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Nancy Perkins' paintings make people smile. They show women in old fashioned bathing costumes frolicking in the surf, mermaids catching rides from flying fish, or elegant tea parties surrounded by flowers and sea.
"There's always the sea," says Nancy. "It's the colour that sends me into orbit-the bluest greens and the rust and sand. They're such happy colours."
A muralist and mother of six grown children, Nancy and her husband Donald moved to PEI in 1984 to begin what was supposed to be their semi-retirement. They opened Bayberry Cliff Inn, a successful bed and breakfast with a spectacular view of the Northumberland Strait. Little did Nancy realize the role that one of her guests would come to play in her life.
Entranced by the Island and the Perkins, John and Lynn Rossignol decided to settle close by. They opened an art gallery and later a winery, Rossignol Estate Winery. John insisted that Nancy's paintings adorn the labels of PEI's first commercial wine.
He further encouraged Nancy to paint in a folk art style with sharp edges and bright colours, as opposed to her former more impressionistic style. Nancy, in turn, encouraged John when he took one of her art classes at community school.
This summer, Nancy will be the featured artist at a show of folk art at the Eptek Centre in Summerside. John will also have some works exhibited.
"It's electric for the arts here," Nancy enthuses. "I didn't know anyone who did art (in her home town just outside of Boston). Here you can reach out and touch somebody who does something creative. They're so supportive, really up-beat and positive. I've painted more in the last fifteen years than ever before."
An avid researcher, Nancy pores through archival photographs and old Sears' catalogues to get the old fashioned look she wants. Paintings are inspired by real scenes but with her own creative flourishes. There might be a necklace of real sea-shells or a wood fish's tail. Her show piece at the Eptek show will be an old dinghy which has been transformed into a bookshelf and covered with whimsical paintings.
It's a hectic pace, preparing for the Eptek show as well as supplying a small gallery at Rossignol Estate Winery and the Pilar Shephard Art Gallery in Charlottetown.
Nancy is also a director of the Wood Island Development Corporation and continues to operate the Bayberry Cliff Inn. "It's a grand life," says Nancy.