sandy colors

Hurricane Sandy was multicolored down here in Maine. The sketch above was done quickly before the last high tide which would have got me wet while painting. Now, the surf is diminished and the power lines are still up. But you get the idea.
Unhappily, color was not the issue down off Cape Hatteras, where HMS Bounty sank. Although 14 of her crew members were rescued by the Coast Guard, one crew member died, and her Captain remains unfound. Here in Boothbay, the Bounty was a fixture last month; her masts stuck up proudly, above what we might call our skyline, while on the ways at the Shipyard. Everyone here has had some contact with the ship or her crew, and we are all very sad.
Images of Sandy from now on, will undoubtedly reflect this sadness... even as I make a bigger painting from this sketch...

a new launch!

the tug, Winslow, will pull the new tug from her cradle....

and she won't get stuck like the first one I watched 3 years ago...

and then, she's in...

by herself...

she's really quite cute, as a tugboat goes...East Boothbay is proud, and there'll be some celebrating tonight!

Stewardship and Snow Showers

Our first frost happened two nights ago, on the very evening we had the opening for the Art in Maine show at the Art Foundation in the Harbor. "Snow Showers," the painting above, was juried in, and though it won no prizes, I am very pleased with its presence in the show. Several people have asked for giclees of it, so I will make 3-4, and see if I can sell them.
It is painted directly onto raw linen, and has a very textural, 3-D feel to it, which Dan Corey has called regal. I like that, and hope that because the paint is embedded in the fabric, that it will hold its tone and color for a long time.
Non-profit institutions, like art, have the same preservation issues - if you don't find enough money, you soon run out of creative material and/or helpful efforts. Tom Dewey, at our local congregational church, has challenged members of the church to multiply our "talents", as in the "parable of the talents," by handing out envelopes filled either with a heart candy, $10 or $20. The challenge is to multiply whatever is in the envelope, or, of course, you can bury it.
I got an envelope with a $20 in it. I have put it into a peanut butter jar with a hole in the top, and am collecting money to begin an emergency fund at the local food pantry. In one short week I gathered over $176, so now I have put $100 in one jar, and am working on getting the remaining $24 for the second jar, and will just keep going until the Sunday in November when we have to bring it all back in and report.
I am learning some interesting lessons while I do this. At a community gathering recently, I got out my jar at the end of the meal and went around asking people to "empty your pockets to fill a belly." I got a fair amount of money and was content to sit back down and eat dessert, when the fellow next to me started asking me about how we handled "freeloaders" at the Pantry. I was a bit offended, not really knowing any freeloaders who were receiving  food at our pantry. So I gave him a cocky reply about not getting many homeless men at the pantry. He gave me a look, knocked on his glass, stood up and announced to the crowd that I had not made $100 quite yet, and we needed to do that before anyone went home. Amazingly enough, people came flocking over and coughed up even more money, such that we made $135 or so dollars in just that one night.
I remain amazed and very grateful to the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club for their generosity.

moose work

I had such a good time at Daicey Pond in Baxter State Park, under the shadow of Mt. Ktaadn, that all my pics are quite cheerful...enjoy...

Ledge Falls is a series of wonderful, gentle falls over very smooth granite ledges. They are crowded with people sliding down them in the summer. This day on late September, they were gorgeous, warm and sunny, but not tempting to swim down.

This is Sandy Stream Pond looking up at the two great basins of Ktaadn. Pamola Peak, named for the Abnaki's evil god, is on the left, and is the northeastern end of the Knife Edge.The Knife Edge goes from there to the middle peak, which is the tallest and is named Baxter Peak, though the Abnaki's called it Ktaadn, for the good, kind god. The Saddle extends along the western side of the mountain.

I was painting this little pic when the bull moose came upon me. I remain very grateful that he did not choose to destroy me and the painting! But it is good moose territory!

This is Ktaadn as seen from our Daicey Pond campsite. It is much more representative of what the mountain actually feels like. It is very big, like the moose, and is often very intimidating. Its weather is unpredictable and highly changeable. But Percy Baxter did a wonderful thing for us State of Mainers when he preserved it forever wild. We are responsible for ourselves when we are visiting the Park, whether climbing or fishing or painting. We pack everything in and everything out.

I remain a bit anxious over my encounter with the bull moose, though I know they are generally not aggressive. Even so, all by myself, in rutting season, I felt quite vulnerable and definitely not in control - which is what the Park is good for remembering!

close encounters with mooses

This lovely cow moose welcomed 4 of us artists to Sandy Stream Pond in Baxter State Park last Thursday. Munching her way towards us, here she is considering her next move - towards us or across the pond. She opted for across the pond which was good since we were close to her, and it is rutting season. After this confrontation, we artists separated - 3 went to a rock facing Katahdin, but in the wind. I went to a small viewpoint, close to the water where I could sit in my chair, and behind some bushes, protected from the wind. I sat there happily painting for a couple of hours. Several clumps of people came by during this time, so I thought nothing - at first - of the sounds of clumping footsteps.
As they got closer, however, I also heard some munching sounds, at which point I began to think that what was behind me was not human. I carefully put down the little painting in a protected place, and turned my head around to the left. I was staring into the eyes of a huge bull moose, whose snout I could have patted. If I thought, I cannot remember what. So I slowly stood up, so that whatever might happen, I was at least looking eyeball to eyeball with him.
He was on the trail; I was at the side of it. I stood there, thinking to myself, "OK, Mr. Moose. I'm yours now."
If he had decided to come down the trail, I would have had to step backwards into the pond. But after staring at each other for a while - God only knows how long that was - Mr. Moose decided that I was not what he wanted, and he carefully went around me, and some bushes, then back onto the trail. Here he is:

