The North Sea Mermaid

Many years ago, I went to Scotland to visit my good friends who lived in a village near Inverness. One day, we planned a trip to Dunrobin Castle and then for a picnic on the shore of the North Sea.

Later, on the beach, while munching on sandwiches and drinking the ever present tea, I looked at the white capped ocean and thought of the Viking ships that must have visited those very same shores a thousand years ago. And for one magic minute, I felt the call of ancestral voices.

A few years later, when thinking of my trip to Scotland, I would paint this little mermaid looking out to sea, and a Viking ship sailing towards those emerald isles.