Robert Beck "Over East" – Maine Maritime Museum Exhibition Catalog

ern coast of Maine each year to document life in the fishing towns and villages. Beck is known for addressing subjects through multiple-painting ‘visual essays’. These have included bodies of work painted on a towboat pushing barges down the Mississippi, travelling with surgeons in Senegal, and a 44-image exploration of the contemporary American West. He has painted live on television broadcasts, in the midst of symphony orchestra performances, and even in operating theatres during surgeries — documenting the people, places and occupations of our time. Beck’s work in Maine is his largest body of work on a common subject.

ROBERT BECK | OVER EAST

Award-wining painter Robert Beck has been returning to the north-

This book is a companion piece to the 2016 solo exhibition of Robert “There is a pace, a common understanding, and a heritage, that course

Beck’s paintings at the Maine Maritime Museum, titled Over East —

along the coast just like in West Virginia coal towns and

An Artist’s Journal: The Contemporary Maritime Community. Included

Kansas farm communities. Proximity to nature, and the beauty and harsh reality that come with it, dictate what’s important.”

— From JONESPORT

with images painted from life among the locals as they work, and studio paintings created from recollection, are a dozen essays written about his experiences, all previously published in ICON Magazine. These paintings and stories, crafted with keen observation, humor, and obvious love for his subjects, are a celebration of a distinctly American place and culture, revered for its heritage, work ethic, and natural beauty.

ON THE COVER: STERNMAN

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H. 24 x W. 30 INCHES

Paintings and Essays by Robert Beck Edited by Sue Jenkins

A companion to the exhibition at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine | September 2016 through January 2017

AT LEFT: BETWEEN BOATS

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Portions of Robert Beck’s essays in Robert Beck | Over East were previously published in ICON Magazine. They have been adapted for this book with permission.

Book design by Rosemary Tottoroto | PageOne Creative Group

© Robert Beck 2016 All rights reserved.

FOREWORD History happens every day — in the sweeping dramas of life, and in the small moments. A ship builder thoughtfully shapes a plank that eventually becomes a ship, launched with pomp and celebration.

Human actions, large and small are captured in objects, documents, photographs and all manner of memorabilia. In a museum focused on maritime history, as Maine Maritime Museum is, we collect these manifestations of history and we use them to tell a story about people and events and a way of life worth remembering and learning from.

Some artists bear witness to these big events and these intimate moments, and are compelled to interpret them in ways that also tell a story — perhaps by finding a hidden truth or a common experience, as when an author bases a work of fiction on a historical fact. Often, an artist can represent the “truth” better than a photographer can, by distilling the essence of a scene and capturing movement and life with his brush strokes.

Robert Beck is such an artist. For twenty years he has been quietly observing the small moments of life in Jonesport and other rural, coastal Maine communities. He translates those observations into images that tell a story — and he does it as the best artists do, by finding and capturing the spirit of the scene so the viewer doesn’t just see the moment as represented on canvas, but also feels it. A photograph can capture the very instant an ocean swell rises against the hull of a work boat, but an artist captures the moments before and after and translates them into a living image of people working at sea, confident in their movements, at ease in their environment —­­as they have been for generations.

This is life on the coast of Maine and Robert Beck has captured the soul of it with respect, and has found the truth in these scenes of everyday life. Maine Maritime Museum is proud to present these paintings and celebrate this way of life.

Amy Lent, Executive Director, Maine Maritime Museum

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PREFACE Stanley Beal came out of his office and walked across the gravel to where I was painting on his wharf.

He told me that Emmet wasn’t feeling well, and that he was going to get him a prescription. I didn’t know Emmet but I said okay. Stanley climbed into his pickup and drove up the lane towards the bridge to the mainland.

A few minutes later another pickup pulled up. A guy got out and went inside the office, found nobody there, then came back out and stood in front deciding what to do next. Seeing me at my easel he walked over and asked where Stanley was. I told him that Emmet wasn’t feeling well and Stanley went to get him a prescription. The guy nodded, then told me to let Stanley know Willis took some gas and would pay him later. He got in his truck and drove away.

Like a lot of places, the only way to be truly accepted as part of a Maine community is to have your great grandparents get born there, but over the years that I have been painting the people, places and occupations along the Maine coast I have become at least a familiar face, deemed capable of delivering a message and not getting in the way. The fact that I’m working beside them, in the same weather, getting the same stuff on my boots as they do, has been to my advantage. This body of work couldn’t have happened otherwise.

My images are not an attempt to duplicate a scene, rather I’m trying to identify why what I see matters to me — often something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Most of my paintings are done from life but some subjects are of a complexity or scale that requires me to compose them in my studio. I add, move, and remove elements until the feeling of the image matches that nameless thing which captured my attention.

There is a lot of trial and error, mistake and solution, in the process. In all cases, I’m not choosing a subject because it looks like a painting; I’m taking things that resonate with me and making a painting of them.

I’ve been called a documentary painter, and I’m comfortable with that. My subjects exist in our time, our here and now. They include landscapes, interiors, and people at work. The goal in this series has been to examine many aspects of how life is lived in the working towns and villages along the Maine coast,

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with the hope that the body of paintings as a whole will reveal small truths about the individuals, the community, and each of us, regardless of where we are from.

The majority of this work has been created around Jonesport and Beals Island, an area focused on fishing, not tourism. It’s a place that dwells on a seam between the past and the present. The lobstermen use contemporary navigation electronics in their boats, but bait is still packed in a bucket and lowered by rope from the wharf as it has been for a hundred years. It is a connected culture. Getting things done involves working with other people face to face, not keystrokes. Accomplishments aren’t gauged using Venn diagrams; you can weigh them, measure them, or build them with your hands. There is always someone you know on the other end of the rope.

During my first visit to Jonesport one of the women who were picking crab wanted to know where they could see all the paintings together. We arranged to show them at the small town library on the night before I had to leave. A large crowd showed up. It was perhaps my most satisfying exhibition. People engaged with the images and talked about them with each other. They saw their world through my eyes and they understood that the paintings were a celebration.

We all want what we do to matter. More than that, I wanted what I did to matter to them, and it did.

Now, when I return, I get phone calls from them suggesting other people and places for me to paint.

The Maine Maritime Museum is the perfect place to exhibit a large selection of these paintings, and I am grateful for the opportunity to share them. They are images that are close to my heart. I hope that the paintings, along with the essays included in this book, reveal some of those small truths about the extraordinary people and places I’ve encountered Over East.

Robert Beck

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A lot of people were a part of making the exhibition Over East, the paintings and the book, happen.

Some in the process became friends, and the rest have been my friends for a long time. First I have to thank Amy Lent, the Director of the Maine Maritime Museum, and Chris Hall, the Curator of Over East, for their enthusiasm and vision for the exhibition. They and their wonderful staff were a pleasure to work with. Friends I made along the coast include Sune and Patricia Noreen, owners of the Jonesport Shipyard, who kept me warm and dry; Doug Dodge, boat builder, who shared his shed and his stories; Brenda Frey, the Harbormaster’s Daughter, who made connections and cooked me lobsters; Dwight Carver, who took me out tending traps on a day with a glorious sunrise; Carole Donovan & Robin Rier, fellow artists, who organized workshops and the library shows; and the many people of Jonesport and Beals, who opened their doors to me; also Cathy Billings at the Lobster Institute, who had a hand in getting me started.

