Of "Night Air", ancestral love ballads, and Port Clyde wolfs (sic) singin' 'round the door. . .
"'When he paints wolves in the streets and fields of Port Clyde, one can hear the wolf at his own mother's door. . . ' "
David Grima, from his March 30, 2006 article on Charles Wilder Oakes, in Rockland's Courier-Gazette entitled: "Reaching New York."
"Night Air," 2006 Oil on paper, 22 x 30 in.
Private Collection, Denver, CO.
I did a drawing this morning for a new "wolf painting;" one in the vein of "Night Air," that was sold at the Outsider Art Fair in New York City a year or so ago. . . but it is a different one of course, and in it's own way "demanding," because of all the details I envision coming about in it. It didn't take long to fathom it's going to have to be bigger than the 22 x 30 inch paper format that I've done for the wolf paintings in the past. I'm thinking instead of being done on paper, this one will in all likely-hood be done on canvas or panel. It would look a little like this:
A lonesome moon shadow besotted brook goes to the cove, like how it is near "Johnny's Wharf" on Horse Point Road in Port Clyde. Two Wolfs (sic) survey the scene. No shortage of woods to head off into should it be necessary. There's a few fish shacks sitting cold and blue hued on the left over dish of moonlight shining down on the Port Clyde wharfs, heavy set now with lobster gear that's being brought ashore. Just beyond, the fishing boats sit snugly moored in the lee for the night, in safe harbor. All is clear. We see a big white ghost birch tree, festooned with autumn leaves and below that there's a plethora of pot buoys that washed up in the cove over the summer. The buoys are strung up like Christmas ornaments, dangling here, there, and everywhere. In behind the white ghost birch tree sits a salt water farm house, with the light on, inviting and warm; because home is where the heart is. In the mid-ground far enough away from the wolfs, there's a Blue Crane Heron standing stalk still in silhouette where the stream meets the mud flats. He's waitin' on his evenin' meal to make a slip up and come in too close. All is quiet and still except for there's an old gramophone outside the farm house ell. It is cranking some old well worn scratchy "parlor music" tune (probably that old time tune "Red Wing", that was all the rage at the turn of the 1900's). All the musical notes waft up the side of the ell of the building and join above the roof to become a birch bark canoe stranded (and lurching slightly) on the chimbley (sic) top. In the canoe there stands a Native American Indian and his maiden, (who is seated) and she is with child. She has one eye open, and one closed. Can you tell me, is it a "wink", or is it a secret side of fate, she's conveying? He is standing up in the canoe and has his tomahawk embedded in the wily ol' harvest moon. He's single handedly hauling them along up to the moon on a stream of an almost misty curling current of pungent wood smoke. Another Blue Crane Heron is sitting in the front of the canoe, like some wise old grizzled pilot bird that he is.
cwo
"Night Air," 2006 Oil on paper, 22 x 30 in.
Private Collection, Denver, CO.
I did a drawing this morning for a new "wolf painting;" one in the vein of "Night Air," that was sold at the Outsider Art Fair in New York City a year or so ago. . . but it is a different one of course, and in it's own way "demanding," because of all the details I envision coming about in it. It didn't take long to fathom it's going to have to be bigger than the 22 x 30 inch paper format that I've done for the wolf paintings in the past. I'm thinking instead of being done on paper, this one will in all likely-hood be done on canvas or panel. It would look a little like this:
A lonesome moon shadow besotted brook goes to the cove, like how it is near "Johnny's Wharf" on Horse Point Road in Port Clyde. Two Wolfs (sic) survey the scene. No shortage of woods to head off into should it be necessary. There's a few fish shacks sitting cold and blue hued on the left over dish of moonlight shining down on the Port Clyde wharfs, heavy set now with lobster gear that's being brought ashore. Just beyond, the fishing boats sit snugly moored in the lee for the night, in safe harbor. All is clear. We see a big white ghost birch tree, festooned with autumn leaves and below that there's a plethora of pot buoys that washed up in the cove over the summer. The buoys are strung up like Christmas ornaments, dangling here, there, and everywhere. In behind the white ghost birch tree sits a salt water farm house, with the light on, inviting and warm; because home is where the heart is. In the mid-ground far enough away from the wolfs, there's a Blue Crane Heron standing stalk still in silhouette where the stream meets the mud flats. He's waitin' on his evenin' meal to make a slip up and come in too close. All is quiet and still except for there's an old gramophone outside the farm house ell. It is cranking some old well worn scratchy "parlor music" tune (probably that old time tune "Red Wing", that was all the rage at the turn of the 1900's). All the musical notes waft up the side of the ell of the building and join above the roof to become a birch bark canoe stranded (and lurching slightly) on the chimbley (sic) top. In the canoe there stands a Native American Indian and his maiden, (who is seated) and she is with child. She has one eye open, and one closed. Can you tell me, is it a "wink", or is it a secret side of fate, she's conveying? He is standing up in the canoe and has his tomahawk embedded in the wily ol' harvest moon. He's single handedly hauling them along up to the moon on a stream of an almost misty curling current of pungent wood smoke. Another Blue Crane Heron is sitting in the front of the canoe, like some wise old grizzled pilot bird that he is.
cwo
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