The Artist Eye

The Artist Eye

October 20, 2006

It is raining and I can just make out the pale gray line of trees dipping close to the pale gray water at the far end of the cove. The green has abandoned the oaks leaving copper polished like the big tubs for sale along the road in Mexico, rust like the splotches on an unused crosscut hanging on the side of a forgotten Maine barn, and red like looking at the sun through a glass of cabernet. The maples that turned first, the burning red ones, have dropped most of their leaves. Stragglers remain, a torn red leaf hanging alone at the end of a branch. Some maples the ones that look like the leaves were painted with sun and dipped in blood are full color. I think the color is more spectacular now than when the sugar maples emerged dripping red from surrounding shades of green.

I asked Len, the lady who owns the Eastland Motel (emphasis on “Mo”) in Lubec, if she knew of any spots around Lubec that would be good for painting. She told me a long story about her friend, Sally, who paints, the essence of which is that Sally sees things differently. Sally notices things that Len would never see, and sees possibilities for a painting where Len sees nothing but an old barn and a sick looking cow in a muddy lot. Sally sees with the artist eye. She sees texture, contrast, shadows, structure, eye candy. She has the artist eye.

I started painting with watercolors after we came to Maine. Maine begs one to paint. Ask Andrew Wythe. I don’t have the artist eye yet, but it is growing slowly in my brain. I already notice special scenes, I never saw before. We drive down untourist roads looking for places that need to be painted. I get out of the car where an old wooden shrimp boat with pealing green and white paint and broken windows is propped in the mud next to a partially collapsed dock from which a gray shack hangs precariously. I run around snapping pictures. I look for angles, shadows, (where is the sun?) where the paint flecks glow, color, the blue plastic barrel in the foreground leaning against the stack lobster traps, orange and green lobster buoys piled and fading next to a heap of aged loading pallets, the red boat floating in the distance and the just painted white house set in the orange and red maples across the bay. Then I wonder about the boat’s history, the owners, the families it supported and where they are now, the storms and close calls, the decision to park it in the mud and whether anyone remembers that it is here; or cares.

Whether one paints or not, developing the artist eye makes wandering special.

One place Len suggested that we go was the East Quoddy Head light house at the far end of the road on Campobello Island. Campobello Island is in New Brunswick, just across the bridge from Lubec, and is where the Roosevelts (Franklin Delano) had a summer house. I don’t know how to paint wind or sideways rain or the sound of waves crashing against the rocks or the white gull floating magically in the wind just above the mountain ash’s red berries. But I noticed them.

A picture of what I did paint is attached.