Winter Harbor Archives | Carol L. Douglas

August 15, 2016

This wonderful life

Corea, ME pine, by Lynne Vokatis.

In the week of a workshop, I form intense bonds with new people and see old friends again. I have learned to not take the future for granted. We will never have this exact experience again. The mix of people, the experience, the weather and our goals will be different next year. It will be beautiful, yes, but it won’t be the same.

Hence, I always cry when I say goodbye.

Looking back on the week, there were three important lessons:

There is an order of operations for painting. Learn that, and you will make life infinitely easier on yourself. (More on that tomorrow.)
To paint boldly, you need to stop mixing with your brush. That is what your palette knife is for.
Eventually everyone needs to pee in the woods.

The woods.

That last item is usually a shock for city dwellers, but most of America’s beauty spots don’t have Starbucks on the corner. And it really isn’t that hard to miss your shoes.

All last week I pondered whether I wanted to bring my workshop back to Schoodic Institute for an unprecedented third year. In the end I realized a simple fact: I love to teach there, my students love to paint there, and their families love to go there with them.

A fogbow over Frenchman Bay

Schoodic has some of the best vistas in all of Maine, which is saying a mouthful. Unlike the Mt. Desert part of Acadia National Park, there are no crowds. There are fishing, biking, hiking, and innumerable touristy things to entertain the non-painting fellow travelers.

In 1935, the Navy opened a radio listening post at Schoodic Point to replace the old Otter Cliffs station. Acadia was the best spot along the Atlantic for this because of its isolation and its unobstructed ocean path from Europe. Those same factors make for brilliant painting. Long, long breakers roll in from the open sea and crash on high rock bluffs.

Since the station was closed in 2002, the US government has transformed the site into a research and training center for the National Park Service. You can’t just drop by and stay the night. The only people who can stay there are participants in an educational program and their traveling parties.

They provide our meals so we don’t have to worry about preparing food when we’d rather be painting. At $1600 a week including room, board, access to the park and instruction, it’s a great deal.

Schoodic Institute waits among the pines and spruces for us to return next year.

So I finally wised up and did the contract part of my 2017 workshop before I left on Friday. It’s scheduled for August 6-11, 2017. Why should you care now? Because you’ll get an early bird discount of $100 if you sign up before January 1 (or a $50 returning-student discount if you’ve taken another of my workshops). That means you can ask for the workshop for Christmas.

Fog at Birch Harbor. The weather was generally fantastic all week.

Now the boilerplate: the 5-day workshop is just $1600, including your private room with shared bath, meals, snacks, and instruction. Accommodations for non-painting partners and guests are also available. Your deposit of $900 holds your space. Refunds are available up to 60 days prior to start, less a $50 administration fee.

Email me to let me know you’re interested, or for more information. I look forward to seeing you!

August 12, 2016

Old love

Pines in fog, by Cecilia Chang.

Perched on the back of her painting kit, feet propped on a pine snag, Cecilia Chang sat eating a sandwich. “I bet I’m the oldest student you’ve ever had,” she said.

I thought about it. “I bet you’re probably right,” I answered.

Cecilia is 72. Her husband, Tamin, is also with us. He is 75. Both are retired research scientists from Rochester, NY. Whether exercising your brain makes you age more slowly, I cannot say, but they are both exceptionally strong and limber. It has been impossible for me to stop them from climbing up and down the steep rocks on the Schoodic Peninsula. I’ve been worried.

Mark Island Overlook, by Lynne Vokatis.

Finally, I resorted to out-and-out lying. “I don’t mean to insult you, Grandfather,” I told Tamin, “but you cannot go down on those rocks in open-toed sandals. They are very dangerous. You will fall between the rocks and drown and I will never be allowed to teach in a National Park again.”

“We must respect Teacher and do as she says,” said Cecilia, equally straight-faced. Tamin, being a very courtly gentleman, acquiesced.

Pines in fog, by Corinne Kelly Avery.

I’ve been contemplating the miracle of long marriages recently. Occasionally I’ll see an older couple together, walking with obvious solicitude toward each other. That devotion and mutual support seems to me to be as precious as a newborn baby. Young love is, in a way, simple. It’s out of our control. Old love is a different kind of simple. The raw edges have been scraped away, leaving only the essence of affection. It’s a pity that so few people these days make it that far.

Cecilia took up painting when she retired. “I walk every day,” she told me. “Maybe if I painted every day, I’d be a better artist. But exercise is the reason I look 27 instead of 72.”

Winter Harbor lighthouse on Mark Island, by Lynne Vokatis.

Some years I have more enrollees than I can handle. This year we have a very small group. I take a long view about these things. Instead of struggling to fix the problem, I wait to see why it happened. (That’s one of the joys of self-employment.) One of the reasons, I now know, is that I’ve gotten to know the participants this year in a way that’s not usually possible.

The amazingly youthful Cecilia Chang attributes her good looks to daily exercise. That’s Corinne Kelly Avery at the right.

As we took our break, Cecilia started talking about her childhood in Taiwan. She told us how she visited a cathedral and felt a great sense of peace. The Holy Spirit drew her back, over and over, even when her father forbade her to be baptized.

There was someone in our group who needed to hear that powerful testimony, and some of us who were meant to be witnesses to the event. From the time I put together this year’s workshop last fall, heavenly wheels have turned within wheels. They brought this particular group of people together for a few galvanizing minutes on the rocks above Frenchman Bay.

