I watched these two men one morning as they stooped and climbed and crawled around the decks of this old commercial fishing boat. They seemed to race against time for the purpose of getting their vessel ready for launch. Glancing over to me a few times, I could tell they were wondering why I was so interested in what they were doing. But I just kept studying them, and shooting photos, looking for those perfect poses that might best express the romantic notion of fishermen working on their boat. The poses are an important ingredient in my paintings. They're a kind of captured choreography, a moment in time halted, in the same way that sculpture is a frozen gesture of visual poetry. This oil painting, measuring 24"x24", is one of a series I hope to create about fishermen working on their boats.
Eventually, one of the men in this painting came to me and wanted to know what I was doing. Was I a reporter? he asked. A photo journalist? Or maybe something else? When I told him about developing a painting series to show fishermen working on their boats, he smiled. He liked the idea. As he turned back for the boat, he said that he himself wrote poetry about fishermen and the sea. "Then you get what I'm doing!" I said. He cracked a large smile and threw a thumbs up.
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