week 3/8 at the Seal Cove Artist Residency pilot. Printmaking, local histories, research, community, coastlines, and summer light.

Semaine 3/8 à la résidence d’artistes de Seal Cove (projet pilote). Gravure, histoires locales, recherche, communauté, littoral et lumière d’été.

Blue linocut of the Seal Cove sheds.
Linograuve bleue des hangars de Seal Cove.

Linocuts in progress.
Linogravures en cours.

North Head Bakery.
Boulangerie de North Head.

Treats from North Head Bakery.
Douceurs de la boulangerie de North Head.

Kayakers in Whale Cove.
Kayakistes à Whale Cove.

Presence Studio.
Studio Presence.

The Sea Wins: Shipwrecks of the Bay of Fundy by Eric Allaby, with inscription.
The Sea Wins: Shipwrecks of the Bay of Fundy d’Eric Allaby, avec dédicace.

Ice cream at High Seas, with a rainbow.
Crème glacée chez High Seas, avec un arc-en-ciel.

Museum talk: How Environmental Change Can Affect Marine Life, with Helen Gurney-Smith, PhD, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews Biological Station.
Conférence au musée : How Environmental Change Can Affect Marine Life, avec Helen Gurney-Smith, Ph. D., Pêches et Océans Canada, Station biologique de St. Andrews.

Sunset at the Grand Manan Museum.
Coucher de soleil au Musée de Grand Manan.

Linocuts based on Grand Manan herring labels, circa 1890s, Collins, Lee & Co.
Linogravures inspirées d’étiquettes de hareng de Grand Manan, vers les années 1890, Collins, Lee & Co.

Beach access.
Accès à la plage.

Bleumortier Brook.
Ruisseau Bleumortier.

Postcard of Harvey’s Haulout by Eric Allaby, 1966.
Carte postale de Harvey’s Haulout par Eric Allaby, 1966.

Woodwards Cove at dusk.
Woodwards Cove au crépuscule.

Seal Cove Beach at sunset, facing east.
Plage de Seal Cove au coucher du soleil, vers l’est.

Seal Cove Beach at sunset, facing west.
Plage de Seal Cove au coucher du soleil, vers l’ouest.

Movie night: Visages Villages (Faces Places), Agnès Varda and JR, 2017.
Soirée cinéma : Visages Villages, Agnès Varda et JR, 2017.

Rachel at the Grand Manan Library.
Rachel à la bibliothèque de Grand Manan.

The Bleumortier family home in Seal Cove, painted by Helen Charters in the early 1970s. The house is now home to Grand Manan

08/17/2026

Seal Cove, summer 2006. It was a wild summer on the island…. iykyk 🥴

08/16/2026

A Sunday beach walk, or a Sunday stroll through the gallery? In Herzl Kashetsky's painting Beach Rocks, the two feel like one and the same. It's so real you'd swear you were standing on the shore, but it's watercolour on paper.

Kashetsky, a realist painter from Saint John, New Brunswick, is featured in Realisms: Selections from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery Permanent Collection, on view now! Open today until 5pm.

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Une promenade dominicale à la plage ou une balade dominicale dans la galerie? Dans l’aquarelle Beach Rocks de Herzl Kashetsky, les deux semblent ne faire qu’un. C’est si réaliste que vous pourriez jurer vous tenir au bord de l’eau, mais il s’agit bien d’une aquarelle sur papier.

Herzl Kashetsky, peintre réaliste de Saint John, au Nouveau-Brunswick, est à l’honneur dans Realisms: Selections from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery Permanent Collection, présentée en ce moment à la Galerie!

Ouvert aujourd’hui jusqu’à 17 h.

Herzl Kashetsky, Beach Rocks. Watercolour on paper / Aquarelle sur papier, 77.2 × 94.4 cm. The Leslie B. Marcus Collection / La collection Leslie B. Marcus.