My wee little rock demo took on a life of its own.

Dinner was on the deck of the Schoodic Institute Commons. I was fidgeting because I needed another 2000 steps to stay on track to defeat my son-in-law in this week’s Fitbit challenge. The youngsters in our group wanted to check messages or go shower. Only Cecilia and Tamin were willing to walk with me. We set off down a trail that dropped back down to Frenchman Bay. A pale peach sun hung low in a milky sky above the gentle lapping of the waves.

Now, seriously, how can you not be in awe of this life?

April 28, 2015

Beautiful Winter Harbor

Part of Winter Harbor Yacht Club’s fleet.(Credit unknown.)

Yesterday I saw this photo essay of Winter Harbor, ME in Yankee Magazine. I hope you click through and enjoy the pictures.

This is the closest town to Schoodic Institute in Acadia National Park, where my workshop will be held August 9-14, 2015. (There are just a few openings in the workshop, so if you’re interested, I hope you let me know soon.)

Winter Harbor itself is a quaint little fishing community of 500 people with a general store, a gas station, and a great little Main Street. It includes a summer colony called Grindstone Neck. This colony was formed in 1889, modeled along the lines of Bar Harbor. As usual, I stumbled across it in my perambulations while looking for a painting site.

This group has its own yacht club, which in turn has its own yacht. The Winter Harbor 21 (or Winter Harbor Knockabout) is a 31′ racing sloop designed and built by Burgess & Packard, of Marblehead, Massachusetts, specifically for the club.

Cloverly, the first boat to be rescued and restored. (Credit unknown.)

In 1906, club members Fredrick O. Spedden and George Dallas Dixon Jr. commissioned Burgess & Packard to build seven boats to a specific design. These were launched in 1907. Two more were added in the 1920s.

By mid-century the small fleet had been dispersed until only two remained active. In 1976, the club’s then-commodore, Alan Goldstein, decided that he wanted to find and buy one back. After two years, he found Cloverly rotting in a barn. His enthusiasm was catching and by the mid-80s, all nine boats were restored and back in Winter Harbor.

Near Winter Harbor, ME. I promise you that Yankee Magazine‘s photos, here, are much better than mine.

The Winter Harbor 21s are the oldest intact one-design racing sailboat fleet in the United States.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

February 5, 2015

All good things

It’s helpful when you can stay on the right side of the road. It wasn’t alway possible.

As I toured the Institute grounds, the first fat flakes started to fall. I’d been warned that a significant storm was expected at midday and would move in fast. I don’t have studded snow tires; I don’t even have snow tires. For a few minutes, I thought I’d left it for too late.

The first sign of the weather changing was the wind picking up.

Still, Western New Yorkers are accustomed to snow. Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse have the highest snowfall of all American cities. Our storms are amplified by the open water of the Great Lakes.

Drift ice is among my favorite things.

Coastal Maine adds a fillip to the experience: a fine layer of ice under its snow. The first twelve miles of our trip was on back roads that wouldn’t see a salter or plow for a day or so. The Mainers might have been slithering sideways on the hills in their pickup trucks (which are notoriously bad on snow) but they were taking it in stride. So did my little Prius.

Snow-covered rocks off Blueberry Hill.

The northeast is having its second hard winter in a row. Very few people visit Maine in January, but it is beautiful. I no longer do much wintertime plein air work. Still, our world is lovely in the deep snow.

The open road doesn’t look too bad, does it? But there’s absolutely no traction and my poor little Prius was choosing its own route.

Ah, home sweet home…

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

February 2, 2015

A winter morning at Schoodic

Electronics just get smaller and smaller. What once took a whole naval base now operates out of this lighthouse at Winter Harbor, ME.

The Schoodic Institute is a relatively new addition to Acadia National Park. The property was operated as a secure United States Navy base from 1935 to 2002. (I’d tell you that they did cryptology, but then I’d have to kill you.) This replaced an earlier site, Otter Cliffs, which was on Mt. Desert Island from 1917 until 1933.

Little Moose Island catching the evening light.

Otter Cliffs was considered the Navy’s best transatlantic radio receiver site due to its isolation and the unobstructed ocean in front of it. Much of the Navy’s early receiver, antenna and noise mitigation technology was developed here under the leadership of radio pioneer Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. But John D. Rockefeller wanted Otter Cliffs included in Acadia National Park. He convinced the Navy to swap locations. This is why the base at Schoodic had such an over-the-top main building—Rockefeller never did anything by halves.

In addition to fantastic shoreline, there are boreal bogs, too. This one won’t look like this in the summer, but I couldn’t resist the faerie lighting of the mist-shrouded branches.

We will be visiting at a unique point in Schoodic’s development. It’s still an unknown entity for most people, and the accommodations are best described as “military base chic.” But the Park Service is slowly rebuilding the facility. An area around the park—encompassing a third more property than the park itself—has been acquired for development as a resort. (This development would already be underway had it not been delayed by the Great Recession of 2008.)

Rolling Island seen through a shroud of trees.

Arey Cove at low tide. It looks very different with the tide up.

But for now, we will get to paint some of the best landscapes on the North Atlantic in relative solitude. This week I will post a pictorial essay on what we will be seeing. I hope you enjoy it.

Rockefeller never did anything by halves. This is the administration building for the former naval base.