The Islander

Last fall the Granary Gallery asked all of its’ artists to render our individual interpretations of the Islander and we gathered on a sunny but cold December afternoon to share the work and raise a toast to the decommissioning of the big boat. In anticipation of the event Rachel Nava Rohr, a writer from the Gazette, interviewed some of us for an accompanying write up. As she and I got to chatting over the phone I realized that my strongest visual
memories of crossings were actually deep in the bowels of the old boat.

With apologies to R. , I paraphrase her mention of this in the article…
“For me, the love of the boat was down underneath – the actual guts of it. …the syrupy-thick layers and layers of paint…
Sometimes you wondered if that was holding the boat together …
with one piece in the show she (Heather) feels far from done with the “assignment” ”.

As fate would have it our voyage home from that December show was on the very vessel itself.
The absolute wildest ride I have had to date. Our first warning was when the SSA workers waved standbys off and left unusually long distances between vehicles. Second was the massive amounts of water on the car deck.
No rain for days, and sunlight raking across the bow ?
Started off ok, bit blustery, not bad … until we took the turn out of the harbor.
Wham ! Big water.
I mean waves that cleared the portals and crashed over the tops of those big doors
and flooded onto the (aha !) wet deck.
I turned to Pat and asked if she was scared. Nope, just fine.
Me too, I lied. Gulliver was much more honest and shook in the back of the truck.
Since our names did not appear again in the paper that week we obviously made it.
Along with a dozen or so of our fellow passengers sporting various shades of green.
The old girl gave us a memorable send off.

So, she gets one more go round on my easel. And I’m eternally grateful for that last coat of paint.