When I returned to painting full time I was transitioning from a mostly maritime career, first as a shipowner and later as captain of various vessels I used for towing, salvage, launch service and line handling on the working waterfronts of New York City, Charleston, South Carolina and Portland, Oregon. I also manufactured a line of composite deck structures for boats, ships and cranes which kept me in touch with other mariners to get them the pilothouses and control stations they needed for all those long hours at the helm.
I've always enjoyed being near big ships in small boats, and running a launch to and from ships anchored and underway is a challenging task. The currents and relative motions of the vessels, and the unpredictable actions of international crews going on or returning from shore leave can make it difficult, but the sensory rewards are many. The vivid colors and their reflections on the always moving water, smells of foreign cooking, snippets of other languages, and exotic home ports lettered on their hulls make each ship an island nation in the stream.
From my studio in the forested west hills, I can see the lower Vancouver anchorage in the Columbia River near its confluence with the Willamette River, just downstream from Portland. When three or more ships are there I'm tempted to launch one of my kayaks or my outboard skiff and get close for new reference photos. These recent paintings capture some of those occasional visitors.