Levitating lobster boat, and an unsalvageable ghost ship
A levitating lobster boat and an oddly-named trawler remind me of the greatest maritime mystery of all time.
Tag Archives: history
Art is history
The townspeople themselves have become the custodians of the art. What motivates them?
Rear view mirror
The scene in my mind was fifty years old, but the setting was unchanged. My ghost boats could have glided in, peopled by their ghost crews, and moored in their old slips. I don’t need to visit the cemetery to memorialize my dead; they are all around me each time I go home. That is a great reason to visit, and an even better one to leave.
Picking oakum
Tuesday I ran through some composition rules for my students, including “don’t run rays out the very corners of your painting,” and “don’t cut off corners with diagonals.” On Wednesday, I broke both those rules. Not only did it work, but I knew it would from the first lines. I assume it’s because the closed corner acts as […]
The ones you love
“When I were your age,” the old woman wheezed, “there weren’t no such thing as Holocaust deniers. If we’d tried that on Mrs. Rothschild next door or old Mr. Mastman… you remember Mastman’s Corner Store, don’t you, dear?” She blinked back the years. “Sorry, it was way before your time. “Anyways, if we’d said […]
Working moms
This afternoon, my daughter and her family leave after a five-day visit. It was timely; my joints were killing me from all that heavy remodeling work. But it wasn’t a rest: they have a 6-week old and a 13-month old, and this house is a construction zone, not a home. I never stayed home full-time […]
Renaissance men
The last few decades have led to a significant decline in visual arts and music being taught in public schools. That’s a pity, because historically the visual arts and music were considered an integral part of educating the well-rounded man. Many people have pointed that out, but anecdote cuts no ice in the Common Core […]
Is it time to panic?
Yesterday morning I left for Plein Air Olana, at Frederic Church’s estate on the Hudson River. I usually post my blog early in the morning, but the Bangor Daily News blog feed was glitching. No problem, I thought, and drove as far as McDonald’s in Brunswick, where I bought a dollar coffee and used their internet to publish. […]
Not a cloud in the sky
Maine weather doesn’t sulk. It has its fit and then gets over itself. Yesterday dawned clear and pretty, and I went to Owl’s Head State Park to test the Creative Mark Protones board Jamie Williams Grossman gave me. I did this by dragging my houseguests along to play on the rocks while I painted. Owl’s Head is […]
Keep your eyes on the bouncing ball
I’ll confess that I’ve enjoyed reading about Rachel Dolezal’s fall from grace. It has all the elements of great farce: hubris, disguises, lies, imposters, and absurdity. Unfortunately it also undermines the true narrative of American race relations, which is not always kind. Wednesday’s ghastly shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. makes it clear […]