I greatly appreciate the guidance and friendship of Trina McKenna, publisher of ICON Magazine, where my essays have appeared monthly for more than a decade, and the extraordinary talents of photographer/videographer Bob Krist, who made the video of my Maine work that accompanies the exhibit. Not only did Rosemary Tottoroto design this beautiful book, she was also the one who lit the fuse for the exhibition. Sue Jenkins was the Editor you wish for. Most of all, I must thank Doreen Wright, my wife, partner, and closest friend, for her continuing encouragement, solid advice, and tireless support, which keep me creating and expanding. It doesn’t happen without her, and I love her dearly.

Robert Beck

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INTRODUCTION When two worm diggers start swinging at each other, it is wise to move one’s easel out of the way.

Robert Beck’s work carries us into the immediacy of many such moments among the corners of the Maine coast that trends eastward toward Canada from the Penobscot. Years of courting his subjects with honesty, appreciation and perseverance have earned him acceptance among the boatyards, bait docks, back lots and grange halls that he frequents. With such acceptance comes a unique invisibility that finds Robert amidst the hubbub and quiet of coastal life, plying his trade as others ply theirs, no different from barber, counterman or crab picker, who can yarn while they work but know when to shut up. And when to wink.

Such embedded observation and rendering are uncommon today, despite our lineage deep in the classical roots of painting, long before cameras dragged us into the undertow of instantaneous capture.

Beck lives among his people — absorbing, circling back, cajoling, commiserating — while steeping in the aura of cold salt fog perfumed with beach rose and notes of diesel, aging herring and fresh coats of anti-fouling. Robert paints it as he sees it, and we are the better for his considered judgment.

Chris Hall, Curator, Maine Maritime Museum

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JONESPORT | 2015 Jonesport is a good example of a Maine maritime community. Everything revolves around fishing. There is a pace, a common understanding, and a heritage, that course along the coast just like in West Virginia coal towns and Kansas farm communities. Proximity to nature, and the beauty and harsh reality that come with it, dictate what’s important.

Tourist amenities drop off significantly once you head north on Route 1 from Ellsworth and Bar Harbor. Gone with them are the constant enticements, seductions, and demands. It’s wise to keep an eye on your gas gauge and know where you are going to spend the night. There are LATE START (DETAIL) OIL ON BOARD H. 24 x W. 30 INCHES

hours of woods and craggy blueberry fields ahead, with an occasional isolated house, austere business, and abandoned building. Small towns located out of sight on the vast shoreline are often just a handful of structures near a cove or small harbor. I stop at a gas station in Columbia Falls — the last one that has premium — and pick up some food at the market before I turn off the highway, cross Indian River, and head towards Moosabec Reach.

Indian River Road runs down the peninsula past the road to Addison and Porcupine Hill. The bleached asphalt is edged with sand and grasses and a few narrow dirt lanes that disappear into the brush. A timeless, predictable landscape unfolds, where bridges take me over tidal inlets rushing in or out at the moon’s behest, and on the chance I pass another car the driver’s hand lifts from the wheel in a gesture of connection.

Just past the stop sign as you enter Jonesport is the bridge on the right to Beals Island, at the Coast Guard Station. The town has a few businesses intermixed with houses and working wharves. At the far end you pass the cemetery, and the road heads up the other side of the peninsula along Mason Bay back to US1.

A natural compliance exists in the placement of side roads and buildings along the harbor, taking a lead from the land itself. The houses sit where it makes the most sense given how the

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people in them live. Each property runs into the next, with sandy lanes winding free between.

Jonesport lives with

There may be a dozen lobster traps, or a hundred, stacked next to a house, and a pile of buoys

the windows open in the

and lines in front of the garage. You see flaked paint, an abandoned barbeque or two, a mower half covered by a tarp, and a boat on stands awaiting repairs that might or might not come.

There is less concern for appearance than is found in American suburbia. This is a community centered on work, not image, and people are doing what they must or what they can. There are also well-tended homes, cheerfully colored with lobster silhouettes cut out of the shutters or small round gardens with lighthouse centerpieces, reflecting personality rather than ostentation. Every yard has a well-cared-for pickup truck and everybody you meet is dressed for the job at hand.

Jonesport lives with the windows open in the summer. The air feels good on your skin. It can be raw and damp but it carries a scent of the sea that appeals to some primal memory. Like

summer. The air feels good on your skin. It can be raw and damp but it carries a scent of the sea that appeals to some primal memory.

Like the tides, it puts me in touch with things larger, things to be respected.

the tides, it puts me in touch with things larger, things to be respected. It puts me in place — a

It puts me in place — a

grounding felt in the heart.

grounding felt in the heart.

Each visit comes with apprehension of what the future has in store. Many places were like this once. Our world is diversifying and homogenizing. Values are changing. In many respects we are better off for it, but when I compare a society where productive knowledge and skill get passed directly from parent to child against one where change comes so fast that generations barely understand each other’s language, I’m drawn to the humanity rather than the technology.

Sometimes I wake at four in the morning to the thrumming of a lobster boat coming alive in the harbor — the soundtrack of life lived in concert with the earth, the sea, and the heavens. A tiny red light moves through the dark along the reach into the bay, trailing a glistening wake eastward toward the Atlantic dawn.

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DORY

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JOE’S TRAPS

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DOUG DODGE

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LATE START

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DRAGGERS

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BOAT AUCTION

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DONNA MARIE | 2012 I was near Addison when I saw the Donna Marie in a field. There are a lot of lobster boats put up in this part of Maine. Some are being repaired, some are waiting for the price of lobsters to make fishing practical again, and many have seen the end of their working days.

Elihu Beal built the Donna Marie in 1971, in an era when many boats were first conceived as carved hulls. These were carefully sculpted models a couple of feet long made of flat layers of wood that could be disassembled and used as plan-view templates. A full-scale contour drawing could have been made directly on the swept-clean boatshed floor, from which measurements DONNA MARIE (DETAIL) OIL ON BOARD H. 9 x W. 16 INCHES

would be taken to start the building process. Shaping and fitting each piece of wood by hand, the workers would use techniques learned over centuries to construct a strong but flexible hull capable of navigating both coastal shallows and offshore seas. It gets pretty rough out there.

You could look at those curved lines on the floor and envision the rake of the stem, the flair of the bow, see how the water would part, flow along the hull, and tumble home at the stern. When you know the secrets of wood and water you can design a boat that will take you out on the ocean, for days if necessary, and bring you back.

The Donna Marie has distinctive lines. She has a raised forward rail that steps down at the wheelhouse, like traditional Nova Scotia boats, but she doesn’t have the curving sheer from stem to stern that you find on typical Jonesporter lobster boats. Her plumb stem and nearly flat fore-and-aft rail are reminiscent of an early-century motor yacht. A touch of Hemingway.

