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Tag: Port Clyde

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How to paint a lighthouse

Marshall Point, oil on archival canvasboard, 9X12, $696, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

If you paint at the Marshall Point Light, someone is bound to ask, “Did you know this lighthouse was in the movie Forrest Gump?” It’s a lovely lighthouse and deserves its status as an American icon. I’ve painted it and its approaches many times. There is nothing wrong with painting lighthouses (despite what art snobs say). However, that doesn’t mean you have to be obvious about it. Spend enough time with any lighthouse and you start seeing other things that interest you—the ubiquitous brick oil house, or the porch, or the surf spraying onto the rocky headlands.

Marshall Point Light stands on a bedrock outcropping that can be completely awash depending on the weather and the tide. It’s connected to the land and the keeper’s house by a long wooden walkway. Visitors usually walk out to the white brick tower, stop at the steel door, and turn around and walk back. There’s really nothing to see out there—unless you lean over the railing and examine the bedrock.

A basalt dike.

Most of what is exposed is metamorphic rock that has been highly deformed by geologic pressures. Interlayered quartzite and gray mica schist are wildly contorted. Dikes of younger black basalt crosscut this metamorphic rock. Even though I don’t want to paint those formations in detail, I’m still fascinated by them every time I’m in Port Clyde.

On this day, Poppy Balser was visiting. We didn’t have a lot of time before the tide turned, so we set out to do quick sketches. I’m happy that I focused on the rocks.

How to paint a lighthouse

If I were visiting Maine I’d want to paint a lighthouse. They’re iconic, beautiful, and historic. As with any new subject, I’d start with a view of the scene in its entirety. Some lighthouses, like Pemaquid Point, or the Portland Head Light, have keepers’ houses attached. These create a very pretty roofline rhythm. Others, like Owls Head or Marshall Point, have separated keepers’ houses. After I did one overall scenic painting, I’d start looking for details that interest me.

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Nothing lasts forever

Lobster pound, 14X18, oil on canvas, framed, $1594 includes shipping in continental US.

I woke up on Thursday morning to bad news. The downtown core of Port Clyde, arguably one of the most picturesque seafaring villages in Maine, had burned down. At the time of this writing, they are still sifting through the ashes.

I am a member of the Red Barn Gallery, which is just across the road. Our season has ended and we were in no danger anyway. However, I do know someone affected directly by the fire, and my heart goes out to him. Moreover, it’s going to change the commercial life of Port Clyde forever. Those beautiful frame buildings will never be rebuilt as they were.

Downtown Port Clyde in happier days, from the front door of the Red Barn Gallery.

A gallerist at the Red Barn Gallery could entertain herself for hours, sitting at the desk and watching the activity in front of the General Store. I’ve often done it, and I planned on eventually doing a painting from that window. Alas, I started with the back view first, across the water to the lobster co-op. After all, I had all the time in the world, right?

In the same news cycle, I read that the Sycamore Gap Tree in Northumberland, England, had been cut down. A 16-year-old is “in custody and assisting officers with their inquiries,” as my favorite mystery writers put it. I have a relationship with this tree, having hiked the length of Hadrian’s Wall in 2022 (my account of this ramble starts here). The sycamore was photogenic and perfect, nestled into a curve between two rising slopes. That is why it appeared in a prominent scene in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It won the 2016 England Tree of the Year award, and was a finalist for the 2017 European Tree of the Year. If the lad is the culprit, it was a spectacular example of teenage bad judgment, but nothing will bring the tree back. And I don’t even have a photograph.

Here I was painting out the back window of the gallery, when I should have been painting the front view.

On the road into Tenants Harbor there was an old-fashioned lobster pound. These are mostly obsolete; it makes more sense for lobstermen to keep their catch in lobster cars, which are slatted containers that allow sea water to rush through, usually off a floating dock.

A lobster pound was a kind of shallow corral where the lobsters wandered around until it was time for dinner-your dinner, that is. And this one was a classic, so I painted it on one grey, miserable day.

Then one day I was bumping down River Road and the lobster pound was gone. In its place rose a new building that I hear is going to be a seafood market, or something similar. I suppose over time we’ll learn to love it, but right now it’s raw and unfinished. But in this case, I’d managed to catch the old building before it was gone.

Middle and Upper Falls at Letchworth, 18X24, oil on canvas, private collection.

About twenty years ago, I painted the rail bridge over the Upper Falls at Letchworth State Park. I’d spent the summer painting there, which meant I had ample time to study the bridge. Built in 1875, it was a slender iron structure, not beautiful, and it always seemed woefully inadequate for modern rail traffic. Apparently the Norfolk Southern felt the same way, because it was finally replaced in 2017.

Sadly, we can never predict what will remain and what will be washed away by the tides of time. That includes people, because the only absolute in life is that it ends someday. Today would be a good day to reflect on how I might act in order to have no regrets when time takes away the people around me, as it inevitably will. And then I’ll shake off this mood and go paint something at Artworks for Humanity. If you’re in Waldo County, ME, stop by.

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My first foray into a cooperative gallery

Breaking storm, 48X30, oil on canvas, $5,579 framed. This painting of American Eagle has decided it wants to go to Port Clyde for a while.

Despite my business partner’s best efforts to keep me on a plan, I tend to make decisions off-the-cuff. This latest one was based solely on the fact that Susan Lewis Baines asked me.

Sue used to run the Kelpie Gallery in South Thomaston. She had an incredible eye for pairing paintings. More importantly, she could sell paintings, which is a trait I find highly desirable in a gallerist. So, when Sue suggested I join the Red Barn Gallery in Port Clyde, I responded, “Once more into the breach dear friend.”

There were some issues that I hadn’t quite thought through. One was how I expected to run my own gallery in Rockport-which is open five days a week-while simultaneously honoring my obligation to a cooperative. The second was how to stretch my body of work to fill both spaces without sacrificing quality. About the middle of May I took a good look at my commitments and nearly took early retirement. They include a very full schedule of workshops and classes and a pledge to turn out seven interactive painting lessons by the end of this year. There’s this blog, which does not write itself. And then, occasionally, I like to paint.

I’m glad I didn’t panic. For one thing, the other Red Barn Gallery members are very nice people. They are bending over backwards to help me balance all the things on my very precarious plate. For another thing, Port Clyde is a lovely, unspoiled bit of coastal Maine. It’s refreshing to spend time there, watching the ferry toing-and-froing from Monhegan. And last but certainly not least, I realize I can paint gazing out the gallery windows when it’s my turn to gallery-sit. The views are wonderful.

I never miss Sue Baines more than when I have to hang my own work. But it’s done, and very nautical, if I may say so myself.

I did, however, sneak the setup in during stolen time. My long-suffering husband rode to Port Clyde with me on Father’s Day to help me hoist my paintings up the stairs. It was an all-afternoon affair, and I reneged on buying him dinner afterwards. We were both just too tired.

But it’s done, and I think it looks grand.

If you’re going to be anywhere in the Port Clyde area on Friday, please join us for our opening:

Red Barn Art Gallery

Opening reception, Friday, June 23, 5-7 PM

5 Cold Storage Road, Port Clyde Rd, St George, ME 04860

Regular hours: June and July – Thursday-Monday – 10:30am-4, Sunday 12-4
August – Daily – 10:30am-4, Sunday 12-4
September 8th-10th and 15th-17th – 10:30am-4

Open Late on most Thursdays

207 372-2230

Email here.

If you want to visit me in Rockport:

Carol L. Douglas Studio and Gallery

394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME 04856

Regular hours:

Tuesday-Saturday, Noon-5.

585-201-1558

Email here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: