Summer in Provincetown
Provincetown is a small fishing village with a magnetic pull for artists.
Like many others, I have fallen under her spell. Mary Heaton Vorse, in her book about Ptown, said that some find it Heaven on Earth, while others see nothing but sand and scrawny brush.
Creatives experience an immediate intimacy through their shared devotion to this little town.
I spent the past six months quarantining in Ptown. It was a transformative period.
I am a third generation portrait painter. My family has been coming to Ptown for 60 years.
My first teacher, when I was 16, was the legendary Henry Hensche.
Hensche arrived in Ptown in 1919 and, after studying under his mentor, Charles Hawthorne, started the Cape School of Art. He preached the poetry of color.
This summer, I rediscovered that lyricism.
For the first time in my three decade career, I was inspired by the beauty and colors to paint landscapes and interior scenes.
I breathed in the air. I absorbed the beauty and I was nourished.
I painted scenes from the iconic Captain Jack’s Wharf where playwright Eugene O’Neill stayed to the rows of cottages in Truro. In the process fell in love with Ptown all over again.
My paintings are vibrant and effused with color, but also speak to the beauty and solitude of the place, the quiet at the end of a day when the sun sets and the tide goes out exposing the flats.
You can feel the clarity of the chill in the Ptown air and see how I played in the colors of the town. I harnessed the experience of the light with my heart and my paint. I spent hours at the easel dancing intimately with the brush.
A few of the pieces from this past summer were displayed at the Mary Heaton Vorse house.
It has been my privilege to be enraptured by the light for the last six months and create these works.
I hope you enjoy them as well.