The Donna Marie fished for lobster way out on the continental shelf, a 36-ft. wooden shell protecting its crew from the dispassionate might of the ocean. Then she changed hands and spent nine months a year dragging quahogs, while hauling traps near Seal Island in winter. A decade ago she was being used just for dragging, when the engine blew. The Donna Marie was put up in the middle of a field miles from her harbor, resting a few feet above the summer grass and winter snows.

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I painted the Donna Marie from the side of the road in a morning fog. The changing density

After two hours I felt a rise

of the mist plays with the light as you work. It obscures and teases, and you have to quickly

in temperature. A flock of

decide what you are painting, because it will be gone with little warning.

crows climbed from the

Fog is about grays: bright grays and dull grays, cool grays and warm. The diffused light

grass and flew a triangular

eliminates shadows, which are a principal tool for describing form, so it becomes an exercise

lap around me before

in values and colors that make sense for the moment you are trying to capture.

settling back in the field.

After two hours I felt a rise in temperature. A flock of crows climbed from the grass and flew a

It took three attempts from

triangular lap around me before settling back in the field. It took three attempts from memory

memory to capture their

to capture their random collusion so that they looked like birds, not splatter. Something was biting my legs. Each time I took a swat at it and looked back up the scene was different. Contrast was expanding. A spot in the eastern overcast took on a silver tone. The far tree line emerged from the gray, and shadows bloomed under brightening surfaces. The red trim of the Donna Marie glistened in the sunlight as the fog vanished into a brilliant cobalt sky.

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random collusion so that they looked like birds, not splatter.

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BETWEEN BOATS

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STANLEY’S WHARF

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PRIVATE ROOM

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WHARF WORK

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HIPPOCAMPUS

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ON THE ISLAND | 2014 If there is one thing that Jonesport has plenty of, it’s lobsters. You can find business being done harvesting seaweed, quahogs, mussels, fish and even worms in this coastal town, but lobster is king. Nine million pounds of them came off the boats at Jonesport and Beals Island last year, a community of fewer than seven hundred households. The locals will make the point that those are two separate communities but regardless that’s a lot of crustaceans and there’s no problem getting your hands on some. People walk around carrying them under their arms like firewood.

They give you a free pound-and-a-halfer when you make a purchase at the hardware store and two when you return a library book.

I like a good shedder or two but the problem is, or I should say MY problem is, there are no restaurants in the area. Sure, I could cook a lobster myself but I don’t have the aptitude necessary to boil things alive. I need my food pre-killed.

A Jonesport friend took pity and invited me to her family’s Fourth of July gathering with the promise of a delicious lobster. When I arrived everybody was eating lasagna. They cooked me MOXIE

a few soft-shells out of Down East hospitality but it was a holiday and they wanted something

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special for themselves.

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I’m a sucker for lobster rolls. A touch of mayonnaise, a little lettuce or celery, a lightly toasted split-top bun, a bottle of Moxie, and I am a happy guy. When I’m in that mood I go to a take-out shack on Beals Island called Bayview, which is located not far from one of the lobster pounds.

Not only is Bayview the best place to get lobster rolls on the island, it is the only place to find food of any kind.

There is no pretense at Bayview. It is a small, boxy building with an economical and practical efficiency. You might even consider its lack of style a style. It was originally towed to its location

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and has a wood lattice skirt to hide its undercarriage. Not classic New England architecture by any stretch, but not a blue tarp either. Call it Boatyard Bauhaus.

The last time I was waiting for them to make my lunch I heard the church bell peal from back on the mainland. I looked at my watch out of habit even though I knew the clock wasn’t right. It is an electronic bell that was installed when the steeple had to be replaced and the new system can’t handle the power fluctuations that occur at this end of the peninsula.

It’s impossible to keep it set. The bell tolled five times and my watch said 12:41. It has a pleasant sound so folks just let it ring when it wants.

I was so enjoying the puff-ball clouds and the sounds and smells of New England harbor life that I didn’t notice the gangly, flop-eared hound shuffle up next to me until she gave a howl at the order window. I started and stepped aside.

She did it again. The window slid open, the cook leaned out and said, “I got nothing for ya, Brandy,” and slid the window closed with that shhhUCK sound.

Brandy stared at the window for a minute then turned her head towards me. She bayed again. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sorry, girl.” She glared. It was clear that I was one of those dim people from away, so she did it once more, this time with poorly concealed impatience. The window opened sharply and the cook yelled, “Brandy, get outa here!”

Brandy cast daggers at him, then me, and trudged off across the parking lot.

I watched her go to the first house down the sand lane, put her front paws on the steps, and yelp at the front door. A hand came out with something. She took it with her mouth. A couple of chews and a gulp, and then she continued towards the lobster pound, tail swaying behind, soliciting at each building along the way. She could get a route with the Post Office.

The pickup window opened and a woman handed me the foam container holding my lobster roll. While I was reaching into my pocket for money I noticed a hand-made display rack under the outside menu board. The pegs held earrings carved from wood to look like lobster buoys. Lobster-buoy earrings are the last thing my wife would want. I bought a pair in her college colors.

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MAIN STREET

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CAMDEN FOG

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GREAT WASS

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ABOVE BELFAST

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PARADE IN FOG

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GREENE MARINE

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BARNEY COVE | 2013 Stanley Beal’s wharf sits on Barney Cove. Take the bridge to the Island, turn right, drive over the rise and then go right again onto the gravel lane marked Wharf Rd. Barney Cove Lobster Company is a small, weathered building next to some sheds, tanks, totes, traps, and a gray wharf that stretches out into the cove on Western Bay. You’ll probably find Stanley on the dock or in the office. He’s coming up on his 80th birthday and is still at it most every day — something not uncommon among those who make their living off the land or the sea.

Stanley sells bait and fuel to the fishermen; they sell their lobsters to him. Accounts are kept, or checks are written on the spot. When Stanley is off getting some hardware or running an errand for a friend the company operates on the honor system, and in times of tight money and ill fortune his arrangements with some of the fishermen can be elastic.

STANLEY BEAL (DETAIL)

Mornings are a time for getting things in order and packing bait in buckets. The boats have gone out

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early — maybe at four or five — to check the traps. The first ones return around noon, pull up to the

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wharf for the bait hoist and fuel hose, then swing around to the floating dock where Stanley sorts and weighs their catch. The lobsters come off the boat in plastic crates onto a roller track where Stanley takes a count. He writes on a tag and clips it to the lid, threads a line through the handle and slides the crate down a ramp into the water on the other side of the dock. That line runs through the handles of all the crates from all the boats — a floating daisy chain in the cold waters of Barney Cove.

Stanley pays the fishermen based on what his buyer pays him, minus twenty-five cents a pound.

Nowadays that is about $2.50. The fishermen spend a long day hauling the heavy traps, removing the lobsters, putting in fresh bait, throwing the traps off the back, and then they return to the wharf to drop off the catch, get supplies, moor and wash their boats. Stanley is out on the dock almost continuously from noon until the boats are back. I’ve stopped by at six in the evening and found him waiting for the last one.

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I started the painting of Stanley at eight in the morning. It took an hour and a half to place the

Stanley sells bait and fuel

drawing and block in the area surrounding the chair. Then I gave Stanley the sign and he came in

to the fishermen; they

to sit for me. He had to get up to tend to business occasionally but overall he sat in the stuffed recliner for nearly 45 minutes. The morning lull when the boats are out is when friends stop by to register opinions so occasionally we had company.

