Back in Paradise

Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park welcomes us back with its solitude and beauty.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Johnson.

I love Schoodic Point and the Schoodic Institute, but sometimes I toy with the idea of teaching somewhere closer to civilization. Then I drive around Frenchman’s Bay, sensing, rather than seeing, the depth and intensity of it. I stop at Frazer Point, and feel the familiar springy turf under my feet. Then I remember: this is the best place to paint that I know of. And I’ve been in 49 of our fifty states and a majority of our national parks.

I drove up to Corea yesterday to see a man who lets us paint in his backyard. “Any time,” he assures me, but I won’t do it without checking in first. Last year, he surprised me by being out of town. I learned his neighbors are as fiercely protective as geese.

His mother was the mystery writer Virginia Rich. She pioneered a kind of cozy mystery that features recipes. My friend now lives in his mom’s old writing studio, behind a beautiful old general store.

“It’s untouched Maine!” my monitor, Jennifer Johnson exclaimed when we arrived. It’s not much more than a fleet of fishing boats surrounded by old houses and wharves. An old slip next to the store remains from the Down East schooner days, when fish left from these docks and sundries from Boston arrived.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Johnson.

An artist was working along the road near Schoodic Institute. I only knew three of my students, so decided to take a chance. “Are you here for my workshop?” I asked. Turns out she wasn’t; she is a painter from Massachusetts named Victoria Templeton, and she was working on a lovely gouache.

We have the luxury of fine weather ahead. I saw no need to rush into a nocturne before we’d had at least one class. Many of my students had traveled long distances to get here. They were glad to call it an early night after dinner.

Jennifer and I tucked them in and headed out to reconnoiter. It’s always possible that the park service might have an area closed for restoration or construction. It was no trouble; there was a glorious sunset and an equally beautiful moonrise.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Johnson.

I normally do this earlier in the day, but I was delayed. I’d invited one of my workshop students to come to church with me in Rockport. She enthusiastically accepted. It was then that I remembered that I’d signed up to be baptized. “That might be weird,” I thought.

I was baptized as a young woman in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. This means having Holy Water sprinkled over your head with a liturgical implement called an aspergillum. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to think this wasn’t what the Bible had in mind. I’m not implying that any other person’s baptism isn’t valid. I believe that the Holy Spirit directs us in these matters.

By the time I’d changed my clothes and thrown Jennifer’s stuff into my trusty Prius, it was 1:30 PM. That cut it a little fine.

Apple Tree Swing, by Carol L. Douglas, courtesy Kelpie Gallery.

Even that wasn’t the beginning of my day. Before church, I drove to South Thomaston to deliver Apple Tree Swing to the Kelpie Gallery. What a difference a frame makes! This one was built from chops from Omega Moulding; it was wicked expensive and worth every penny.

Of course, I was there long before the gallery opened for the day. What do gallerists do when they’re not talking art? They weed the crabgrass out from around their signs. Art—like every other career path—has its moments of glamour and its moments of hard slog.

Same spot, different vision

None of us see the same way. It’s more important to achieve the right state of mind than to find the perfect angle.

Dyce Head in the early morning light, 12X9, oil on canvas board, Carol L. Douglas. I’m drawn to lighthouses, even though I know they’re a trope and a trap.

One of the joys of participating in painting events is running into the same people. Often, we don’t just paint in the same locations, we paint the same scene. Still, our paintings end up looking vastly different. How does that happen?

It’s partly a matter of composition and the pigments we choose. Occasionally it doesn’t work; for example, an iconic object like a well-known lighthouse can force painters into a narrow box. A scene with only a single viewpoint creates the same problem.

Not a cloud in the sky, 8X6, oil on canvas board, Carol L. Douglas. This is the Owl’s Head Light painted from the back.

One of the distinguishing factors in painting is how the artist perceives light. To some degree, all of us see it within our own historical perspective, where certain values predominate. In our time, the driving forces are color temperature and chroma. But light in a painting is also a spiritual element that reflects the artist’s own values, identity, and perception of reality.

This isn’t a thinking process: no artist goes out in the morning and says, “I think I’ll seek out a strong rim light today.” It’s a matter of what draws his or her eye, and through it, speaks to his or her soul.

