ANDERSON
160 Montague St., Lunenburg, N.S., 902-640-3400.
The barn-red sign leaps out from the slate-grey shingles: anderson, it reads in lowercase, sans-serif white font. The name recalls Lewis Anderson, the merchant who first occupied the building in 1874.
Walk into the gallery and bookstore and the white-pine boards lining the interior give off an evergreen aroma.
"The first thing people say is, 'Oh, it smells so good. I could live here,' " says owner and photographer Mariëtte Roodenburg. Shortly after emigrating from the Netherlands to Nova Scotia in 2003, she and husband Toon Nagtegaal bought and renovated the place (previously owned by Clearwater Seafoods). They discovered original, darker-hued wood beams, stairs and shop shutters and left them exposed to contrast with the fresh pine.
In a compact and naturally lit storefront, a single table of books beckons the browser. Less concerned with subject than overall design, Roodenburg seeks titles that are more than just "pretty picture books."
Circling the table, she picks up her current favourite, Woman: A Celebration (Chronicle, $34.95).
Edited by Peter Fetterman, the surprisingly small hardcover volume combines colour and black and white images. "A photographic book doesn't have to be large and glossy," Roodenburg says.
Alongside French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand's Earth From Above for Young Readers (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., $19.95) sits Plain Modern (Princeton University Press, $52), Malcolm Quantrill's book on Halifax architect Brian MacKay-Lyons. "People are mesmerized by [MacKay-Lyons's] work," Roodenburg says. "I reorder and reorder and reorder it."
Handing over Bloom (Chronicle Books, $45) by fellow Dutch photographer Ron van Dongen, Roodenburg admits, "I don't love flower books that much, but this has incredible images in it. He uses tone-on-tone - keeps it calm and tranquil."
Along the walls, simple angled shelving holds the mainly square, nature-themed greeting cards. "A lot of them end up in frames, funnily enough."
They include Halifax digital artist Steven Kay's scanned - no cameras used - images of insects, plants and snowflakes(realworldimages.com, $4.25 each).
A few steps beyond the bookstore, a gallery exhibits several photographers' work on crisp, white drywall panels secured to the wooden walls.
Thus, viewers can enjoy Wolfville, N.S., resident Dick Groot's 27 black and white images ($250 framed) in a solo show called Streets of Cuba.
Roodenburg unveils Safe Haven, her photographic study of fog ($400 unframed; $685 framed) on July 7. Text by author and area resident Larry Gaudet will accompany the pictures. Gaudet's book Safe Haven: The Possibility of Sanctuary in an Unsafe World (Random House, $34.95) will be released in August.
Both Gaudet and Roodenburg live in Kingsburg, a village outside Lunenburg, where fog is part of life. "You either like it or you don't. We love it," Roodenburg says.
She unrolls one of her ethereal photographs - the tops of trees just visible in the mist. "Sometimes you don't even know the world any more. You get completely lost in the fog." That's said with a smile.
