Any doubt about the beauty of Nova Scotia is brushed aside by Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking’s book The Painted Province: Nova Scotia Through an Artist’s Eyes. Published in 2020 by Pottersfield Press, the book is a collection of paintings, word pictures, tips and anecdotes, which took more than 20 years to create. Laking has lived and painted in rural Nova Scotia since 1972, and she has captured the splendour of the province in over 200 images. She provides GPS coordinates for some of the work, encouraging people to discover the exact spot where she painted the scenes. She encourages them to notice.
Laking recalls hearing the phrase “I’ll never look at a tree the same” more than once from students she’s taught over the years. “They begin thinking a tree is a brown stick with a green ball