I was set up in an alcove at the rear of the office looking out toward the front door. My easel couldn’t be seen from the main room. The first guy who came in saw Stanley in the chair and me standing in the back doorway and wasn’t quite sure what was going on. He stood quietly for a

sell their lobsters to him.

Accounts are kept, or checks are written on the spot.

When Stanley is off getting some hardware or running

minute then asked, “What are you doing, Stanley?” Stanley had trouble finding where to start so

an errand for a friend the

I said, “Mr. Beal is working for me this morning.” That confused the visitor but pleased Stanley. He

company operates on the

made sure everyone else who stopped by knew he was working for me.

honor system, and in times

Stanley is a wonderful man who has lived a long and at times difficult life. He was a State High

of tight money and ill fortune

School Basketball Champion, as were his boy and his grandson. He was in the military, worked

his arrangements with

hard, was a leader in his community; and he keeps himself busy in order to cover the heartbreak

some of the fishermen can

of having his forty-three-year-old son die suddenly a few years ago. I had few conversations with

be elastic.

him where it didn’t come up.

I tried to keep Stanley talking about the lobster business while he was sitting for me but there would be periods when I’d notice him staring out the dirty window to the boats moored in the cove.

Once I asked him how he was doing and he replied, “I’m thinking about my son and trying not to cry. That wouldn’t do for your painting.”

A rhythmic burble grew louder as the Ashley N eased into Barney Cove. Stanley Beal turned his ear to the sound, lifted himself from the chair and made his way out the screen door towards the wharf.

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VESPERS

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DAWN

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SPAR SHED

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PICKETS

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ISLE AU HAUT

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LOBSTER BOIL

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HAULING OUT | 2016 I heard a beeping sound, which meant the boat hauler was backing across the yard. Looking out the window I saw a lobster boat motionless near the end of the dock, and some guys getting lines ready.

There are a number of ways to get a boat out of the water. Some yards have a crane that drives over a boat and lifts it up on straps that have been looped under its hull. Jonesport Shipyard uses a large, U-shaped trailer — like a big horizontal tuning fork on wheels, the two long sides open in the back — that gets detached from the truck and rolled down the ramp into the water under the boat. Hydraulic arms on the sides of the trailer are then raised to cradle the vessel.

When all is set, the trailer and boat are pulled out of the water and up the ramp by a winch and HAULING OUT (DETAIL)

reconnected to the truck. The boat can then be carried someplace in the yard for repairs or

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transported by road as far as needed.

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Hauling out a boat is an everyday occurrence on the coast, but it’s not approached casually.

Positioning the boat over the trailer and getting the hydraulic arms to make contact in the right spot are crucial. The arms have swiveling pads at the top to conform to the angle of the hull, but they need to lift the boat in unison, and have to be located in a position that distributes the weight without destructive stress on the hull. You can break a boat if you get it wrong.

The men have to work deliberately, and only move to the next step when the prior step has been done and checked. Meanwhile, there is a clock running in everyone’s head. The old adage, “Time and tide wait for no man,” comes into practical focus at a working harbor. At Jonesport the water level changes twelve feet in six hours (fifteen feet if the moon is right). There is a chart on the wall in every building and on every dashboard, that lists to the minute the time of the two high and low tides for each day, for each harbor in the area. It’s going to happen at that time and there is nothing anybody can do to stop it, so it’s good to have the information handy

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in case you have plans. In this case, the water where they were working was on its way out and

There is a chart on the wall

there wasn’t a lot of time to spare.

in every building and on every

I ran over to the yard as soon as I saw what was going on. I like to watch other people work as

dashboard, that lists to the

much as anybody, and jobs that require coordination are particularly fascinating. The boat had

minute the time of the two

developed a bad vibration while out in the bay, requiring the owner to shut down the engine.

high and low tides for each

A friend towed it to the shipyard dock, executing a drive-by maneuver much like discharging a water skier off to the side, placing the boat in a good position. Two guys were using a line and a boathook to get the stern around while a third pulled it forward over the trailer. A man stood behind the truck at the top of the ramp where he had a good view and gave signals to the others.

It was that wordless communication between the men that I wanted to describe in the painting.

The entire composition is built around that. One of the first things you see is the signal hand

day, for each harbor in the area. It’s going to happen at that time and there is nothing anybody can do to stop it, so it’s good to have

silhouetted in the rectangular window. Even though there are no discernible faces on the men at

the information handy in case

the end of the dock you can tell their eyes are fixed on that hand. The direction of the ropes and

you have plans.

hook reinforces that invisible connection.

The image was created in my studio using a painting I did of the shipyard dock the year before, a good memory, and an active imagination. Unlike when I paint from life, I can take time to consider what elements suit the content and how to arrange them to best tell the story. Instead of describing what is in front of me, I’m refining what caught my attention, and what left its mark on my memory. One method has the voice of a play-by-play announcer, the other that of a storyteller.

The painting depicts men hauling out a boat, but it is also part of the larger story of life on the coast. Take it as it comes, work hard, work together, and figure out a way. Pitch in, because someday you will see that person on the other end of your rope.

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CROWS

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H. 14 x W. 14 INCHES

CONGRESS ROAD

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H. 12 x W. 16 INCHES

FANTAIL

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H. 9 x W. 16 INCHES

SUNE’S BOW

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H. 8 x W. 10 INCHES

ON THE HILL

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H. 12 x W. 16 INCHES

CASTINE INN

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COUNTING WORMS | 2013 You dig worms when the tide is out, much like clams. The men who do it on the mud flats in Jonesport are looking for sandworms and bloodworms, about a foot long on average. They can get more than a hundred dollars per thousand for the sandworms and nearly two hundred for the bloods. The market is limited but it’s a way for people to get cash when for one reason or another they aren’t going out on a lobster boat or dragger. It’s not something they do for fun because there’s no fun in it. It’s something they do to keep going.

There is a worm buyer in a basement near the co-op wharf. The room has a low ceiling, fluorescent lights, and a . . . let’s call it a damp, earthy smell. Painting the life in this small, gritty fishing town has taken me into a number of wet and pungent places of business. Places where the walls, tables COUNTING WORMS (DETAIL)

and floors get hosed down regularly but not nearly enough. Everyone wears high rubber boots.

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Whether it’s old crab shrapnel, herring squish, or worm bits, you don’t want to get it in your Nikes.

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Setting up and breaking down my French easel without resting it (or my bag) on the wet floor is a test. I extend the legs while balancing the kit on my boot tops, but by the time I’m done working those boots can be pretty disgusting too. I’ve learned how to collapse and fold the legs with one hand while holding the easel in the air with the other.

The plan was to paint the men counting worms in the morning and the guys shoveling bait at the fisherman’s co-op when I was done, bundling a couple of the more odiferous subjects on a day when I needed to do laundry anyway. I arrived an hour ahead of time wearing my muck boots, and set up in a corner. The men weren’t there yet and wouldn’t stay long when they came. I did a quick perspective drawing, blocked in the composition, and developed the tables and parts of the painting above eye level — the walls, windows, and ceiling — as a setting for the figures when they arrived. My intention was to place an odd number of people in a non-symmetrical arrangement but it wouldn’t be clear what I would have to work with until they showed up. I didn’t know what worm counting looked like.

