#153 Spring Teaser

This past week and weekend were a welcome weather respite here in Maine. Even the skiing at Sugarloaf was springlike except for the very top where a steady south and then NW wind kept the snow hard and my nose red.

The temps are expected to plunge back down this week, of course, which makes perfect sense to all of us longtime Mainers. The unwritten rule of thumb is don't even think about spring until the end of March. Even then I've seen three feet of snow drop over the mountains in April.

I figured I'd throw out a springlike thought before we revisit winter. It's just a reminder that regardless of what happens, the spring equinox is, as it has always been, less than a month away.

Spring Teaser • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200

SOLD - Fully Awake On This Full Moon Night

So, it's another sleepless full moon night in Maine. But when there's snow below and a clear starlit sky above, and not a human peep to be heard for miles around, there's no place in the universe quite as beautiful and magical. On this particular night, I am grateful I am fully awake.

Fully Awake On This Full Moon Night • 8" x 8" gouache framed to 12" x 12" • $200

#151 The Cherubs of Poplar Falls

I've hiked into Poplar Falls many times, but several years ago I was in there one winter afternoon when they were frozen solid. A spectacular sight, I took some photos and figured one day I'd try a painting.

I'd been noodling the photos recently, and as I started this study I began to see cherub-like things fading in and out of the snow and ice. Maybe I just conjured them up looking for an angle, or perhaps they're memories of something that was there and visible to only believers. In either case, they are now part of the experience.

I've found there to be a fine line between what I see and what I remember, between what is true and what I imagine to be true. The cherubs of Poplar Falls reside in the blur between the two. And as has been their purpose throughout time, it's my guess they are there to protect, in this case, Poplar Falls.

The Cherubs of Poplar Falls • 8"x8" watercolor, graphite and gouache framed to 12"x12" • $200

SOLD - Thoughts of Winter Down East

The coast of Maine is beautiful year 'round, but it's always amazing to me how fast a vibrant summer community can pack itself up in a suitcase and ship out with the rest of the summer gear. It's a bit unsettling when the only signs of humanoid life are an occasional local handyman, the ghost-like tinkling of wind chimes on a shuttered cottage, or the slow whiney creak of rusty rooftop sculptures and weather vanes. 

I have often thought it would be fun to live in one of those coastal houses during the winter when the rent drops. But the reality lurks in thoughts of long and lonely, black, cold and stormy winter nights, when the wind howls like a banshee, clamoring and clawing at the door to take you away in its hearse to hell. And then there's the relentless pounding of the ocean's fists on the breakwater, the only baracade between you and your most terrifying fear - the abyss that is the bottom of the ocean. Even lobster boats that over-winter in the harbor, so quintessentially Maine in the summer, become vessels for ghosts of fishermen-lost, who take the helms and head out for open ocean - now their eternal limbo.

I realize there are folks who live in these places year 'round and would call my imaginings absurd. But they are not cursed with a undisciplined imagination where a proposition like this for someone like me is most certainly, a road to insanity.

Thoughts of Winter Down East  • 8"x8" watercolor and gouache framed to 12" x 12" • $200