By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — With the Blackstone River gushing just outside, a handpainted canoe depicting scenes of Pawtucket is right at home at the Blackstone Valley Visitors Center.

The canoe was sponsored by the Pawtucket Rotary Club as part of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council’s “Canoe Trail” project. The innovative program was designed to attract people to the Blackstone River Valley through the display of 15-foot long canoes decorated by local artists and placed in publicly visible locations.
The Pawtucket Rotary Club canoe, sponsored by a $1,000 donation, is the 19th painted canoe in the series. Mike Bryce, a nationally recognized artist from Providence’s East Side, was commissioned to decorate the canoe with scenes of popular city landmarks. 
Herb Weiss, a Rotary Club member and past president who also serves as the city’s Economic and Cultural Affairs Officer, called the project a “a win-win situation for everyone involved. The Blackstone Valley Tourism Council received funds and the Rotary Club has a great-looking canoe promoting its cause that will be on display for at least a year in the Visitors Center,” said Weiss.
Maureen Donnelly, the Rotary Club’s current president, said, “The canoe came out beautiful, and was a creative way to bring so many positive elements about Pawtucket into one display piece. We’re very proud to have it on display at the Visitors Center.”
Rocco DeSimone, another longtime Rotary Club member and past president, was put in charge of overseeing the project. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, DeSimone made the pattern for the designs that Bryce painted and helped with the planning of the design. He said he is pleased with the overall way the canoe turned out.
Bryce, a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, holds a master of fine arts degree from Syracuse University in painting and illustration. He is also an adjunct professor at the Art Institute of Boston.
Bryce said he is also an alumnus of St. Raphael Academy and once had a studio in the city, so he is long familiar with Pawtucket. He said the project was “a lot of work, but it was a labor or love. It’s nice to be able to do something for the Pawtucket community.”
Bryce said he creates original works of art in oil, watercolor and mixed media, with prices ranging
from $40 to $1,200. He has also done corporate commissions for the Providence Tourism Council and the Marriott Hotel of Providence. He said he was paid $350 for his work on the canoe.
Although he has produced pieces in a variety of different sizes and shapes, this is the first time he was ever asked to consider a canoe as his “canvas.” “It posed some challenges,” Bryce admitted. “I sometimes had the canoe on a patio table outside, and other times, it was upside down in my living room,” he said. “Once, it filled with water and capsized the patio table,” he added. He said he worked from photos that he took of each of the locations.
The vessel, painted in acrylic, features four scenes, two on each side. These include Slater Mill, the Slater Park band stand, the old J.C. Potter Casino (known as the boathouse), and the historic Looff carousel. The Pawtucket Rotary Club logo is emblazoned in the middle.
Bryce’s 6-year-old daughter, Sienna, also contributed to the piece, by painting some tiny fish laong the canoe’s bottom.
Coated in polyurethane to protect the painting, the canoe is “seaworthy,” although Weiss said the Rotary Club has no plans to take the vessle outside. Right now, the members are just happy to have it at the Visitors Center as a marketing tool, although the decision could someday be made to auction it for charity f for charity, Weiss said.