Waterman's Sundown
Last week I participated in the Coastal Virginia Plein Air festival. (Sorry it has taken me almost a week to post any more of my experience). I was honored to be included in this event - they invited some real rock stars in the Mid-Atlantic art world. Norfolk Virginia and the surrounding Hampton Roads area - Virginia Beach, Ocean View, East Beach, Hampton, Newport News - is a luscious and vibrant community (and metro area) of the Chesapeake, the Atlantic, ports, marinas, creeks, lakes, gardens, beautiful homes and people...urban, suburban and country...the world's largest naval base. This is the first plein air event of the season for me...I'm out of shape...started slowly...but quickly adapted...had a lot of fun and fellowship.
I painted lakes and marinas and people and houses and water towers and even dogs. This area is growing. Old piers and shanties and coves are being replaced with storied condos and building projects and pristine guarded communities. I wandered onto a construction site - they were demolishing the old to replace with the new. Old workboats docked at suspect pilons with storage shacks at the ready for there tools and supplies. This will be gone in 3 weeks. I do not know where the watermen will go or where they will dock their old work horses--that have supplied their families - probably - for several generations. I have nostalgia for this - I have waterman in my family, farming the Chesapeake for crabs, oysters, clams and much more restaurant fodder. I worry where they will go.
This painting below is about that - there were, in my viewscape right in front of me, a plethora of yachts, sailboats, fancy marinas in the background...even cranes and backhoes leveling the ground for a brand new condo complex. I whipped out my artistic license and waved my artist's wand and disappeared these shiny gadgets of the sea -painted only the old shack, the workboat and the sunset. I am trying to say something. I will talk about sailboats and marinas later.
I exhibited this painting at the event. I am honored to have won the "Best In Show" award for this. I am glad my story "talked" to someone else as well.
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"Waterman's Sundown" 14 x 18 oil/canvas
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