Along The Shore

Growing up near the ocean, and now, after 20 years living on a mountaintop, I live on a marsh, just 10 minutes from the beach. It’s where I go to charge my “creative batteries.” A long walk on the beach, even during the winter, is a simple pleasure that anyone is lucky to experience. I can’t help but feel sorry for folks from Nebraska or Kansas, many of whom have never seen an ocean.
A walk on the beach can yield not only good feelings, but treasures can be found along the shore. Sharks’ teeth are always a welcome find, as are sand dollars, starfish, beautiful and/or unusual shells, maybe an occasional seahorse, dried out and tangled in seaweed. Pieces of colored glass worn smooth were common when I was a kid. Today, in the age of plastics, it’s rare.
My late wife, Sam was an inveterate beachcomber, and our house was filled with her treasured finds. It still is, and it was only a matter of time before I started to include these things in my paintings. “Along the Shore” will be the first of many. The shorebird decoys, a Ruddy Turnstone and a Semi-Palmated “Peep,” along with the Gull decoy were a perfect addition to the composition. I picked up the small gray and white stone that’s in the painting a few years ago on the beach in Normandy, where the invasion took place. It HAD to be included in this painting. Who knows how many soldiers might have stepped on or over that tiny rock on that June morning in 1944?

Original painting: 14 x 30” $3,500.

Giclee prints on canvas: Limited Edition of 100 S/N: $350.