Shacking Up
| Jimmy's got his first smelt shack out on the river this week.
Floating on barrels. Yankee ingenuity vs. global warming. With
daytime temps back in the 60's, it's hard to believe there'll
be any ice this winter, so Jimmy is ready for anything. He's looking
for bait. |
First Camp 99
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And Again
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Smelt camps were the hot issue this week in Bowdoinham. An SRO
crowd attended selectmen's meeting on Wednesday, where a proposed
new ordinance and riparian conflicts on the Abby topped the agenda.
There's an angry cadre of residents over east who don't like winter
follies at the Abby bridge, and they dominated the discussion.
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| The Brown's Point Road winds into an S-curve and funnels onto
a one-lane bridge where it crosses the Abigadasset. Local fishermen
have been shacking up and catching smelt there since the Abnaki
hauled off their wigwams. Abigadasset probably means "where the
smelt fishermen hang out." |
Abby Camps
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And that's part of the problem. One land owner, at least, complained
of fishermen letting it hang out in public, although he'd have
to use a high powered scope to see IT from his house. Mostly the
complaints were about parking on the road and littering. An ordinance
has been suggested, demanding a fee be posted to put out a camp
in Bowdoinham, which would be forfeited if litter was left on
the ice. But there are alread state regs requiring camp identification
and timely removal of all debris, and the wardens seem unable
to enforce them, despite their video taping the camps. Last spring
three camps were abandoned at the bridge, along with some litter,
but no one prosecuted. |
| It seems a bit excessive to penalize all the local fishermen for
the bad acts of a few outsiders at one site, as was the case.
I ski and skate past all the camps in this town each winter, and
trash simply isn't a problem, or abandoned shacks. But the Abby
encampment has become a cause celeb for this neighborhood group.
Last winter "no parking" restrictions along the road were enforced,
gracefully, by the sheriff. John or Calvin would come out to the
camps and tell the fishermen to move their vehicles. Smelters
would pull off the shoulders under the powerlines, and that seemed
to solve the problem. |
Shacked Up
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Not to the residents' satisfaction. They wanted ticketing, and
removal of all cars from anywhere near the bridge. In fact, is
seems they'd prefer smelting to simply go away. An unsightly violation
of the view, I guess. Traditional use be damned. Another sign
of creeping gentrification. |
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| Or a town beach behind the public works building. That was on
the selectmen's agenda, too, and a bizarre notion to conjure with.
Kids will swim in the river, of course, just as I do on a hot
day, "do not" signs notwithstanding. Attempts to prohibit diving
from the bridge are a waste of good authoritarian sputter. So
the town has been considering an approved swimming facility upstream
from the Cathance crossing, with lights and all. Does the town
really want to be liable for anything that happens on the riverbank?
What about a life guard? Where will the modern impulse to make
everything safe and organized for our children end up? Full body
armor and a prohibition of all individual activity? Fortunately
kids will always find jungles, and ways to take risks. Bridges
to jump off. The selectmen stepped back from the beach idea. |
No!
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I stepped back from the beach myself, this week. After a string
of cold raw days, I decided to haul the Toad. Jimmy, Mr. Mann,
and Doctor Bob helped me lower the mast, slide her onto her new
trailer, and back her into the dooryard. Smooth as silk. By the
end of the day I had her covered and snugged down for the winter.
It was spitting snow at dusk. Now it's turned all balmy again,
and I'm kicking myself.
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| Just as well, though. All the commission promises I've made are
coming home to roost. As long as the Toad was in the water, I
was likely to be sailing in the afternoon, instead of keeping
my nose to the grinder. And it's been a long road to the shop.
Aside from wanting to be outside in the weather, I'd rather be
anywhere than at my bench. |
Chestnut Sloop
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Fire Lizard
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Part of my malaise is the usual creative complaint: lack of inspiration.
The post partum depression after a big piece, like this ark, paints
everything black, and I have to thrash around until I find the
path. But there's a touch of millennium fever at work, too. I
keep thinking that I should be making some radical departure at
the turn of the century. Reinventing myself. Shouldn't artistes,
even local ones, reflect their times? Isn't this the big divide?
Shouldn't we be prefiguring the New Thing? |
| I sure don't have a millennial vision. In fact this last century
seems to have been about putting away visions. We've tried everything
new under the sun, and all our isms have gone flat. The best I
can hope for is a pragmatic dailyness. Maybe that's what we're
supposed to do on this side of the millennium: wipe the slate
clean, so we can start fresh. Celebrate the ordinary. |
Water Lizard
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Cosmic YoYo
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When in doubt, I try and read my commissions as auguries. If this
order comes along now, it must be synchronistic with the time.
If I can read the message in the symbols, maybe I can figure out
what's up. What seems to be up is a reprise of my entire creative
history. I have everything from kids toys to landscape paintings
on my list of promises. Architectural carvings and assemblages,
big and small, toy portraits, lawn ornaments, mechanical sculpture,
mobiles, and illustrations. I haven't solicited commissions from
the public for a number of years, so all these requests are from
longtime patrons and friends, each with a different idea of what
I'm up to.
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| On the one hand I'm craving a new departure, a new vision to pursue.
On the other I find it fascinating to see how all my changes are
reflected in these recapitulations. How differently I see a baby
rattle, or carve a figure, or confront a landscape after having
worked in so many forms. I've even played with some industrial
design, on request, which is truly arcane for me. But good fun,
and it keeps me busy until I hear voices. |
Bolt
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The big piece I'm conjuring right now may be an emblem of the
process. It's a six foot wide carved pediment to go over Weld
and Molly's new front door. The image is Bernini's "Rape of Persephone",
with Weld as Pluto and Molly as Persephone, composed in relief
and backed by a setting sun. The story is about Autumn, and the
end of innocence, which fits the season, and the age. But it's
also a spoof on a Renaissance classic, which has to be a comment
on our self-preoccupation. Those old quattrocentrists were nothing,
if not egotistic. They had to be, to break away from the smother
of religious absolutism. They broke ground for the Age of Reason,
and the whole modern morass. Now we're in a post-modern vamp,
where our overweening individualism has left us with nothing to
believe in except cold science and a digital economy. This amused
quotation over the door has Hades knee-deep in the architecture,
and sinking.. maybe an endgame for egotism. But the faces are
somehow quite noble. These aren't just emblems of life and death,
or simply a comic take on Bernini, they're also two people caught
in the big story. |
| Next up: a moose in a rocking chair. So much for profundity. |
Last Boat
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