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About an hour and a half after low tide the worm diggers began to come in the door with coolers and buckets, taking up places along the benches. They reached into their containers and pulled out fat, dark red, squirming spaghetti-wads of worms and plopped them on the flat surface, quickly brushing countable numbers of wigglers aside and into a tray. They handed the trays to the boss and got paid. He re-counted some of them later, just to be sure.

It wasn’t difficult for me to capture the gestures of the men as they counted. The room wasn’t that crowded and they naturally kept a distance from each other. Until one guy made a comment to another concerning where he got his worms, which was met with an invitation to keep his mouth shut or have his head stove in.

These were Down East bred and fed guys who had spent a long morning slogging through cold mud, so niceties were in short supply. The sharp-edged exchange cut the general murmuring short. Everybody’s hair went up and the room got small. A curse was thrown and a body launched across the tight space. Faces were a whisker apart. Everyone was yelling, grabbing, pulling at the two men, but they were welded at the eyeball. Dares were hurled, veins popped, saliva let fly. A seething mass of sweat, muscle, and venom pressed my easel so I flattened back against the wall and held the painting over my head, elbows squeezed together in front of my face.

Then, like a passed lightning storm, the noise subsided and they were back to their worm buckets with only the most distant of rumbles. I exhaled and slid my panel back onto the easel. The boss walked in and growled that he didn’t want to see any of that again.

The painting was finished under relatively boring circumstances. The boss came over when I was packing up and said, “You got some excitement this morning, didyuh?”

“How long have those two been friends?” I asked.

“Briefly,” he chuckled. “I’ll talk to them tomorrow. Can’t have that here. This is a place of business.”

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TOMORROW’S BAIT

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H. 24 x W. 24 INCHES

HAULING OUT

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H. 24 x W. 24 INCHES

COUNTING WORMS

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H. 12 x W. 16 INCHES

OUTBOARD REPAIR SHED

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H. 10 x W. 16 INCHES

DOUG & DOZER

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H. 16 x W. 24 INCHES

MOOSABEC MUSSELS

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NETWORKING | 2013 There are two places where people get their news in Jonesport: the Post Office and the Variety Store. The town is not very big and to go someplace you have to go past everything else so it’s more a matter of preference than convenience.

The Variety Store would by the standards of a larger town be called the Somewhat Limited Store. Most of the space is taken up with videos for rent. The rest is stuff you might buy to eat and drink while watching those videos. There are a few sundries on one section of shelving but it would be a grand piece of good fortune to find something you really needed. There’s a hardware store for that.

My unscientific study revealed that other than the occasional teenager renting a video most of the customers in the Variety Store were men. A lot of those are fishermen who stop by after work to hang out at the large table near the front window and catch up on the latest. If they aren’t going out for lobsters that day they might arrive early and play cribbage. You can usually LIAR’S TABLE (DETAIL)

find somebody sitting at the second-hand dining room set, thumbing a newspaper or making a

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point. They call it the Liar’s Table.

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My study also indicated that the majority of people frequenting the Post Office are women.

I saw them run into each other outside and stop to chat while flipping through their envelopes.

I suppose once the men and women get home and trade the day’s events over dinner they have all the news they need.

There is a mysterious, preternatural form of communication in coastal villages that can be described as Scuttlebutt Osmosis. One of the first paintings I did was at the Liar’s Table because it was a good way to get the news out about what I was doing in town. Immediately thereafter people knew who I was before I walked through the door. The advance notice didn’t make them more talkative — it’s still Maine — but it got me into unusual places to paint.

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A few days later I set up not far from the Post Office to paint a scene on Main Street. A lobster-

That made me uncomfortable

man named Mark pulled into the lot, got out of his truck and stood behind me as I painted. He

but my brain kept a grip

stayed there watching me work for at least half an hour. I was nearing the end and needed to recharge for a few minutes so I told him I was going to take a break in order to finish with fresh eyes. I put my brushes in the cup and stepped back from the easel. Mark put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Stand behind your car and watch the trucks coming down the road.”

His instruction surprised and confused me a little but I’ve learned that when I’m on another person’s turf it can be helpful to follow his or her lead, at least until things get dicey, so I moseyed over to my car and leaned against the trunk.

Mark stood in front of my easel and looked at the image. Then he took one of my brushes out of the cup and held it up as if he was about to add a stroke. That made me uncomfortable but my brain kept a grip on my mouth. In the larger scheme, it’s just a painting and I know how to fix it.

There was no telling where things would go if I got weird about it so I just watched, with acute interest. Mark stood frozen in that position, looking at the painting intently, poised to add the next passage. I remembered what he told me and glanced at the road.

Down Main Street came the lobstermen in their pickups, straight from the harbor on their way to the Variety Store. There, just past the Post Office, was Mark at the easel, leaning on his forward leg, brush extended, focused on the painting with furrowed brow, not unlike how I look when I’m working. I watched the drivers slow down and turn their heads in disbelief, passengers twisting around and nearly falling out of the windows.

I would love to have been at the Liar’s Table when that group showed up. Barely minutes passed before word made it to the Post Office and people poured out to see news in the making. Mark saw them coming, chuckled, and said, “I’m going to pay dearly for this.”

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on my mouth ... it’s just a painting and I know how to fix it.

SHOVELING BAIT

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CANNERY NIGHT

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UNCLE BILLY

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ISLAND MOON

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STERNMAN

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MARINA FOG

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H. 8 x W. 12 INCHES

FETCH | 2010 I love hanging out in boatyards. They are quiet places, rich in craftsmanship, history and ghosts, and I can always find a compelling subject when surrounded by the sights and smells of boatbuilding, and the romance and reality of the sea. It’s an appreciation born of reverence.

I was carrying my easel and bag along the wharves on a late August afternoon, peering into sheds, looking for moments that stir recollection; things that define me and put me at peace.

When I first noticed the dog, he was already heading toward me from the end of the gravel lot, where the ramp went down to the bay. Something about his gait meant business. He wasn’t wagging his tail or moving with a lope. Nothing said angry, but nothing said friendly either. He trotted in that slightly sideways manner lean dogs employ that signals confidence and mission.

BELFAST YARD (DETAIL)

There was a stranger to intercept. I couldn’t tell what breed he was but there looked to be

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Shepherd in the mix — a medium-size, proud, working-class dog with muscular neck and a coat

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the color of worn leather boots.

Someone down at the dock called for him: “Sam, get back here.” It was spoken with detached resignation, the way parents talk when they have given up on discipline. The voice echoed against the spar shed and the shop, and died without clue to origin. Sam appeared to be of his own mind and at the moment focused on me.

I get along well with animals but I’ve had enough experience to know that a strange dog needs to be respected. Sometimes you know; sometimes you don’t. This one’s eyes didn’t meet mine. Instead he observed me peripherally as he padded in my direction. I did the same. His turf. Fine with me.

