Brigantine

2019

32" X 24"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

The most exciting artifacts discovered in this house are on…and in…the walls.

Tucked into planking and stairwell are all kinds of hand carved symbols and signatures and…ships.

I knew that. Adam Moore had pointed out a few of them on his tour and the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation site explores this in their literature…

“Inside the house, one finds plastered walls and various kinds of decorations. The plaster was made from a mixture of crushed oyster shells and horse hair. Some walls, such as those in the Borning Room, are inscribed with intricate carvings of ships. Other walls, such as those in the attic, bear drawings of lotus flowers, drawings which a child might have made with a compass. In the Pantry, old bottles and canning jars line the curving shelves. Some jars, still sealed after many years, contain perfectly preserved tomatoes and peaches.”

And when I was working on this composition it was all about the pantry light for me.
And the magnificent blue paint. And the way the newly shored up timbers had shifted the old baseboard to reveal the startlingly bright original color of that blue and a mystery slice of yellow.

After a bit of sketching and watching how the light was changing with the moving sun, I got up to stretch and moved the door, which had been opened flat against the wall, and this is what was hiding behind it…

I know. Under how many generations of paint, and at either a child’s height or a seated adult’s, was this little gem of a carving.

There were many ship’s captains who owned and occupied this house over its hundreds of years so they and the loved ones watching the horizon for their returns would have had a vivid understanding of ship design.

As does my pal Captain Morse so I queried him about the type of vessel we might have here. His best guess has become the title… mostly because I love the word itself.

There will be many many more Captains at the Granary Gallery opening for this show and I guarantee I’m gonna hear just as many theories as to what manner of ship this be.

I can only say that I have remained steadfastly true to the verisimilitude of this particular hand carved vessel…and leaned heavily on the more romantic essences of the rich and dreamy maritime for my title.

Sail on little one.