MODL is pleased to be able to offer many public art opportunities throughout the Municipality. This all began with an idea in 2017 for Art on the Trail, and in 2024 expanded to Art in the Park!
The vision was to have a local artist design, plan, create, and install public art to encourage outdoor physical activity while connecting people and art.
Bay to Bay Trail – (Mahone Bay to Lunenburg) hosts the Riverbank Habitat by artist Gillian Maradyn-Jowsey.
Funded by a grant from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the environmental sculptures were inspired by the stacked wood seen throughout Lunenburg County. Created using wood from a local woodlot owner and fallen trees on the site, the sculptures were assembled over a three-week period in the fall of 2018. Small colourful discs on the end of a few logs add a spot of colour. The art is visible from the footbridge across Martins Brook, and intended to beautify and create a destination for those walking the Bay to Bay Trail in Martin’s Brook. This living public art installation will change, break down and eventually return to the earth.
Adventure Trail – (Bridgewater to Mahone Bay) hosts RISE, designed and created by Samantha Battaglia, a local artist, and landscape designer.
RISE is a living public art installation made of planted willow, natural groundcovers, and locally harvested brush. As a living sculpture, its many stalks will broaden, grow taller and develop into a vertical, woven trunk. RISE mirrors the phenomenon of ‘canopy shyness’ where the tops of trees don’t meet each other, creating a tree canopy with a network of circular gaps. The form is inspired by these round shapes and the shadows cast by branches on the forest floor.
Dynamite Trail - (Martin's River to Mahone Bay) hosts High Tide by artist Erin Philp.
High Tide is a collection of three sculptures mounted in trees along an inlet of the Narrows Basin. The sculptures are based on the classic ‘Lunenburg Dory’ design and were constructed using lofting lines from the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. The hardy Lunenburg dory was historically used in combination with Grand Banks schooners, like the Bluenose, to fish the Atlantic Coast and is an integral part of the Maritime history and fishing traditions of the South Shore of Nova Scotia.
Gliding through the trees, the High Tide collection of dories takes this recognizable form, constructed using traditional methods and locally sourced materials like pine, hackmatack and black locust and elevates the vessels into a new and surprising relationship with their environment, highlighting and celebrating these simple, yet enchanting boats.
High Tide was imagined and constructed by Erin Philp, a local artist, woodworker, and shipwright. Much of her work revolves around playful reinterpretations of nautical vessels and themes that draw on her love of sailing and Maritime history, as well as the natural beauty of the local coastal landscape.
LaHave Sunset Park hosts The Pencil Walk installation, created by Rick Silas.
The Pencil Walk sculpture was made with assorted lengths, coloured pencils pinned to the ground in a pattern that will be fun to walk and play on. The multi-coloured pencils incorporated in the structure reflect the diversity of the District of Lunenburg.
Rick Silas has managed two studios, one for wood and one for glass, for over 45 years. His interest and skills working with chainsaws and grinders, allowed him to create his vision for the Pencil Walk. The logs he works with have been from reclaimed wood such as old utility poles and fallen trees. This medium is in abundance, and he enjoys turning a piece of scrap wood into a sculpture that people can enjoy for many years to come.
The MARC, hosts a nature pathway called Panikiskiaq (pronounced phonetically as Ban-ee-gis-gee-okh) which means "Sun Beams Through" in mi'kmawi'simk.
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