As he got closer I noticed the sides of his mouth bulging slightly, as if he was carrying something. That’s usually a good sign. He brushed past in stride, then came about to face me, right in front of my legs. We stood that way for five or six seconds, then I said hello and started to lean forward. He growled. I froze. It would have been an uncomfortable moment if not for that

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something in his mouth that garbled the noise and made it hard to take him seriously, like being

... he grew angrier, willing it

chewed out by an old guy with loose dentures. Still, no quick moves.

to dare move. I’ve played

With a percussive bark he coughed his package onto my foot. It was obvious that he had been

that game before, but without

carrying it around for a long while. The slimy, mud-brown, decomposing lump could have been

the teeth.

anything. With bared teeth he snarled and barked again, thrusting his face inches from my feet.

All his energy was directed at it and he grew angrier, willing it to dare move. I’ve played that game before, but without the teeth.

I flicked my ankle, sending the wad to the side, but Sam had it before it hit the ground. Sam was not pleased. He gave me a quick upward glance and spat it back between my sneakers. My effort had been unworthy, but I would get another chance. He quivered and snarled, hunkered down, eyes boring into his nemesis. I could see now that it was a well-chewed lump of wood. The first time he had waited for it to be in the air before lunging, so I decided I could reach down and pick it up. Slowly I lowered my hand. His hot breath wet my fingers as I grabbed the slippery wad. There was saliva on my pant leg. Somewhere far off Sam’s name was called again, but we were engaged.

I stood up and he took a convulsive leap backward. This is what he had been waiting for. He let out with a fierce shriek as I pulled back my arm. His brain was on fire. I drilled a line drive as hard as I could, sending the stick towards the ramp, back to where Sam had come from. He took off before it left my hand, throwing gravel up against my chest, accelerating across the yard in a swirl of dust, yelping and barking. This was his everything, his hope and passion, his pain and ecstasy, his reason.

I, on the other hand, took the opportunity to slip behind the spar shed and remove myself from the playing field. I have some borderline obsessions too. I felt for his torment, but the sun wouldn’t wait for me. I had my own stick to fetch.

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CHURCH DINNER

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NIGHT LIGHT

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PENTAGOET PUB

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NORTHERN STAR

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HOLY HOPE

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ELIZABETH E

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SEAHORSE | 2013 I passed the boat a dozen times before I saw her. My attention was always on the other side of the road — probably on the sign at the sand lane that comes out of the scrub — but on my trip out to get groceries she caught my eye, resting on jack-stands just over a slight rise. I was drawn to her lines and colors so I stopped and got out to look.

It is quiet on the northern coastal expanses of Maine. Beyond the boat was a tidal estuary that has been fed by Western Bay in twice-a-day tidal cycles for thousands of years. A breeze gently combed the tall grass around my feet while a distant gull entertained his friends, impersonating a baby’s cry, then an old man clearing his throat.

HIPPOCAMPUS (DETAIL)

There is a lot of the heroic left in a good boat whose working days are done and I suppose that’s

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why it’s not uncommon for them to be put up in full view, like a model on a shelf, rather than be

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left to rot in some hidden corner. At rest on supports in still fields of granite and blueberries, they echo the burial platforms of the plains Indians.

The boat sat just a few miles from where Will Frost built the first “Jonesport” style lobster boat on Beals Island in the 1920s. Other builders in New England adopted the design and more than a dozen shops operated on the island alone. They produced so many of the boats that they were sometimes referred to as “Beals.” With the slight drop in the sheer this one is not a classic Jonesport, but still quite beautiful.

Removed from the water and without the wheelhouse, the sensuous lines of the hull are easy to see.

The contours begin as the designer’s vision of how the vessel will move through the water. That idea is formed in a wood model that is hand carved to scale. It has to look right before timbers are cut.

Constructing a wooden boat is a laborious process requiring a woodworker with great skill and a customer with a stout wallet. There is only one wood lobster boat being built from scratch on

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Beals, and few in the whole state (most are fiberglass). Doug Dodge, a descendant of Will Frost, is

At rest on supports in

building it. Doug went to Pennsylvania to select the oak trees for the keel and ribs, and he found

still fields of granite and

the cedar for the planks in another part of Maine. He did the final milling in his shop. Some of his friends stop by to help him with the two- and three-man tasks, such as bending planks into position, but he is building the 38-foot boat to his own design, by himself, by hand. The actual construction will take three years, but from first phone call to clearing the harbor will be more than four.

I admire the men who build these beautiful vessels, as well as those who go to sea in them to make their living. I’m at an age where my own achievements, failures, and heartbreaks have given me an appreciation for those of others. When I look at a boat that has been pulled out of service it’s the history that matters to me. I see through the peeling paint to the functional form, and I listen to the stories of life and purpose under the surface, growing faint as seasons pass and wood goes gray.

Before I got back on the road I took a photograph of the boat in the field, which I later referred to in combination with an imagined sky to create a studio painting. Two trees by themselves and the approaching sunset help place the mind. I added the figure to keep it alive.

What drove me to create this image was the name painted on the boat’s bow. It stuck in my head the whole trip home, poking at me for weeks until I had the painting done. The name wasn’t lettered by a professional sign painter, rather it was done crudely by hand — possibly after the boat had been put up. One word: “Hippocampus.”

It’s an unusual name. I knew the hippocampus was part of the brain but that was all. The dictionary says it is responsible for memory and navigation. The word is derived from the Latin for ‘seahorse’, which is how the hippocampus is shaped.

Seahorse. Navigation. Memories. Could there be a better name for a boat?

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blueberries, they echo the burial platforms of the plains Indians.

BLUE ANGEL

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LUCKY GIRL

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BELFAST YARD

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ISLEBORO YARD

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SUNDAY SERVICE

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SHIPYARD SHED

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FISHING | 2014 The pizza shop in Jonesport was open when I went past at four in the morning, its fluorescent lights probing the night fog along a short section of Main Street. Pickup trucks clustered in front, headlights on, motors running. Inside, the lobstermen were getting their coffee and sandwiches.

I parked in the sandy lot near the bridge, pulled on my boots and walked out onto one of the wharves with my bag of gear. The bare bulb on the bait shack threw fingers of light and shadow across the weathered boards. Near the end of the wharf a set of narrow stairs covered with green sea-stuff led down between the pilings to a small, wooden raft. I was supposed to get on that raft and pull myself by a rope over to the floating dock. Looking into the darkness below, I wasn’t so sure.

Dwight, who owns the lobster boat Mum’s Girls, parked his truck at the wharf and nodded to FIRST TRAP (DETAIL)

me as he walked past and climbed down the stairs. I watched him ride the raft out to the dock

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and then I went down too. The raft rocked in the water a perilous foot away. Dwight saw my

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uncertainty and told me to take a big step and grab the railing. It was a hairy moment but I got it settled and he pulled me over.

Dwight got into a dinghy and rowed out to his boat. In a few minutes Mum’s Girls came to life with a deep rumble. She pulled from her mooring, threaded past the other boats and eased up to the dock. My ride was here. The sternman, Mike, arrived and swung himself over the wide rail of the boat in one motion. I tried to do that too but flopped onto the deck, landlubber style. Hi, I’m the painter you agreed to take out today.

