SOLD - Late Fall

So it's coming on up Halloween and the only thing I could think of to sketch was crows. I often find myself watching crows out there in the landscape. They can be pretty entertaining - they're so smart. And though there is no reason why I decided to paint three (for those of you who study this stuff, as you know there is quite a bit of mythology about three crows), here's something I had never heard or read before:

Stock market investors sometimes refer to three crows as a pattern of successive declining stock prices over three days often identified by overlapping candlestick patterns. Three crows are often seen as a warning of a period of powerful selling pressure on the stock market.

Thankfully, I don't have to watch the stock market. I can just watch crows.


Late Fall • 8" X 8" acrylic framed to 12" X 12" • $200

SOLD - October

So if anything octo in most languages is eight, why is the tenth month of the year October? Shouldn't it be the eighth month? I queried and found the following:

c.1050, from Latin October (mensis), from octo "eight," from PIE root *octo(u)- "eight." Eighth month of the old Roman calendar (pre-46 B.C.E.), which began the year in March.
 

The original Roman calendar had just 10 months, starting with Martius (became March), and then after December came an indeterminate "winter period" of about 61 days that were not assigned to any month. The original months were: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September (7th), October (8th), November (9th) and December (10th). Note that the Latin names for the later months actually do correspond with their numbered positions.

The last two months added to the Roman Calendar were Ianuarius (now January) and Februarius (now February). This pushed all the other months forward two numbers when later people came to regard January as the "First" month. Probably because of the winter solstice, January became regarded as a time of "renewal" for the sun, and hence the start of a new solar cycle.

September then became the 9th month, October the 10th, and so on, but the original names remained, without matching up with the number their name was first based on. 

In the meantime, the bright colored leaves have dropped in the foothills and mountains, but the landscape is still spectacular. 

October • 8" X 8" acrylic framed to 12" X 12" • $200

SOLD - Cornfield

Once in a while I make believe I'm an alien trying to make sense of the inner workings of earthlings - it's a coping mechanism. When I finished this sketch, I sat back in my chair, folded my arms over my chest and decided that if I was an alien, I would look at this painting and say to myself, "Hmmm... that cornfield is missing something. Ah yes, a crop circle, it needs a crop circle!"

Cornfield • 8" X 8" acrylic framed to 12" X 12" • $200

#181 Coloring Up And Then Down

It's coloring up all over Maine. It began with one or two leaves, and then one or two branches. Then came a slow roll out of colors starting in the mountains, spreading to the coast. It's the deciduous trees, sprinkled here and there with evergreen, that makes this so spectacular. 

In the meantime, no matter how much voodoo you use - crossing your fingers, wearing garlic, nude native dancing, this shock of color will eventually and abruptly fade to brown. Those same trees will transform into shivering, stringy vertical black lines, having been stripped naked by a howling and relentless cold wind.

But that comes later. Right now, it's beautiful.

Coloring Up And Then Down • 8" X 8" acrylic framed to 12" X 12" • $200

#180 Gulls

It's kind of fun to watch gulls terrorize touristas. I saw one swoop down off the roof of the Portland Company lobster shack a couple of summers ago and take a lobster roll right out of someone's mouth. I saw another one scoff a sandwich from a beach blanket at Popham when the poor sunbather wasn't looking.

I don't remember gulls being this big a nuisance, but then I was a nuisance too and wouldn't have noticed anything out of the ordinary. I decided to read up about them to see if there was something in their history.

In the beginning there was peaceful coexistence...
Native Americans camped on Maine's offshore islands in the summer and fished. Although they hunted seabirds and their eggs, harvesting was limited to certain islands, and hunting to one colony once every three years. They did this successfully for 4000 years.

...and then everything went to crap.
When the Europeans began settling the islands in the 1600s, they farmed, hunted the birds and collected their eggs. They also raised sheep and hogs which disturbed nesting seabirds and trampled habitat.

Fashion trumps birds...
In the late 1800s, women's feathered hats became fashionable. Egrets, herons, and terns were especially popular. At the start of the 20th Century, most seabirds in the Gulf of Maine were on the brink of extinction. 


...and then cars become fashionable.
The passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918 protected migratory birds, their nests, and their eggs. When trains and automobiles replaced boats as preferred forms of transportation, people relocated to the mainland, easing the pressure on seabird habitat. Bird populations rebounded, reaching a high of almost 16,000 pairs along the Maine coast in 1940.
 
But in the end, everything gets trashed again.
During the mid-1900s however, the spread of open landfills along the coast and an increase in fishery waste provided easy pickings for herring and great black-backed gulls. It's these artificial food sources that have led to an explosion in gull populations. 
  
So while they are a nuisance and pitiful-looking clowns on foot when food is about, it's really our own fault. And though I haven't changed my mind about them being a major nuisance, I still think they are beautiful to watch when they fly - brilliant against the sun.

Gulls • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $200

SOLD - Safe Harbor

We were pinned in Pulpit Harbor one weekend by a big blow out in the bay.

The first night in Cabot Cove (Masters Creek) on our anchor was quiet. But when we woke up, it was already a howling SW and shooting straight down the cove. So we hoisted our anchor and motored around the corner toward another cove in the harbor where we picked up a mooring for the next night.

We took our dinghy ashore for something to do and a walk about. That hazy, late summer scene we caught below us in the harbor no way indicated a gusting-to-25 knots-wind outside. But you could hear it and see it in the tree tops, and in the eerie light it cast on the harbor.

The next morning it was still howling after listening to our rigging scream all night. But we decided to reef the main and take off anyway. The wind moderated after a while, the sun came out and it was a great sail back to Rockland. Go figure.

Safe Harbor • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $200

SOLD - Moon Rise

We saw a lot of things out there in the water this summer that knocked our socks off. It's always extraordinary to witness powers so much greater than us. Everything gets put back in to its proper perspective.

Although there's something pretty special about watching the full moon rise, wherever you are, it's often a softer less dramatic event in the summer months, but beautiful and fascinating just the same.

I also find it kind of cool that we Mainers are the first to see the whole process as the moon peeks, and then noses up and over the horizon, until it finally hoists itself up and out of the water with a barely detectible spring. We get to initiate, and then nudge the great and ancient wave of wonderment as it rolls  west across the continent.

Moon Rise • 8" X 8" acrylic framed to 12" X 12" • $200