SEA SMOKE

Sea smoke was rising in vaporous clouds on Marblehead Harbor.  This occurred  rarely when the ocean temperature was warmer than the air.  As a rule the Atlantic ocean was exhilaratingly icy cold.  Great roiling, rolling strings and clouds of undulating steam danced across the heaving water in a beautiful ballet.  One could almost envision Degas’ ethereal ballerinas.

Enthralled, Leanora Lantana watched for an hour from her studio on the harbor first sticking her paint brushes in an old coffee tin of turpentine.  Out front the incoming tide sucked sibilantly against the rocks which resembled enormous chunks of marble, thus the fishing town’s name, originally called Marble Harbor later Marblehead.

Seagulls; the common gray, brownish spotted yearlings, and Great Northern black backs swooped past the window, sailing and soaring high on a Northeast tail wind.  A lobster boat sputtered down harbor with a full contingent of gulls following as the lobster man jettisoned old bait.

Lea read the name “Dolly’s Sugar Daddy” on the rusty side of the less than pristine once white lobster boat.  Another, “The Happy  Hooker” followed.  Boats like race horses were given strange and provocative names.  She laughed aloud speculating whether Dolly’s Daddy had much sugar to give her?   Lea was aware few fishermen earned a great deal in Marblehead, Massachusetts, this three hundred fifty year old town on the North Shore about  eighteen miles from Boston and halfway to Gloucester.  Wryly she reflected many local painters rarely did, as well.  Artists and photographers were attracted by the rocky coastline, a plethora of sail and lobster boats and the crooked, narrow streets that once were cow paths.

At one time she’d precariously climbed a ladder and painted a sign for the local Elks Club.  She needed the money for art supplies and she still considered it “painting”.

Framing and art supply stores were where the profit really existed but for bone deep fishermen and painters the bottom line remained firmly fixed; it was process not product that mattered.  It was time to pack it in and quit in either profession if one did not passionately, even maniacally, love what one did for its own sake.  Not that either calling was at all averse to being paid well for their efforts, indeed both lusted after seed money in order to continue to do what they liked best.

In good or bad weather or good or bad times both felt compelled to pursue their work from an inner conviction that for them this was the only way to live.  Many ‘headers however would purchase fish and lobster long before dreaming of purchasing a painting which was looked upon as an unnecessary luxury.  Yet the public did turn out in goodly numbers when an art auction was held for a charity benefit or scholarship.  The hope was to bid as low as possible and acquire a bargain; a piece of art done by a local artist whom they thought charged too much anyway.  Some often derisively laughed,  “My five year old could do better.”

Artists were solicited to give their work free and of course nicely framed in return for their five minutes of publicity and be gratified to contribute to a worthy cause.  Most were pleased to donate money instead of an expensive piece of art; as a group they were mostly generous, sensitive and caring.  A few cynically  remarked,  “Why will anyone buy the cow if the milk is free?” and refused to give their work away but often gave money to the cause.

While Lea mused on the parallels between her late fisherman father and her own vocation a loud explosion came from the dirt cellar, a clattering, crashing noise.  Alarmed, she raced barefoot to the door to the cellar in the kitchen, opened it and flew down the rickety wooden steps with the yellow Lab, Lucy at her heels.  Lea was always a little fearful some of the paints and solvents stored in the cellar might implode.  This was a worry to all painters and printmakers most of whom were extremely careful.  She looked around and all appeared in order other than some debris around a tipped over rubbish barrel of oily rags she’d planned to burn that day.  Since she could see no obvious damage she placed the barrel upright again and turned around to collect the rags.  She heard a spitting, snarling sound.  Under the bottom step fierce, malevolent eyes were glaring at her.  A large raccoon had somehow dug his way into the dirt cellar and tipped the barrel over rummaging for food.