The summer season ends with a bang here in Eastport – with cannons, swords and general mayhem. It’s Pirate Festival time! Sword fighting, fire dancing, music, parade, fireworks – some of the costumes are pretty impressive, a creative and fun community event for pirates and wenches of all ages. Here are some pics from the weekend:
ARRRTTT! That's "pirate" for Art!
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Eastport has a vibrant artist community which has inspired me to resume my encaustic work. I finally completed the setup of my studio in August, and decided to participate in Paint Eastport Day. I hadn’t considered it initially because I assumed it was for Plein Aire painters, but the rules were only that the piece had to be started and completed between 7am-3pm, and depict a scene from Eastport.
So on Sat, Sept 1st, I roughly sketched the seascape scene from my window and created a small encaustic/mixed media work called: Kitchen Window! I was trying to figure out how to render the rocks/islands when I remembered some of the fabric I had made in Terry Dowell’s eco-dye workshop last spring and voila - I finished by noon. There was something liberating about working quickly and just letting the work flow for better or worse. Here are photos of the actual scene and the finished painting.
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The works were then auctioned at the end of the day (artist gets 70%, art center 30%). I had a few bidders (people I didn’t even know!) and the piece was ultimately purchased by a couple from Placerville CA! So my first encaustic painting of the Maine coast is going “home” to CA.
There is another encaustic artist here in Eastport – Judith Clendenning. We met last summer, she lives across the street from the place I rented last year and was featured in one of my blog posts last summer. I love all of her work, but particularly her torn-paper paintings. She had a show at the Eastport Gallery in August, and I purchased Sassy. This cheeky goat now lives in my kitchen above my coffee bar, and makes me smile every time I pass by.
Visitors from Santa Cruz!
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Nancy and Dan have been traveling around Maine and came to Eastport for a few days this past weekend. We had some wonderful adventures, including a visit to the workshop of Jim Blankman. Jim is a California dude who lived in Corralitos before moving to Eastport in 1978! He does beautiful woodworking – guitars, mantles, skateboards, scooters, and pretty much any custom work that can be imagined. He can be seen around town in a 1947 Dodge woodie (sometimes pulling a teardrop woodie) that he kitted out himself. Here are pictures and link to an article about it.
The famous tree house
After chatting, he invited us over to see his tree-house, this crazy/incredible structure built by Jim and his wife Leanne. The photos don’t do it justice.
Dan and Nancy's last day here included a trip to St. Andrews Canada for a whale watching trip on the Jolly Breeze. Lovely weather, we saw dozens of minke whales and harbor porpoises, but the best part just might have been the face painting! And simply spending a beautiful day on the water with dear friends from Santa Cruz!
Life “should” start to slow down a bit now that we are heading toward autumn . . . or will it? I started choir practice last night (for a holiday concert in December featuring Vivaldi’s Gloria), AND I start hosting my first radio show on Wednesday called, “The Basslady Presents: Musical Madames”, showcasing female musicians with a different theme/genre each week. This week’s theme is: Big Bottom Babes – featuring a program of all female bass players!!
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Check out my playlist, it’s gonna be fun: https://basslady.com/radio
Stay tuned for more adventures from Eastport in October!