North End Shipyard Archives | Page 2 of 2

March 22, 2017

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be down at the boatyard

That’s as far as I can go without some better weather.

The fit-out of the Maine schooner fleet begins in earnest on April 1. That doesn’t mean that their crews haven’t been busy. There’s a lot of dockside work to keep them out of mischief, including mending and refinishing the boats and the shipyard itself. American Eagle and Heritageare immaculate because their crews labor tirelessly to keep the old girls moving. If you’ve ever owned an old house, you understand the necessity.

Occasionally, the weather keeps them busy, too. That happened during March 14’s blizzard. A schooner at Lermond Cove snapped a bowline and threatened boats downwind. The harbormaster, three Coast Guardsmen, and several sailors battled gale-force winds to haul her in. Kudos to Victory Chimes’ Chris Collins for reacting so quickly.

Jacob Pike from another angle.

I’ve been watching the Jacob Pikeall winter, waiting for the right combination of warm weather and good light in which to paint her. The best week, of course, was when I was in the Bahamas. Yesterday, on a whim, I asked Shary Cobb Fellows how much longer the old lobster smack was going to be in drydock. “It has to vanish by the first of April,” she told me. The American Eagle needs the spot. “The captains are working on the crane,” she added. That really caught my attention, because their Little Giantcrane is a focal point of the painting I’d envisioned.

I’ve painted in snow many times. I don’t like it. Even when the day is warm, the cold climbs up your legs. “Snow paintings are something artists like and the public doesn’t,” Brad Marshall said, and it’s true. Most people have enough winter without wanting more of it on their walls.

What sailors do during their down time.

We still have six inches of slush on the ground. The light was dismal and dark. Nevertheless, the tide was exactly where I wanted it. I decided to block in the painting anyway. I ought to get at least one day next week during which I can finish it.

This is a big work: 18X24. That’s the largest I’ve painted in the field in a long time. I switched easels because that’s far too large for my tiny aluminum pochade box.

Too much snow for the likes of me.

Later I walked to the office to say hello. Captains Doug and Linda Lee were there, as was Captain John Foss. They had just finished working on the crane, which has been an all-winter project requiring special-order new parts. Tomorrow they will use it to start putting the railway rollers back in the water.

As I was chatting with Captain Doug, I noticed the view behind him. It was spectacular—the stern of the Jacob Pike, the Little Giant crane front and center, and the bow of the Heritage. Let’s hope I can do it justice. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be down at the boatyard.

March 3, 2017

Learning new ways to see

More Work than They Bargained For (Isaac H. Evans), Carol L. Douglas

Yesterday, my friend and erstwhile student took his wife and me out to breakfast. On the way home, I asked them to swing by the North End Shipyard so I could ground myself in my next boat painting. He and I walked around the Jacob Pikeconsidering the angles from which I could paint it. Since it’s in the cradle on a marine railway, those angles are limited to where there’s actual earth on which to stand.

His wife kept saying, “Over here, guys.” We politely ignored her; after all, she’s not a painter.

He took a call. I walked back over to where she was standing. “See?” she asked. And I did, and how. Artists are not the only people with eyes.

Packing Oakum (Isaac H. Evans), Carol L. Douglas

I am reading the Bible with a friend who is a newer Christian. We were talking about how the Bible ignores the race questions that seem to consume us today. I referred to that soaring passage that reads, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

The distinction between Jew and Greek wasn’t a race thing, it was a culture thing, I said.

“Yeah,” she answered. “One god versus many gods.”

Bam! It wasn’t what I’d meant; it was far more insightful than that. It was exactly how a first-century Jew would have seen the divide.

Ready to Launch (Mercantile), Carol L. Douglas

I get lots of offers for ways to promote myself. I usually just delete them without opening. I spent this past week with Bobbi Heath and listened as she sorted through the same detritus. She pokes her head into every rabbit hole and asks herself what she might be able to do with this new tool. Before Bobbi was an artist, she had a very successful career as a software project manager. There’s a lot to learn from her.

Each time we are challenged by a new idea, we face a choice. We can ignore it, get mad, or consider it. These moments are so common that we often miss them completely. We’re completely wrapped up in our own thoughts.

But each human being is the sum of his or her experiences, education, and character, which makes the potential for new thinking almost limitless. Creativity is about synthesizing existing ideas into new patterns. It’s hard for me to shut up sometimes, but when I choose to listen instead of talk, I learn a great deal.

January 4, 2017

Making pictures while the sun don’t shine

“Cadet,” 8X6, oil on canvas, by Carol L. Douglas

My friends taught me to cook scallops a few years ago. Of course, to cook them, you have to have them. Last year and this, they’ve gotten me a gallon of the beautiful bivalves from their own fisherman source up in Castine.

Berna and Harry are cooking connoisseurs, but I’m usually a deeply insecure cook. Something snapped during the Christmas holiday, though. Over coffee, I confessed to Berna that I’d spent a good deal of the week in front of a stove. I’d run up a few batches of Christmas cookies, made sauce and meatballs, fried some cod, made a chicken pot pie and then schnitzel and red cabbage. As I have been known to not cook for years at a time, this greatly surprised my family.

My "Christmas Angel," was a 4H project. I trot it out every year on Facebook to amuse my childhood chums.

My “Christmas Angel,” (the real thing, not the painting) was a 4H project. I trot it out every year to amuse my childhood chums.

A childhood chum recently told me that my mother, who was our 4H cooking leader, had fostered his love of cooking. I didn’t seem to catch that from her, but it’s true that most of my foundational knowledge about cooking, baking, and sewing came from 4H. That group, an outgrowth of the Cooperative Extension, shows up in the most surprising places. Berna, it turns out, was also a 4H-er. We talked about the County Fair, baking sponges, and other joys of our youth.

