Beach Day

Beach Day, mixed media on canvas, 10”x10”

I still keep coming up with ideas I wish I had thought of for the 2011 Project.  This is one of those examples.  I did use some sandpaper in one of the pieces, but I hadn’t thought of encrusting the edges of the canvas in sand as I did with this piece for my upcoming installation.

I added the sand and some sandpaper because I knew that Beach Day needed more than vintage postcards of beach scenes.  The cards have beach scenes from Florida to California with a heavy dose of Cape Cod including Kalmus Beach.  Kalmus is a beach I grew up near in Hyannis, named for Herbert Kalmus who donated the land.  He was also the inventor of Technicolor.  While a motion picture film process, where would the sky in old postcards be without the influence of Technicolor?  Beach Day itself refers to a certain type of summer day, when the weather is just right, and it’s a perfect time to go to the beach.  If you live near a beach, you know….

Prints of this piece are available from Society 6.

November 4, 2011 – Nor’easter

Last weekend I was on Cape Cod when the first storm of the winter hit. And it was a real winter storm with record-breaking snow (except on the coast). It was early for winter and served as a reminder of why I live in California. The morning after, we stopped at Sandy Neck Beach on Cape Cod Bay. I snapped some photos as the remainder of the storm blew out to sea. Windy, cold and incredibly beautiful, the beach completely swallowed by the surf. A few minutes outside and I had sand in my teeth.

An hour later we were in Stop & Shop. The day before Halloween but everyone was already wearing a mask. The mask was that miserable face they get in New England and will now be wearing for the next six months. They’ll tell you how they love winter as a way of trying to get through it. But their faces tell the truth. The next day I was on a plane home to California with a window sear to watch the snow below.

October 27, 2011 - The Salt Marsh

The salt marsh is a vital habitat that is often neglected and disregarded. And yes, everything gets called a vital habitat nowadays, but salt marshes are truly vital and in some ways more important than other habitats that also need protecting. Marshes serve as buffers in areas where hurricanes threaten. With the help of the tides they act as natural filters for keeping bays and harbors cleans. They provide important habitat for nesting and migrating birds. But the most important role salt marshes play may be in the breeding cycle of marine life. So many species up and down the food chain depend on salt marshes as part of their life cycle. On the west coast even salmon depend on marshes as a place for the young to grow and strengthen before they finally head out into the Pacific.

September 1, 2011 – Thornton’s Birds

I am conflicted when it comes to the idea of cutting up old books. It never seems right but as a collage artist it can also be necessary. I gravitate towards out-of-date atlases for maps and other tattered and often discarded books for additional collage material. Every time I find a book by Thornton Burgess it is in rough shape and usually falling apart. And the condition of his old books might truly speak to their quality. A book that is so worn out is a book loved and read often.

You don’t have to look hard to find an old Thornton Burgess book. He enjoyed a long career living and writing mostly from his home in Sandwich on Cape Cod. He wrote over 170 books between 1905 and 1965. The Burgess Bird Book for Children with illustrations by Louis Agassiz Fuertes turned up at a sale after being “retired” by the library. It had a good run, and now some of it is preserved for years to come in the 2011 Project.

July 22, 2011 – Hopper’s Palette

Edward Hopper is one my very favorite painters. He was born on this day in 1888. One of the best ways to celebrate his birthday would be to celebrate his palette. It best might be called the Palette of Calm. So much of Hopper’s work capture’s the light at the early or final part of the day. And, when Hopper painted midday, he usually was painting its stillness. Hopper’s colors always have a calming effect, as do so most of his paintings.

Hopper’s work is often misinterpreted as a representation of loneliness. I never feel that from his work. It’s a feeling of calm and quiet. It’s a waking city, peaceful at 6 a.m. or it is Cape Cod at its best, when it is empty. I always look at the Maine and Cape Cod paintings and see one thing — the off season.

Even though Hopper’s work is ubiquitous in the art calendar and coffee table book world, it is best seen in person. And certain artists’ work really needs to be seen and appreciated in person. Every time I see an Edward Hopper, I am reminded why I visit museums.

July 12, 2011 – A Place Named Buzzards Bay

Unusual place names are only unusual if you’re not from around here — wherever here may be. For example, recently I met someone who found the name of the San Francisco neighborhood called The Inner Sunset quite amusing. I guess he sort of had this cosmic perception of a place called the “inner sunset.” Clearly he’s never had lunch on Ninth Avenue. I remember a similar reaction a friend had as we once drove through Braintree near Boston.

Buzzards Bay was just the first town over the bridge. I drove through every day for four years. It was on the way to college. It was just name. My brother and his family even used to live in another town along the coast, a few hundred feet from the shores of Buzzards Bay.

I can understand how a name like Buzzards Bay might conjure up all sorts of imagery for some people. With a name like Buzzards Bay, it could be perfect for the Goth Riviera, if there was such a place. Old widows on widow’s walks in black lace shawls. Overgrown graveyards, rusty gates and lopsided shutters. I once overheard two women commenting that the artist Edward Gorey lived on Cape Cod in Buzzards Bay. I politely corrected them letting them know he actually lived in Barnstable. Buzzards Bay just sounded like the sort of place he would have lived.

Buzzards Bay is not the most popular tourist destination. Most people keep driving through, cross the bridge and head further out. Perhaps they should consider playing up the name and attracting a more macabre set of tourists. They would have to import some real buzzards though, there aren’t any to be seen flying along it’s shore.

May 15, 2011 – Cape Cod

When you grow up on Cape Cod, and Gosnold is name of the street at the corner, you learn something about Bartholomew Gosnold. Bartholomew Gosnold was the English Explorer who “discovered” Cape Cod on May 15, 1602. Of course the Wampanoags and Nausets knew that Gosnold didn’t discover anything. They were already well at home on the place we call Cape Cod. But it was Gosnold who gave the place its name. And until a buried Viking ship emerges from the sands after a storm, Gosnold gets the credit for being the first European to visit Cape Cod. Perhaps if Gosnold had not died young a few years later at Jamestown, we might have all learned about Gosnold in American History Class. And while Geography is barely taught at all in the United States, most people can still find Cape Cod. It’s the arm that sticks out into the Atlantic.

This piece is also featured on a print/poster available from Society6.

April 4, 2011 – Old Road

I like painting roads. It’s not that surprising considering my passion for road trips. I have painted Route 1 many times. Today I visited Wilder Ranch State Park on the coast near Santa Cruz. It’s just off of Route 1. It was a picture perfect spring day. The historic ranch is located on the Coast Road. The Coast Road (painted here) is the old road that dips down and veers off of Route 1. This was the main road before the days of the state highway.

I have a fascination with this type of old road. They often are no more than bends and curves that parallel the main road. The old roads are vestiges of the original road left behind after the state came through and straightened the highway to accommodate faster traffic. I grew up on Cape Cod, where the oldest main road (now Route 6A) is mainly intact, as windy as it was about 380 years ago. But many of the newer state roads on Cape Cod also have these branches like the Coast Road near Santa Cruz. These side roads function as time capsules of main roads from another era. So slow down, and take that turn, see where it goes….