Dwight released the line and slowly took the boat onto the reach. A few kitchen lights shone from the island as the fog lifted, and we motored under the bridge towards the gold blush at the horizon. Dwight pushed the throttle, the bow rose, and I leaned forward. Water kicked out to the side and behind. I could see another boat’s lights keeping speed with us against the dim form of Great Wass Island. Ahead, two boats silhouetted by the dawning sky trailed pink wakes.

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Mum’s Girls headed at full speed out into the Atlantic Ocean. The 400-horsepower diesel was

The cloud of seabirds

loud enough that you needed to yell to be heard, but there was little conversation. Mike packed

greeting a returning

small mesh bags with bait. Dwight kept his eye on the plotter and depth finder. Twelve miles off shore it became a beautiful morning. To the west, the top of Cadillac Mountain broke the flat expanse of sea and a whale crested off our bow.

Dwight slowed us down to a drift as we came up on a field of lobster buoys and I recognized the orange and white stripes that marked his lines. He and Mike began their day of hauling, collecting and sorting the lobsters, restocking bait, and setting many of the 500 traps they tend, strung in pairs 200 feet below the surface. It required hours of highly choreographed, dangerous work. Mum’s Girls heaved with each swell. The hydraulic winch was fed by hand and lines slithered along the slippery deck, dragged to the sea bottom by the heavy metal crates. Movements were quick. Everything was wet.

This day was a good one but Dwight kept an eye on the weather while they worked. The warning signs are subtle; the direction of the wind, the color of the water, the form of the waves. We were a 38-foot vessel alone with the elements and a storm can move in from nowhere, swallowing islands, harbors and boats. They come fast, so you pay attention.

Seals sunbathed on Seaduck Rock as we headed back towards the harbor. Beals Island was up and dressed in summer greens with touches of red roof and white porch. Every now and then a reflection flashed from the windshield of a car traveling the coast road. The cloud of seabirds greeting a returning dragger sparkled against the blue sky.

Eight hours of reacting to the motion of the sea exhausted most of my legs’ long-ignored muscle groups and my exit from the boat was as inelegant as my entry had been. One of the guys working on the dock noticed me staggering around and helped rope me back to the stairs on the scary raft. “Take a big step,” he said.

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dragger sparkled against the blue sky.

REGULARS

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BROOKLIN MAIN SHED

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FIRST TRAP

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MOOSABEC FOG

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DONNA MARIE

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THREE AT ONCE

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FAST BOAT | 2014 When I got to Doug Dodge’s boatshed Uncle Billy was sitting on a bench next to the stove, painting boards. It was the first time I’d met Uncle Billy. He is one of the older, sort-of-retired guys who stop by to say hi at the shed and get conscripted for whatever chore is at hand.

Doug leaned over the rail of the 38-foot wood lobster boat he’s been working on for a couple of years and introduced me. “This is Bob, the painter,” he said. The painter part was more important than the name. My time spent painting amongst the locals has earned me Down East credibility rarely achieved by people “from away.” Uncle Billy smiled and nodded in recognition.

While I was painting Uncle Billy painting the boards Doug leaned over the rail again and asked if I wanted to go for a fast boat ride. He has a 28-foot lobster boat that has a modified 409 Chevy engine with way too much horsepower for not much boat. Miss Brenda always takes first in class UNCLE BILLY (DETAIL) OIL ON BOARD H. 16 x W. 16 INCHES

at the Fourth of July lobster boat races. Doug knows fast. He had left his boat grounded-out on the last tide — supposedly to inspect the hull but more likely to fit a new racing propeller — and I was sure the “ride” back to his mooring in the harbor would be high spirited. I said no thanks. I know fast too. He asked Uncle Billy, who said he had something to do, which was a lie.

A young guy came in, dressed like someone on vacation in Maine. He’d been to the shed before and climbed the ladder leaning against the side of the boat to chat Doug up a bit. There is a conversational divide when it comes to Mainers and us people from the Northeast Corridor. We are used to a verbal cadence and require silences be filled. Anything will do as long as it’s a noise.

In Maine, the longer the silence and the fewer the words, the better. Doug was polite to the guy but listening was getting in the way of finishing the cabin deck. Finally the visitor ran out of thoughts and started to make those noises. Doug casually asked him if he would like to go for a fast boat ride. The guy was so excited he nearly burst. He asked if he could bring his wife, and Doug said sure. Uncle Billy and I kept our heads in our work as the guy scrambled past us to get home.

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I was back in my cottage at the shipyard making some fish stew when the tide lifted Doug’s boat

These two were hunkered

off the mud in the harbor. When he threw the throttle forward the roar blew the curtains in and

forward gripping their

slid dishes across the shelf. I took a beer out onto the porch. Miss Brenda was scratching a silver line between Jonesport and the island, shooting spray from the bow and stern, more on top of the water than in it. She certainly was fast.

I could see the happy couple sitting at Miss Brenda’s stern. You know how people put their hands up in the air when they are on roller coasters? These two were hunkered forward gripping their seats like granite and please, please, make this be over soon.

Five times Miss Brenda screamed through the harbor, one way then the other. When Doug finally brought his guests ashore in his dinghy they half crawled, half fell out onto the dock. It’s my guess that they didn’t sleep or complete their sentences for days. It’s to be expected. That’s what a fast boat will do for you.

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seats like granite and please, please, make this be over soon.

TOWARDS THE REACH

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PICKING CRAB

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MORNING SHIFT

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ANDREA’S SHED

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PERIO POINT

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BACK SHED (BROOKLIN)

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LIVES LIKE ANY | 2015 Doug Dodge saw me setting up my easel on the side of the road as he was driving to work. He pulled over and asked if I would be stopping by his shop. Doug’s boatshed is paradise for a guy who likes boats, woodworking, and Down East accents. I paint there every time I go to Jonesport and we’ve become friends. I told him I’d come over later, and that this time I wanted to make my painting about him, not his boats or shop.

It’s a difficult time for Doug. His wife has Alzheimer’s and is at the stage where she has to be watched every minute. Friends come over to help so he can go to the shop and get work done, but he doesn’t get much sleep. He’s got Lyme disease and the antibiotics are beating him up. The boat he’s building is taking longer than planned and that has created serious problems. In spite of it all DOUG & DOZER (DETAIL) OIL ON BOARD H. 16 x W. 24 INCHES

he plugs right along and still speaks with a chuckle.

Doug doesn’t have time to spare so I painted the room first, placing the sawhorse in the position where I expected him to sit. When I suggested he should be holding something — a tool maybe, or piece of wood — Doug reached up into the rack and pulled down a model that had been used to loft one of his boats.

He sat on the horse and talked about his wife as he gently moved a square of sandpaper across the hull.

Doug’s dog, Dozer, the fattest black Lab I’ve ever seen, staggered in from where he had been sunning himself on the road. He plopped down in the back near the band saw, lifting a large cloud of sawdust. Dozer likes to be where the action is, as long as he doesn’t have to walk far.

I only had Doug in front of me for about twenty minutes but it was a good twenty, with no distractions. He looked tired although he talked in detail about the next boat he planned to build, which I took as a good sign.

