The other day, while we were waiting for the Port Townsend – Keystone ferry on Whitbey Island, we walked over to take a few snaps of the nearby old Fort Casey batteries and this great old lighthouse. The lighthouse actually predates the surrounding fort by decades, having initially been built in 1861. It has to be one of most interesting lights on the West Coast with a sort-of Spanish look to it (although it was designed by a German). I really should have painted it looking seaward, because across the channel the Olympics, Point Wilson Light and Port Townsend create a vast and beautiful panorama, but I’ll leave that for another painting. Maybe a bigger canvas!
I’ve also been working on some larger “park” murals recently but have really enjoyed these smaller efforts on canvas. I’ll keep at it for awhile – it seems you all like them too.
This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print. Email us for details.
To check availability of the other small originals I’ve blogged about the past few weeks, check the blog here.
Rumpy in the glory years when these two artists owned her.
Art comes in all shapes and sizes, and over the years I’ve been involved in the making of a whole bunch of it. This week, I got to save a piece of art both Nancy and I once joyfully owned – so we’re passing the story along to all of you.
On Halloween of 1994, Nanc and I bought this boat, an iconic 1941 45-foot wooden tri-cabin power boat in Seattle and brought it over to the Olympic Peninsula. At 76,000lbs, it was a handfull! We wanted to get into Port Townsend, but the marina was full so we settled for a more remote yet very scenic small bay and community of Port Ludlow. Many of you remember those years when a marina slip number as our mailing address. As the years went by, we rebuilt and restored Rumpuckorori (or Rumpy as we called her) to a very beautiful craft – really, a functional piece of art. For us, it was home. We weathered storms at the dock when we thought the marina was going to break up, we cruised up the Inside Passage into British Columbia, and even lived in the boatyard when bottom work needed to be done. In effect, we created a liveable piece of wooden art!
When we bought the “Lodge” in Port Townsend in 2000, we couldn’t also own this huge boat, so we sold her to a retired guy who promised to keep her going. Well, we’re sorry to say he didn’t! After a few years of simply hiring out all the work, he gave up and the boat hasn’t moved in years. Paint began to peel, rot came a’creeping, fresh water got in the bilge and all manner of bad things began to happen. Old wooden boats need paint and varnish or they die pretty quickly. Friends told us to not go and look, but we did anyway and occasional visits left us shaking our heads in sorrow. I predicted that if nothing was done, Rumpy would die by 2010 or so.
Then, two months ago I received a call from the owner pleading for help. A month ago I met two very nice Canadians with some energy and skills looking for just this kind of boat. Last Sunday morning in fog and drizzle, I helped move Rumpy to dry storage in Port Townsend to begin reconstruction – and a new life.
I think there’s a longer story here. By doing this I feel like we helped continue all the energy and money, frustrations and good times of a great many people, from the past builders and former owners, to countless shipwrights that have ever worked on her during her 68 years – to us! It’s a connection I’m not willing to just let slide out of my life for good, and in a few years, I’ll let you all know how it all worked out with Rumpy’s next chapter. Shipwrights (who are true artists of wood and metal) have already come forward with offers to help.
It doesn’t seem to matter to me that I won’t own her and won’t get to motor out to a little cove for the evening, but it does matter that I know the boat is still alive, still a piece of functional art and still making someone happy. Life doesn’t get any better, does it?
Thanks for reading this week. Larry Last Sunday morning: Rumpy on the way to a new life. Thanks, Joe, who followed the boat in case it sank enroute.
If you’d like to see some of the paintings or Giclee prints of Sea Witch, our current boat we’re restored,click here.
Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.
The Yellow Rowboat This boat, tied at the dock at the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle’s Lake Union, is one of my favorites. What’s not to like. It’s all varnished, top to bottom, skeg to oars. The only paint is on the tips of the two oars that have been painted blue just where they’d touch water on each stroke. Very classy!
We have eight-color Giclee prints either unframed or framed, between $39.95 and $239.95 available of this painting and the original painting is available for $700 unframed. Email us.
Link here to the Yellow Rowboat print on our website
Or, you can go to our Giclee Print Index here
Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.
A good friend owns this fine wooden boat. Built in Port Townsend, it has been a fixture here in town for many years. I’ve always admired all the seemingly tangled mass of bowsprit weaving – something that our boat, Sea Witch, has none of. The hooded mergansers come into the marina in winter, fishing at the stormwater outfalls for small fish attracted there by nutrients.
This is an acrylic on paper, and prints are now available.
This image is destined to be made into jigsaw puzzles, posters and probably cards for Olympic National Park. I’ve wanted to paint this scene for years. From this ridge, if you turn 180 degrees, it’s possible to see our home forest 25 miles below in the distance. This is the dry side of the Olympics, and because of its isolation, there are many plants and animals that have to evolved to grow only here – the Olympic Marmot, Olympic Chipmunk, Olympic Weasel and others.
It’s a special place for Nancy and I that few ever see. The original painting is 24″ x 36″ and is acrylic on paper board. It’s currently available for sale.
I worked up this Whitehall skiff from materials I had from the September 2000 Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend. Why I haven’t painted it before is a mystery, because she’s quite a boat. These are the old docks in Port Townsend’s Point Hudson marina, now trashed and gone thanks to a Port Commission that had little sense of history and the beauty of ‘old’.
I have no idea who owns this boat, or even if she’s still floating. If anyone knows about her, please let me know.
Acrylic on board. 14″ x 20″, framed to 25″ x 31″ under glass. Prints are now available of this image at Christie’s prints. The original painting is also currently available. If you’re interested in it, drop us an email with “Christie” in the subject line.
“Junaluska” – launch and shoreboat for the 1929 fan-tailed classic “Olympus.” When launched, Olympus was originally named Junaluska. This boat now charters out of Seattle for trips in Puget Sounds and places north.
Notice the varnish reflection on the combing and below it on the deck. I love these double reflections, and I think the painting was created solely because of this area.
Prints of the painting are now available. Email us for more information.
Port Townsend is full of these types of small wooden boats – probably more so than any West Coast town I know of. I especially liked the wine-glass stern of this one, so I painted it twice – in the same painting. It was tied on a concrete dock, but I turned it into a classic old wooden dock to match the classic old boat. Acrylic on paper. We now have giclee prints of this painting. Check them out here. As of May, 2008, this painting is still available. Email us if you’d like more information.
Whitebark Pines in the West are in serious trouble, thanks to a pathogen unleashed by us (of course it’s US, isn’t ALL of this mess because of US).
Commissioned by the Crater Lake Institute in cooperation with the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation, this mural shows the interwoven lives of all that depend on this tree species. Grizzlies, squirrles, birds and all in peril as well.
Currently, a large format poster installation is being installed in the Grand Targhee National Forest of this image, as well as puzzles and posters coming in summer 2008.
with more art in America's national parks than any other artist