Owl's Head Light, 8X10, oil on canvas board, Carol L. Douglas

In other words, the last thing lighting is in a great painting is an ‘effect.’ You can see that clearly in chiaroscuro. It was wildly popular throughout Europe in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and continues to be used in photography to this day. Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Georges de la Tour and Artemisia Gentileschi all used it; it was the stylistic convention of their time. But they ended up with vastly different results. We viewers can read far more about the artists than just their historical setting. The way they handle light tells us about their character.

Henri Matisse thought deeply about art history and his place within it. He described a distinction in his own work between natural light and inner, or what he called “moral light.”

Cape Spear Road, 10X8, oil on canvas board, Carol L. Douglas. That’s not one, but two, lighthouses.

“A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light,” he said.

Matisse was an agnostic. “But the essential thing,” he said, “is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.”

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” For a founding Fauvist, that seems contradictory. But Matisse’s essential convictions overrode his stylistic ideas. His work is restful.

None of us see the same way. It’s more important to achieve the right state of mind than to find the perfect angle.

If you can’t find it in Maine, you’re not really trying.

It’s August: blueberries, lobster rolls, shimmering seas, lighthouses, ocean breezes and the rock-ribbed coast.

Breaking Storm, by Carol L. Douglas, courtesy Camden Falls Gallery.

Yesterday I drove south to deliver twenty paintings to Brunswick's Local Market. Suddenly, it’s wild blueberry season in Maine. Little stands dot the shoulder of Route 1.

This show will be up for next week’s Artwalk, and remain up through September. It’s an opportunity to show something in addition to landscape. I brought several still lives, including my all-time favorite, my tin-foil hat. I suddenly realized it needed a new name, so Conspiracy Theory it is.

Conspiracy Theory, by Carol L. Douglas

I didn’t paint this as a political statement, but an experiment in reflective surfaces. Still, I work with social media daily. I’m not oblivious to its faults. Whenever I feel a blast of the inanities, I don that painting as a profile picture. Perhaps someone needs the real thing in their office.

Local Market is at 150 Maine Street in Brunswick. If you stop to look at the art, you can also get lunch or a gift while you’re there. It’s that kind of place.

Two Islands in the Rain, by Carol L. Douglas, is at Wyler’s through the end of September.

Farther south, there are a few of my paintings at Jakeman Hall in Ocean Park. The association holds unsold work from Art in the Park through Christmas. It’s not a hardship to visit Ocean Park; it has a long sand beach so you can combine your visit with sunbathing.

Last time I was in Camden, my painting, Breaking Storm (top) was in the window at Camden Falls Gallery. This large canvas features the schooner American Eagle passing Owl’s Head in a purely imaginary tempest. I like the wind and the water and, of course, the boat is a peach.

Fort Point Historic Site, by Carol L. Douglas, was last year’s Juror’s Choice Award winner at Wet Paint on the ‘Weskeag.

I’m also represented by the Kelpie Gallery in South Thomaston, which is the host of Wet Paint on the ‘Weskeag, a one-day plein air event to raise money for the Georges River Land Trust. I’ll be there next Saturday (August 17), but before that, I’m off to teach my annual workshop at Schoodic Institute.

And there lies the rub: while my paintings will be here, I won’t. Of necessity, my own gallery in Rockport closes while I’m on the road. From Wet Paint on the ‘Weskeag, I leave directly for the Adirondack Plein Air Festival, and from there to Plein Air Plus in Long Beach Island, New Jersey. I’ll be back near the end of the month.

I didn't schedule my workshop to coincide with blueberry season, but it always seems to work out that way.

Meanwhile, the line at Red’s Eats snakes along the sidewalk, the blueberries are pie-ready, the fog curls its little fingers around the rocky points. I’m not sure why I’m leaving. I’m not sure how anyone can resist coming here. 

Building lightsabers

Steampunk and Star Wars both tinker with our headlong rush into the future.

Lightsaber built by Matthew Krahling, photo courtesy of Emerson Champion.

Sometimes when I fly, I wonder what life will be like when airplanes are obsolete. Will a few examples be lovingly preserved and sailed like the schooner fleet on the Maine coast? This weekend, I decided that those relics will probably look like Star Wars.

I might be alone among Americans in having almost no exposure to George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise. I saw the first movie on its release. It struck me then as lovely, light and energetic, but I didn’t look for any deep themes. Nor did I feel the need to see the rest of them. While I understood the references to Arthurian legend, chivalry and the Samurai, these are universal themes.

