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Retired publishing executive ecstatic with the idea of spending most of his time on the coast of Maine

Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Artist's Life


We were in Belfast last week, on a Friday afternoon, on the eve of a city-wide art show. I'm not sure if this fellow is meant to represent the artists or their public. I certainly used to feel this way at the end of a long week.


Artists are of course thick on the ground on the coast. Like everything, there is a huge range of talent and expression but I'm always struck by the strong and universal and repetitive need to capture our common icons of surf, lobster pot and pointed fir. The worst of our efforts are indeed like capture: trite phrases, brushstrokes, camera angles to be set in little cages. The best snap you out of the frame instantly and into the mind of the image. But in either case the act of trying makes even the most ordinary seascape speak out loud with memories.

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