Trailside Art Gallery- The EvolutionImagine sand, blue skies and bracing sea air all sharing the same space in the imagination, with lobster boats bobbing in the gentle sun-dappled waters nearby completing the vision.
Trailside Art Gallery, based at the Seawalk Park and just a short jaunt from the North Rustico wharf, has traded on its location in one of the most picturesque regions of Prince Edward Island and of Canada.North Rustico is a mecca for tourists from around the country and around the world. There is much to see and experience in North Rustico including its burgeoning art scene. Trailside Art Gallery is a window into North Rustico’s thriving artistic community.
In it’s inaugural year approximately 20 artists were showcased, many of them from the local area. This year the focus has evolved to include social causes. The first exhibit of the year features an acclaimed photographer whose work has taken her around the world. Cynthia Johnston, from Quebec City, is using black and white photos of her daughter to raise organ donation awareness. Her daughter’s liver failed when she was just two, and without a transplant from a Croatian man who died in 2008, Ceydie, now 18, would not be alive.
The Trailside Gallery will feature new artists every month for the full year, including a month dedicated to Ontario artists. There will be many new ideas and new themes to explore this season. Why not drop by?
Cynthia ‘Cince’ Johnston at the Trailside Art Gallery
As a mother of five, Cince Johnston’s photography practice explores intimate family narratives alongside street documentary and activist-based storytelling for change. Combining her past studies of Art History at Bishop’s University, Photojournalism at SAIT, and an MFA in Documentary Media at Toronto Metropolitan University, Johnston’s work examines the psychological dynamics of relationships and their inherent complexities in a photographic style that falls somewhere between painting and newspaper reportage.
From an ecological standpoint, Johnston is looking to incorporate more environmentally conscious aspects to her work via sustainable printing practices—focussing on using recycled paper and recycled ink or low environmental impact printing such as with the Risograph printer or making cyanotypes from digital negatives.
Johnston has participated in more than 20 group exhibitions ranging from Russia to India to the US, along with six solo exhibitions in Canada. In 2021, she won both Portrait Non-Professional Series and Children Non-Professional Series in the 17th Annual Julia Margaret Cameron Awards. In 2022, she received a Canada Council for the Arts Grant for her project “Freddy and Ceydie” along with a Penumbra Foundation Risograph Print and Publication Residency for her body of work called “this place I call home whispers fragments of secrets to me”. This past summer, Johnston’s body of work “Freddy and Ceydie” were part of the 13th On the Move Documentary Festival in Cortona, Italy and the 14th Rencontres de la Photo en Gaspésie in Quebec, Canada.
An acclaimed photographer whose work has taken her around the world. The Quebec city artist has turned her lens to the cause of organ donation. She wants Canada to adopt a transplant system in which the potential donor pool consists of all Canadians and no card has to be signed unless they want to ‘opt out’.
That system is in place in industrialized countries around the world and is believed to have boosted organ use and saved countless lives that would have been lost on waiting lists.
In early May she arrived in North Rustico by car from Quebec City to launch an exhibit of photographs taken of her daughter Ceydie in her early childhood and teen years, chronicling her progress after receiving a life-saving liver transplant in Belgium at the age of two. The photos cover a 10 year post transplant span.
“She was one of those wild…fearless characters who I feel is really such a good role model for people waiting for a transplant,” said Cynthia of her daughter.
But it was a harrowing journey.
After her liver failed “she went from being a really healthy child to suddenly being No. 1 on the (8 country) Euro Transplant list,” said Cynthia.
“It took her two years to stabilize and that was our new normal,” she said, describing the daily toll Ceydie’s precarious health took on the family, worrying if her suppressed immune system would be overwhelmed by disease organisms that healthy Canadians can shrug off.
“The initial thought was that she was going to be living in a hermetically sealed bubble,” said Cynthia.
But Ceydie, one of five children Cynthia raised with her Belgian husband, is now 18, precious years that many recipients on organ transplant lists can only hope for.
Cynthia lived in Belgium with her husband and family for many years, playing professional basketball there until the age of 36. When the family moved back to Quebec in 2013 she and her husband were incredulous that Canada did not have an ‘opt out’ system.
Cynthia’s work has been displayed in cafes, libraries, galleries and other spaces across the country, thanks to a Canada Council grant that has covered much of the roving exhibit’s costs.
Cynthia, 55, who enjoyed a long career in professional basketball turned to photography late in her life, in her 40s.
She can thank Ceydie for a big part of that transformation. Ceydie received part of a liver in an operation performed at the University of Ghent, in Belgium. Freddy, a 65-year-old man who had just weeks to live, received the another part of the same liver from a Croatian man who passed away in 2008. Ceydie and Freddy were able to meet for the first time in 2018 and share their incredible journey. They are linked together forever by their shared liver and through Cynthia’s photos of them. Freddy is still alive, and has turned 80.
Cynthia’s black and white framed photos will be housed in Trailside Art Gallery building at Seawalk Park, near the wharf. Her exhibition, Freddy & Ceydie, opened May 13.
“Ultimately the goal was for her to live the fullest life possible,” said Cynthia, who wants the same for all Canadians who need organs to survive.
So far, mission accomplished.
The Exhibition: Freddy & Ceydie
by Cince Johnston
The Installation
Click any image to view.
Some of the works in the exhibition
Click any image to view.
Where to find the Trailside Art Gallery
The charming fishing and farming village of North Rustico, known for its impressive fleet of lobster vessels and outstanding seafood restaurants, can be reached by car from Charlottetown in about 30 minutes (a 28 km drive). Or visitors can park their cars and buy bus tickets for less than $20. Taxi rides cost $100 to $130.
Want to hit the road? Drivers can travel west from Charlottetown, taking North River Road to Milton Station and then turning right onto Rustico Road and continuing to Oyster Bed Bridge, arriving at the roundabout and connecting to Highway 6, right through to North Rustico. Once there, turn right at the Fishermen’s Wharf restaurant onto Harbourview Drive, arriving at the Seawalk Park boutiques building where the Trailside Art Gallery is located.
Trailside Art Gallery is a two-minute walk from the wharf where lobster boats are berthed for much of the spring and summer.
North Rustico is also a five-minute drive east from the Cavendish site of the PEI National Park, along Highway 6, also known as the Cavendish Road. Drivers coming from Cavendish will also see farms, restaurants, amusement parks, Anne of Green Gables themed landmarks and the Cavendish Boardwalk.
When arriving in North Rustico turn left at the Fishermen’s Wharf to reach the Seawalk Park boutiques building.
Get in Touch
You can contact us either by filling out and submitting the form to the right or by traditional methods of telephone, email or even old fashioned ‘snail mail’. The latter would be useful for artists to submit portfolios of their work for review.
Trailside Art Gallery
Seawalk Park Boutiques
Harbourview Drive
North Rustico, PE
C0A 0A7
Send us an email.