For me that’s the perfect painting experience: when the content constructs itself organically.

The shed, the pose, the dog, the hull model, were all out of Doug’s life, all there for the seeing.

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My subjects emerge during the time I spend observing them. Small truths about the world

Doug’s dog, Dozer, the

around me, and my own life, are revealed every time I decide that some element matters and

fattest black Lab I’ve ever

needs to be part of my painting. In a time when truth is difficult to identify it’s as close as I get.

seen, staggered in from

The next morning I got a message from Doug. He wanted me to know that The Community

where he had been sunning

Church of Christ of Jonesport was hosting a Free Dinner at noon, in case I wanted to paint there.

himself on the road.

I went over to see what a Free Dinner might look like and get permission. The lady in charge, Faye, was thrilled to have me.

He plopped down in the back near the band saw,

The Free Dinner grew out of a funeral lunch held at the church years ago. The group had such a good time reminiscing that it was decided they should get together every third Thursday.

The event expanded to include people from a distance who appreciate the camaraderie and warm, affordable food (Free means whatever you can pay).

Faye said you have to be “elderly” to attend, another woman said “over 40.” I smiled at that.

There was no need to check Medicare cards in that room. I was the youngest one except for a couple of grandkids who kept the water glasses filled. A green salad was followed by ham, potatoes, and peas, and finished with an apple crisp. The ladies wouldn’t stop trying to feed me.

During dessert Faye came out of the kitchen and rang a pot with a spoon. I was called on to deliver an impromptu talk about why I was painting the life of a fishing village to the enthusiastic but hard-of-hearing group. My discourse was frequently interrupted by calls of “What did he say?” “Louder,” and “Did they give you something to eat?”

No, I didn’t get anything to eat. On the short list of things that feed me, friendship, discovery, and creating things are the important ingredients in life, and I often forget to eat while engaged in them. I will make myself something back at the cottage. Maybe fish stew. That seems right.

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lifting a large cloud of sawdust. Dozer likes to be where the action is, as long as he doesn’t have to walk far.

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LOBSTER BOIL

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GROCERY

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LIAR’S TABLE

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SID’S WHARF

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STANLEY BEAL

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DINNER

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FISH STEW Fish stew is one of those dishes with as many variations as there are cooks. Mine often reflects the ingredients I have at the time. Here’s how I make it when I’m not missing anything.

Cook a few strips of bacon until crisp in a medium-size pot. Sounds good already, right?

Crumble the bacon and put it aside. Use butter if there is no bacon. If you can’t have butter or bacon you’re in the wrong recipe.

Cook a chopped onion in the fat until transparent.

Cut a big russet potato into 3/4” cubes and layer on top.

Put a haddock fillet on top of that.

Add liquid to half way up the side of the fish. I use equal measures of clam juice and almond milk, but you can use chicken stock and milk (even some half and half if your wife isn’t home).

Drop in a sprig or two of thyme. I add ground red pepper, carefully. Old Bay is fine.

Bring just to a boil and turn down to a light simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, with the lid on.

Remove thyme sprigs, add the crumbled bacon, stir gently to break up the fish a little.

I add some peeled shrimp at this point, maybe some scallops, cut into bite-size pieces.

When they are cooked through (a couple of minutes), you are done.

You might add a bit of brandy on a cold and rainy day. Sometimes I put some peas in along with the shrimp to ease the bacon guilt. Oyster crackers are a must.

Serves 2.

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SUNE’S DOCK

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AT THE POUND

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ROBERT BECK b. 1950 Robert Beck grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, an area known for its artistic and cultural heritage. Beck left a career in the business world at the age of 40 to pursue painting, and subsequently attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He maintains a gallery of his work in Lambertville, NJ. Robert Beck’s paintings have been the subject of three in-depth museum exhibitions: the James A. Michener Art Museum (1999), the City of Trenton Museum at Ellarslie (2007) and the Maine Maritime Museum (2016).

His paintings have been included in invitational exhibitions at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (Second Time Around, 2014), the James A. Michener Museum (Local Theater Makes Good, 2014; River Painters, 2008), New Hope Arts (Continuum, 2012), The Gratz Gallery (Then And Now, 2010), Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK (American Artists, 2006), the Phillips’ Mill 75th Anniversary Retrospective (2004), and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (The Unbroken Line, 1997).

Robert Beck’s work has been presented in 30 solo gallery exhibitions, including the National SELF PORTRAIT

Arts Club (New York), the Rosenfeld Gallery (Philadelphia), the Morpeth Gallery (Pennington and

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Hopewell, New Jersey), and the Gallery of Robert Beck. His paintings have been accepted into

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more than 50 juried exhibitions.

Beck has received 28 significant painting awards, was a finalist for the Pew Fellowship in 2000, and in 2014 was awarded the PSC Medal for Excellence and Contribution to the Arts by the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the oldest arts club in America.

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Robert Beck is a teacher, a curator, a lecturer and a writer, and he has hosted a radio interview program. His column on his art-related experiences, entitled “A Thousand Words”, has appeared monthly in ICON Magazine for more than a decade.

The focus of Beck’s work has evolved from figure, to landscape, to genre paintings done from life and studio paintings composed from sketches and imagination. His subjects vary, but the common thread in all of his images is viewpoint: the description of his encounter. Concentrating on events, occupations and environments, Beck’s paintings are a chronicle of our time.

Robert Beck is known for painting in series — multiple images addressing diverse aspects of the same subject. These “visual essays” include work created while traveling the Mississippi River on a towboat pushing barges, amidst a symphony orchestra during its performances, with a racing team in Europe, and traveling with doctors in Senegal. His paintings depicting life in the Maine Maritime community are his largest body of work with a single focus.

Robert Beck lives with his wife, Doreen, in New Hope, Pennsylvania. You can view his work at www.robertbeck.net.

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ern coast of Maine each year to document life in the fishing towns and villages. Beck is known for addressing subjects through multiple-painting ‘visual essays’. These have included bodies of work painted on a towboat pushing barges down the Mississippi, travelling with surgeons in Senegal, and a 44-image exploration of the contemporary American West. He has painted live on television broadcasts, in the midst of symphony orchestra performances, and even in operating theatres during surgeries — documenting the people, places and occupations of our time. Beck’s work in Maine is his largest body of work on a common subject.

ROBERT BECK | OVER EAST

Award-wining painter Robert Beck has been returning to the north-

This book is a companion piece to the 2016 solo exhibition of Robert “There is a pace, a common understanding, and a heritage, that course

Beck’s paintings at the Maine Maritime Museum, titled Over East —

along the coast just like in West Virginia coal towns and

An Artist’s Journal: The Contemporary Maritime Community. Included

Kansas farm communities. Proximity to nature, and the beauty and harsh reality that come with it, dictate what’s important.”

— From JONESPORT

with images painted from life among the locals as they work, and studio paintings created from recollection, are a dozen essays written about his experiences, all previously published in ICON Magazine. These paintings and stories, crafted with keen observation, humor, and obvious love for his subjects, are a celebration of a distinctly American place and culture, revered for its heritage, work ethic, and natural beauty.

ON THE COVER: STERNMAN

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