Windy Day on Monhegan

We've had some seriously windy days here in Maine. The folks in Kingfield haven't had electricity since yesterday - trees are down everywhere on our road. It was windy here in Portland too, but doesn't seem it was as bad as it was up there.

It was cold too. Having officially left the period we call Indian Summer, wind rose to the occasion like a barrage of a billion prickly little icicles that impale themselves on anything left exposed. I fought back with a memory of a similarly windy day in the middle of summer on Monhegan Island a few years back.

On this particular day we welcomed the wind. The heat that week had left most life forms on the island feeling pretty limp. Those soft refreshing gusts off the ocean caressed us like a big slow and lazy undulating fan. I was fascinated by some laundry flapping on lines strung out from the wash house just down the hill from where I was sitting. The fluttering reminded me of an *eclipse of moths stuck in a glass jar. It was mezmerizing.

Windy Day on Monhegan • 8" x 8" Gouache framed to 12" x 12" • $200

*I started off with a flock of moths, but figured I'd better look it up. Glad I did.