I sure did enough canning as a kid. Putting up scallops reminds me of that (although it’s a lot easier). How, I wonder, did Mainers put up seafood before the invention of little plastic freezer bags?

Preparing luxurious pet food for Max.

I know that I could do something thrifty with all those bivalve feet—like make stock—but my 19-year-old Jack Russell terrier really loves them. Since he won’t be around next scallop season, I gave them to him. The ‘foot’ seems to be just a muscle attached to a bigger muscle. It’s tough, but it’s not like the toothless old guy chews his food anyway.

I frittered away my lunch hour chattering with Berna, so I had to work past dark. For my readers in more southerly climes, that means 4 PM in Maine in January. I finished my little painting of the Cadet under artificial light.

Years ago, I studied with Cornelia Foss. She would never turn the studio lights on at dusk, insisting that dim light was actually good for color management—it caused your paintings to be brighter and lighter than you expected. In general, I’ve found that to be true, but you have to wait until dawn to see the results.

I’m generally early to bed and early to rise so my dimly-lit studio is usually not a problem, but it does mean I have to make pictures while the sun shines.

January 3, 2017

I’ve got a crush on every boat

It’s a start.

Yesterday I planned to stop in to the North End Shipyard to take a good look at the Jacob Pike, which I think I want to paint. From there I would go home and do an exercise painting the branches behind my studio.

It would be improper to poke about without saying hello to Shary Cobb Fellows (and her chocolate lab, Coco) in the office. Captain Linda Lee of the schooner Heritage was there. We chatted about the Jacob Pike’s history as a sardine carrier. It may have been a vacation day for many people, but for Captain Linda, it was another day in a new season of fitting out.

The “Jacob Pike” in drydock.

Sometimes what you need to do is just look, so that’s what I did. I looked at that old sardine boat from the front, the back, the propellers, and the top. While I was doing so, I ran into Sarah Collins from the schooner American Eagle. She was crossing the yard in search of wood filler. I talked with her as she sanded that young slip of a rowboat, Roscoe.

In November, Shary took a great photo of the sun rising over Owls Head. In the foreground, the little tug Cadet nestles against American Eagle; behind them is the Rockland light. Yesterday, I noticed that Cadet was back in the same place. That in turn reminded me that I had intended to paint that tugboat last summer; the idea had just gotten away from me.

Sarah Collins making everything ship-shape for next summer’s cruises.

Cadet was rebuilt over ten years by the American Eagle’s captain, John Foss. She was built in Kennebunkport, Maine, by Bernard Warner in 1935 or 1936 for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Captain John Foss wrote in 2011. “At some point she was sold to Ellis S. Snodgrass, who built the Cousins Island bridge in Casco Bay. The Cadet went on to be owned by Cianbro from 1969-1984 after which she was bought by William Clark as the Cadet Corporation in the Portland area. She was used last by John C. Gibson from 1984-1989.”

“Cadet” nestling up to the “American Eagle.”

Instead of my painting kit, I was traveling with my ancient dog. There would be no field painting with his help. But forget the study of the winter woods. I could paint the Cadet. I went back to my studio and started a small sketch. (Boats are complex; it will take me more than a day to finish it.)

As I drew, Pandora queued up Donovan’s Atlantis. That song combines the coolest groove with the stupidest lyrics. Yet, somehow, his mumbling about his “antediluvian baby” seemed perfectly appropriate to the Old Girl on my canvas. I laughed, and my groove was back.

January 2, 2017

A @#$% of a hangover

Still life by Carol L. Douglas.

I was busy hanging a show of my own new works. It was a mixed bag—some expressive pastels, but an over-reliance on black and a few things that weren’t framed, which is my bête noire. Then the alarm clock rang and flung me back into reality. No new show, no new works, only the staleness of returning to work after a long hiatus.

Picking up ones’ brushes after a long lay-off is daunting. I’ll start by ‘playing scales’ with a small study. That’s what the still lives here were done for, but I’m more likely to paint the snow-covered branches outside my window today. From there, I’ll move to something more significant. I may be borrowing trouble by anticipating rustiness, but that’s the usual outcome of too long away.

Still life by Carol L. Douglas.

That’s if I can navigate the mess my studio became over Christmas. It’s an inviting, open space in an otherwise small house. People have a way of stashing unfinished projects in there.

Last week was the first week of Christmastide. My house rang with joy, particularly after my grandson discovered the sounds a good piano can make.

The prior week, however, was my semiannual week of medical tourism in Rochester. This leads to my only New Year’s resolution, which is that we must find doctors in mid-coast Maine. On-the-road colonoscopy prep may make for a good story, but it eats up time and energy.

Today is also the official opening day of income tax season. Having just resolved my last tax question right before Christmas, I’m not in any hurry to play again. If I add to that the 903 emails that came in while my laptop was stashed under my bed last week, I might almost feel gloomy.

Still life by Carol L. Douglas.

Luckily, the sky is blooming into another beautiful day. There is an interesting boat in dry-dock at the North End Shipyard, which Captain John Foss tells me is the Jacob Pike, built in Thomaston in 1949 as a sardine carrier, now in service as a lobster smack. Since I have to go out later this morning, I’ll stop and look at her more carefully.

I went downstairs and turned on the Christmas tree lights and immediately felt better. In modern America, we’ve moved the season of Christmas forward to start on Thanksgiving and end on Christmas Day. Among us old-timers, the lights remain on, stubbornly, until Epiphany.