Captain’s Log

This painting is all about the mitten.

For the featured summer shows, the staff at the Granary Gallery do something a little extra to bring each artist’s work to life.
They masterfully reflect the essence of the art work by arranging antiques, props, artifacts and flowers
subtly positioned to add depth and often whimsy to enhance the patron’s experience.

They stay late on the Saturday night before the openings
and make all the decisions about hanging and arranging
with a keen collective eye to design.
So it is always a fun surprise to walk into the show on Sunday afternoon and see,
for the first time, what they have created.

On one such occasion, tucked amongst a pile of some woolly and maritime artifacts
which were displayed under one of my paintings,
I remembered it being one of the sheep
but it may have been the spinning loft
or quite possibly the black Irish horse Macy
anyway on this occasion…
I spied the mitten.

All of three inches, it was held to a tiny ball of yarn
by four shiny steel needles thin enough to put inside the stem of a spring violet.
I was in love.
Honestly, to hold this gem in the palm of your hand
and see the impossibly small stitches took this knitters’ breath clean away.

They said it had been found in an old sea captain’s chest.
OK well there you go…I’m hooked.
I begged to take it home to show the Muses and, now leaning against the window frame by my easel,
it has become a powerful talisman.
My imagination soars when I ponder who worked those triple ought sticks,
who spun that finest of wool, for whom was it stitched, and on what fateful voyage.

Because it is what I do, I have begun to work some of these scenarios out… in paint.

There are two in this year’s show. So that probably means the Muses have a series in the cards.

The Captain’s Log let me play with some old favorites among the prop shelves.
And I found some of my earliest homespun yarn which was almost as thin as that used by the captain…
or was it his wife…
or perhaps the harpooner…
with which I tried a tiny ribbing stitch to get the feel of the needles.

Ouch. Those babies are surgically sharp.
I had spent this last winter twiddling size one needles around while knitting socks, and my fingers had the callouses to prove it,
but the Captain’s sticks are wicked barbed wee deevils.
I have a new respect for the men and women of the Aran Islands
shown in old black and white photos flying those same steel shafts around at high speed
while simultaneously tending their flocks and seeing to supper
and minding the bairns lo those centuries ago.

Ah…when idle hands…
and magical gallery moments
meet on the easel…

whatever will come next…