Note the pulled back ears! He was still a bit worried about me, but not half as worried as I was. He was BIG, with a good sized rack!
Later that afternoon, as I was tottering back to Roaring Brook Ranger Station, I saw two moose in the woods, attempting to mate. I went from tottering to scurrying at that point, and was quite glad to get back to the Station.
Moose are not generally aggressive, except in rutting season which is now. I can remember my father coming home from a timber cruising trip, and telling a story about getting chased up a tree by furious bull moose. Perhaps it was my dad's testosterone that wound up his bull and my lack of it that kept my moose calm. Who knows? All I know was that I was at his mercy; he was way bigger than me and could have stomped me easily if he'd wanted to.
I am very grateful that, for whatever reason, he decided that it was better to chase after the cow we saw earlier that day, than it was to do something about me.
These encounters were the emotional highlight of my 5 day trip with 3 artists, led by Suzanne Brewer, artist in residence this summer at Baxter Park in the North Woods of Maine. We camped in a cabin at Daicey Pond, where I had been as a child with my cousin Jeanie. We painted each day at different places - Ledge Falls, Sandy Stream Pond, the eastern end of Ripogenus Gorge, always focussed up at Mt. Katahdin. Some times we went out of the Park and onto the Golden Road, a road built by the logging companies across the north woods. Most times we painted inside the Park, cooked dinner, visited with Charity and Dean Levasseur, rangers in the Park, and went to bed only to get up again at 6ish, when it got light and we could make it to the outhouse without flashlights. It was a fabulous time; the Park is a special place; the mountain is a very special mountain. But beware, you might confront a moose!

Crystalline Blue: the perfect ending

Last Sunday, I took some friends out for a sail. There were more sailboats out that day than practically any day last summer. It was a perfect day. Like this extremely blue 'postcard' above, it was crystalline blue that day, too, with a NW breeze blowing 10-15 knots, which of course, dies down in the late afternoon.
We sailed down the river with the tide, out towards Fishermans Island, passing near the Hypocrites to check out the seals, then down the Thread of Life to check on the osprey nests, and around Witch Island. I do love the names of things! Then we went back up Herring Gut and through the South Bristol bridge - a very narrow, wonderful old swing bridge, and across the river to check out the new Bigelow Lab, and home again.
It was quite spectacular. You could almost see Mount Desert Island from the bay. You could certainly see Monhegan, Matinicus and the Camden Hills. But we saw only one seal, no porpoises and no whales. I think they're still farther up north, or maybe there were just too many boats out that day. I have seen all of them in the places where we were last Sunday, and, except for the seal, I missed them that day.
But when we got back to the Marina, we sat in the sunshine for a bit drinking some beer, and eating Triscuits, on the boat. Then, unwilling to give up the pleasure and the sunshine, we walked over to Lobstermans Wharf, and ate supper - fresh oysters from the very river we were sailing on, crab cakes and lobster rolls.
I cannot conjure up more pleasure than what we had that day. So I've decided that it will be the last sail of the year. I cannot imagine a more perfect sail in October, so out the boat will come. She needs some work on the mainsail rig - its rolling furling isn't working well, and the traveller is stuck. So we'll work on it for a bit, and then haul her out. Friends think I'm crazy to give up the possibility of more perfect sails. But I prefer the memory of this one, this year.
I will search for another perfect sail next year.

'East Beirut' in an open studio

"East Beirut" is the name of this 'postcard.' A composite image of East Boothbay, I found it when I was cleaning up and getting organized for an open studio on September's First Friday here in Boothbay. I dug it out and refreshed the inks with some watercolors, and here it is. The name, East Beirut, dates the original to the days of the Great Water Main Project in 2009-2010, when a camel resided on my lawn, and East Boothbay was called Baghdad West. But the water is flowing happily now, so we have sunk back into the ordinariness of being East Boothbay.

'Postcards' is what I called this show. They are just simple images of places and things that I have started 'en plein air' with Tombo pens and inks, and then finish in the studio with watercolors. Included were Sumurun and Oliver Weyant, all colored up now, and Damariscove's Outer harbor which is still a bit rough...plus some Fishermans Island summer and fall light pics, one of which is at River Arts now...

What really seemed to galvanize people, however, were some of my old Squares, painted for the 'Art in the Square' Christmas show, plus some drawings that I am really into at the moment. The squares are mostly dinghies and dories, in sunsets. One sold - hooray! But the drawings were what held big interest. I have not made any photo images of them yet, though there are some early ones on www.artcollectormaine.com. But I will soon.

One has to be careful with drawings of nudes, both male and female, and even ordinary images of people. Even Westerners don't always like to be identified in portraits, cartoons, and photos, including me! But other people seem to like my images of people, so I will try and take some interesting photos soon.