Rick Janson Art Studio

It wasn’t long after signing up with my local art association that I got a call for entry from the Station Gallery in Whitby. “Great,” I thought, this would be a chance to show locally. “How much time do I have?” It was Tuesday. The deadline to submit on-line a digital image and form was Friday. Yikes!

It was clear from the call that this wasn’t the first notice, just the first notice to me. Could I do something within three days? Given I initially only had to submit a digital image of the work, an oil painting would likely be dry before I had to physically get it to the gallery. That was doable, especially after watching Landscape Artist Of The Year, the UK TV series where artists were given a mere four hours to create a painting. I would have more time than that.

The call was for The Oh Canada Project, which was wide open to artists to submit something that either had the Canadian flag in it, or that was inspired by it. Given the anger generated by Donald Trump’s threats to our sovereignty, this was timely.

But the question is, what would I do?

I thought back to 2022 when we decided to take a tour of Juno Beach, the World War II landing zone for Canadian soldiers on D-Day.

We had made arrangements to take a small tour to Normandy, arriving via the Paris Metro around 6:30 am near the Arc de Triomphe to meet up with our guide. At first I was amazed to see dozens of people there pre-dawn, only to realize that almost all of them were Americans headed for Omaha Beach. We were instead going to Juno. It turned out that there would be only six of us on this tour, our travelling party of four plus a former St. FX professor and his partner.

This is the view that met us upon our arrival at Juno. It was a clear day. We stopped across from a small plaza ringed by an arc of flag poles surrounding a concrete pillar. On that pillar in English and French it was written: “Here on the 6th of June 1944 Europe was liberated by the Allied Forces.” Among the flags, on the far left, was Canada’s.

The plaza sat adjacent to a building now labelled Canada House — a private home that had the distinction of being the first house to be captured on D-Day by any of the Allied Forces. We were told that it is still under ownership of the same family. About 100 Canadian soldiers lay dead or wounded by the time it was captured from the Germans, who had used it to defend against the invasion. Jonathan, our guide, told us that it was still common for Canadian veterans to return there and apologize for the mess they made. How Canadian! Retired members of the Queen’s Own Rifles had even donated money for its restoration after the war, knowing its historical importance.

It was an odd feeling being there knowing what had happened at this location. There weren’t many people around — the biggest group of Canadians we came across was to be later at the modest interpretive centre built with donations from the private sector. We were the last of the major combatant countries to do so.

Oddly, the plaza had these colourful planted pots spaced around the monument at odd intervals. It would be interesting for the locals to live in such a place, to remember what happened but also to do what the Allied forces had intended for them to do — to live on in liberty. Maybe that was the point of the pots. Amid all these dreadful memories there was still colour and life.

The monument itself looked as if it has arisen from one of the concrete bunkers built along the shore, some since covered by the ever-shifting dunes.

What few people that were there walked around individually, as if lost in their thoughts. It was quiet except for the surf rolling out on the beach.

The tour gave us an in-depth perspective of Canada’s efforts on D-day, including visiting this plaza. We toured the interpretive centre a short distance away. We also were taken to the furthest point the Canadians had reached inland on D-Day (thanks to their foresight in bringing bicycles, they had gone farther on June 6th than their UK or US counterparts). We also were given ample time to wander through one of two peaceful military graveyards where so many Canadians remain so far from home. Our last stop we were taken to a site where a number of Canadian soldiers captured on D-Day had been executed by the Germans against the wall of a church. Those responsible were convicted of war crimes, but eventually pardoned after a short time spent in prison. Pictures of those Canadians are still mounted on that wall.

My painting of Juno Beach is on display in the lower level of The Station Gallery (Whitby) with about 50 other contributed works by Canadian artists until October 19th. Admission to the gallery is free.

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