How I found my way to New Island

The drawing that started it all.

After spending several years painting scenes of unknown coastlines, strange mountains, and isolated settlements, I received a letter one day in 1995 inviting me to create some paintings and drawings of an Indian Ocean island I didn't know about.

I grew up on the California coast of North America and became enchanted by the ocean's power, the beaches and the local coastal landscape that was quickly being built-over. I moved north to the Oregon coast, and then to Wisconsin in the vast continental midlands. No ocean, but a good place to raise our three daughters. 

To keep my sanity, I made drawings and paintings of the beaches, towns and entire coastline-views of a thinly-populated place entirely from my head. One of these drawings found it's way to Australia, and eventually to the offices of the newly-formed Ministry of Trade of The Commonwealth of New Island.  

Apparently The Minister of Trade's secretary, Margaret Mullen, spotted the drawing in her boyfriend's* living room and said, "That's my place out on the Western shore. I have a beach cottage there...and that's my daughter's cargo-trike! Where did this come from?" He could only mumble about his mum finding it in Putney.

Margaret found my name and address on the back of the drawing, and wrote to me with her question, which, of course, I couldn't answer in any logical sense! Along with my befuddled reply, I sent back several photos of other imagined places, all of which, it turned out, exactly resembled local beaches and towns on New Island! She showed these to her boss, the Hon. Wainwright Stevens, Minister of Trade, and they both agreed I might be the right candidate to help them advertise the island to attract tourism and foreign investment! 

I soon received a long and compelling letter, sent by the Minister himself, asking me to visit New Island in order to provide images of the island for the Ministry.  Mr Stevens explained the island's recent independence from Russia and his nation's goal to attract at least 100 foreign settlers by the year 2000. The Ministry needed a capable illustrator to visually tell the island's story. He explained that photography is a no-no on New Island - a long story having to do with the island's Russian-ruled past...

His letter included open-dated tickets to fly first-class to Western Australia and then board a Rudyard Line steamer from Fremantle, Western  Australia to Victoria Harbor, New Island. Ms. Mullen will meet me at the dock. Wow!

I accepted, and herein begins my tale.

*The boyfriend's other girlfriend, who lives in Perth, Western Australia, was in Chicago, USA, and found the drawing at the Gold Coast Art Fair, where I had a booth. She bought it because it looked like the boyfriend's homeland, and later sent it to him for his birthday. I remember her saying she was going to take it home to Australia and that it was small enough to pack in her luggage...