Reflecting on All That I Know

     Some few years ago my wife and I began taking day trips around New England.  We decided to travel to destinations within a three hour car ride.  I find driving relaxing, and, well she enjoys the company, me.  One of our go to spots is Rockport Massachusetts. 

It is a small artistic seaport community about an hour north of Boston located on a jutting out bit of land that creates a picturesque harbor for both pleasure craft and working lobster boats.  There is also a fleet of rental kyaks that shove off from a dock just east of Rockport’s most famous icons, Motif #1, a deep red boathouse that has been the subject of artist’s and photographer’s work for years beyond memory.

     I chose not to paint it.  I looked south to the mixed fleet of vessels that filled the harbor and the old colonial buildings in the distance behind them.  What caught my fullest

attention were the reflections and the movement of the waters surface as it moved and shaped those reflections.  Color upon color shimmered and danced to music I could not hear.  But I felt it, and out came my pencil.  A few quickly drawn lines and some scribbles, a few short notes and a trip to the studio begat the drawing.  This was the foundation.

Reflecting

      There is not an attempt to create a portrait of these reflections or their source.  This was an effort to dig deep into my knowledge, limited or not, of color.  I stressed high intensity and unnatural color, some might say crayon box of colors, and fit them together in a way that feels both calm and satisfying.          The reflections act as a metaphor for my understanding of color and how it works.  The motif, Rockport Harbor and the working boat also a metaphor, serve to remind me of the work and beauty of my journey as an artist.

The passionate red of the vessel in the lower right, welcomes a viewer into the story, the vertical lines, telephone posts, radio antenna, play a rhythm to an hypersonic song. 

Reflecting on All That I Know

     The swirls of current and dots of color dance around the reflections and the thoughts as I consider the lessons and advice that led to years of continued searching and discovery.  

     I find comfort in those lessons and in those thoughts as I sit on a weathered old dock, reflecting on all that I know. 

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