Bridge StreetDenny (Eugene) Lunn (b. 1933)

Born in Windsor, Canada, Denny Lunn joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a young man and became an aircraft electrician. He spent his entire career in the military, traveling the world and developing a connoisseur’s eye for memorabilia on the way. He married and had four children, and, in his second posting to Greenwood, Canada, in 1967, he purchased a home on Bridge Street to which he hoped to return following his retirement.

He had always been a collector, but moved on from the buttons and pins he found while traveling with the military to larger found objects of all kinds, including carved figures, rocks with interesting shapes, and more. Now he finds his treasures at festivals or markets, and will also purchase them from local artists. He has completely filled his property with his eclectic collections, displaying them in and around his plants and vegetable garden, and their color and interesting shapes and forms – combined with the density with which they are installed – have turned his property into an art environment. Beginning in his mid-70s, Lunn also began painting himself, primarily during the evenings, after he spent the day in the yard working with the art installations and gardening. His subjects are primarily landscapes or seascapes, reflecting the agricultural and coastal views and activities of his community, and he uses almost any material he can find as the substructure for these works – rocks, driftwood, saws, baking tins, nautical buoys, shovels, and even, occasionally, board or canvas. Parts of the interior of his home are likewise decorated with thousands of buttons, flags, pins, and more.

The artist is welcoming to guests, and enjoys sharing information about where and how his collections were created. Much of the material in the garden is visible from the street if he is not at home.

~Jo Farb Hernández, 2017

Jo Farb Hernández

Greenwood, Nova Scotia, B0P ca
Latitude/Longitude: 44.9717246 / -64.9341295

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