Rockport, Mass. - Lobster Boat

"Lobster Boat Among the Traps - Sandy Bay Harbor" (11"X14", Oil on Canvas, $325)

This small canvas was simply a different angle of the previous post. I like the way the direction of the boat leads the eyes back into the painting and along the row of houses in the background. The boat (the Genny W.) shows the puff of smoke from the dead-slow diesel engine as the fisherman organizes his gear along the side. You can feel the chilliness of the Autumn light on the buildings and through the dormant trees behind them. I always feel a little sad to see the summer come to an end in Rockport. It feels like such a summer town. even when I was a local, I felt like something was coming to a final end. The population of the town goes from single-digit thousands in the off-season to tens-of-thousands in the summer. I think most of the natives look forward to the off-season, but I've always liked being able to give directions or advice to the hundreds of new tourists seen daily throughout the summer. My mother has moved there, into the family house my grandmother had and that I grew up in. I like feeling as though I'm still a bit of a local.

The inner harbor (as well as practically every square foot outside the harbor) is always full of the trap markers that you see here. Each fisherman has his own color scheme painted on the floats. That way he won't grab and haul up someone else's traps. Some of the lobstermen have hundreds of traps and they mostly remember where each of them have been dropped, but the painted floats are surely a help.