Of course, Star Wars references are embedded in popular culture. We remember President Reagan calling the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” and people intoning, “May the Force be with you.”

Lightsaber built by Matthew Krahling, photo courtesy of Emerson Champion.

This week, I saw my parents’ godchild for the first time in many years. Matthew is one of a small coterie of enthusiasts who make lightsabers as a hobby. Why would a smart, engaged young person choose this as a creative outlet?

At age 34, Matthew has grown up in a completely digitalized media world. “People my age are sick of animation,” Matthew told me. “It all looks the same.”

That slickness reflects where he lives: the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan sprawl. It’s one of four mega-cities in America. However, its culture is shared by every large American city: excessively groomed landscapes, traffic jams, box stores and cookie-cutter houses. His generation’s longing and need for authenticity runs deeper than media.

For the original Star Wars film, the props were constructed by special-effects expert John Stears from old press camera flash battery packs and other bits and pieces.  Set designer Roger Christian found the handles for the Graflex side-attach flash in a photography shop in London.

Lightsaber built by Matthew Krahling, photo courtesy of Emerson Champion.

The popularity of the movie has pushed this obsolete flash unit’s value up to eye watering levels. 

As Matthew talked to me about lightsabers and their devotees, I was keenly reminded of another contemporary aesthetic movement, Steampunk. It is often traced back to the science-romances of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Mary Shelley. It’s overtly Victorian in its trappings, but its most important hallmark is the way it mixes digital media with traditional craftsmanship. In that, it directly quotes Star Wars. 

Lightsaber built by Matthew Krahling, photo courtesy of Emerson Champion.

“The Star Wars universe is the universe in which some of the most respected things can be no greater than my old truck was in real life,” wrote an anonymous fan on the internet. “Lived-in, used, repaired, and somewhat dilapidated, but still of purpose.” In other words, it is a culture of tinkerers.

Steampunk answers the need to modify and control our headlong rush into the future. In 1977, we barely had a glimmer of what that future—controlled and controlling—would be. In retrospect, all that tinkering looms as a landmark aesthetic statement.

Support the Center for Maine Coastal Fisheries

 It’s time for Stonington’s nautical auction again, but this year the selection has gone wild.

Two Boat Rock, Jill Hoy

Regular readers know that I’ve supported the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries since before I moved to coastal Maine. A viable fisheries industry is crucial to Maine’s economy, but it also is the bedrock on which our tourism rests.

In past years, the Nautical Auction featured painted buoys. I enjoyed doing them, but I’m not a craftsperson. When they expanded their auction to include non-buoy items, I jumped at the chance to submit a conventional framed canvas. This year’s submission was painted off the deck of American Eagle last summer, and is of Scott Island off Stonington.

Fish, Peter Beerits

I like to leaf through the items on offer. This year the catalog includes more than 80 items across a wide range of categories, only tangentially related to buoys. There are gift certificates for seafood, and there’s pretty jewelry. You can get a one-year membership to the Farnsworth Museum. If that’s a little too arty for you, bid on a 3.3 HP Mercury Outboard Motor instead.

Andrew Gove’s, Bobbi Heath

There are B&B stays, personal boat tours and a sea-kayaking eco-tour. There’s a sail on the ketch Guildive out of Castine, or if you already work on the water, a gift certificate toward your boat’s lettering or a certificate for haul out or put in.

Cod Fishing, Siri Beckman

One lucky winner will see his or her name in Katherine Hall Page’s next mystery. There are antique, contemporary and cookbooks on offer, and an Opinel fishing knife.

Scott Island, High Tide, Carol L. Douglas

And of course, there’s art and a selection of buoys as well. But don’t take my word for it: the whole crazy array can be viewed here. The proceeds of the sale go to support sustainable, human-scale fisheries on the Maine coast.

Two Daughters Papercut, Larry Moffet

The bad news, for me, is the timing: the auction is Monday, August 7, at Opera House Arts. The preview starts at 5:30 and the bidding starts at six. I’ll be at Acadia National Park teaching my annual workshop.

However, we can also place silent bids by emailing Bobbi Billings or phoning the office at  207-367-2708. Bids will be accepted until August 4.