Wheel of Fortune - Fisherman's Winter
He hated winter,
Cut off from purpose, his images of spring and the lobster season were a long way off.
To far.
For someone who lived by the minute, on a surface of liquid lead, winter held no risks.
All he could do was sit in silence and tolerate the Wheel of Fortune.
More like Wheel of Torture.
He knew his wife loved the show. He also knew it was an escape for her. But still, he hated guessing at vowels. The crowd cheering as the wheel spinned. The thumping sound of the rubber against the pegs.
February, and he was already prepared for the new season. The boat, gear, traps, and his art; his only art.
The buoy.
He would trapse across the snow ladden yard to the shed.
Warm and moist from the wood heat, he stared at the piece of wood waiting to be carved ... what was it that Michelangeo said 'there was no concept the stone did not contain'.
Something like that. He wouldn't tell. How could he, education only taught his kind to leave.
But still he would carve. Every time - a new shape or a new combination of colours.
He knew they were not really buoys.
They were figures. He was a sucker for metaphor. Even read Herbert Read's Meaning of Art once. His wife wrinkled her nose at him when she caught him with the book.
Most of his mates switched over to styrofoam buoys a long while back. Cheaper and easier to justify, they came with horrid flourescent colours and combined with metal traps, erased the concept from Michelangelo's stone. To him they were fakes.
Erased the connection he felt with the sea - his coffin.
So he believed.
He even looked up the definition of a buoy once on his son's computer.
Wikipedia.
... flotational device; rise by reason of lightness. He liked that.
He also liked the colours and how his were modern. He liked colour field painting. He liked Barnett Newman and Anna's Light. The title reminded him of a lighthouse even though the painting was probably not about something literal. He remembered the cafe in New Ross where he first read about some senator complaining about the purchase of a big expensive painting for that gallery in Ottawa. What was it called?
They laughed - can't hear much fire in those stripes.
The guys from the fisherman's association were all there yucking it up, happy to be free of the pressures of work. The Chronicle Herald had it on the front page.
National Gallery purchases Newman's Voice of Fire for a million dollars.
"Looks like a colour swatch from Bill's hardware store" said Maynard.
He said nothing, just sat there in silence and turned his head to the window to watch the snow fall.
Sip his coffee and recall the time he went to Toronto to visit his nephew, and saw blocks of shape and colour throughout the city.
On buildings and in playgrounds.
Once he saw a blue and a red butted up against each other on a large advertisement in a mall window. He thought it would make a good combination for a buoy. There was a blurr down the centre of the two colours creating a different effect.
Mauve or some kind of brownish purple? He wasn't sure. Didn't matter cause they couldn't see it. They couldn't see how they were all different with their buoys. How it connected them to their place. Some were yellow and black.
Just like their dad's were in Whitehead.
Clyde Mackenzie's was unique. All red with a casual white dot in the middle. Just like Clyde to break with tradition.
He never wore shoes if he didn't half to.
Still, he knew he was a modernist before they were. He had the evidence; it was all around him.
Had been for hudreds of years. He would go to Ottawa one day and see those abstract paintings for himself. Bring his wife just for fun.
No...not a chance. He needed to walk his dog.
Steven Rhude, January 7th, 2012
Cut off from purpose, his images of spring and the lobster season were a long way off.
To far.
For someone who lived by the minute, on a surface of liquid lead, winter held no risks.
All he could do was sit in silence and tolerate the Wheel of Fortune.
Steven Rhude,Wooden Buoy on a Road, oil on panel, 18"x24" Roberts Gallery
More like Wheel of Torture.
He knew his wife loved the show. He also knew it was an escape for her. But still, he hated guessing at vowels. The crowd cheering as the wheel spinned. The thumping sound of the rubber against the pegs.
February, and he was already prepared for the new season. The boat, gear, traps, and his art; his only art.
The buoy.
He would trapse across the snow ladden yard to the shed.
Warm and moist from the wood heat, he stared at the piece of wood waiting to be carved ... what was it that Michelangeo said 'there was no concept the stone did not contain'.
Something like that. He wouldn't tell. How could he, education only taught his kind to leave.
But still he would carve. Every time - a new shape or a new combination of colours.
He knew they were not really buoys.
They were figures. He was a sucker for metaphor. Even read Herbert Read's Meaning of Art once. His wife wrinkled her nose at him when she caught him with the book.
Most of his mates switched over to styrofoam buoys a long while back. Cheaper and easier to justify, they came with horrid flourescent colours and combined with metal traps, erased the concept from Michelangelo's stone. To him they were fakes.
Erased the connection he felt with the sea - his coffin.
So he believed.
He even looked up the definition of a buoy once on his son's computer.
Wikipedia.
... flotational device; rise by reason of lightness. He liked that.
He also liked the colours and how his were modern. He liked colour field painting. He liked Barnett Newman and Anna's Light. The title reminded him of a lighthouse even though the painting was probably not about something literal. He remembered the cafe in New Ross where he first read about some senator complaining about the purchase of a big expensive painting for that gallery in Ottawa. What was it called?
They laughed - can't hear much fire in those stripes.
The guys from the fisherman's association were all there yucking it up, happy to be free of the pressures of work. The Chronicle Herald had it on the front page.
National Gallery purchases Newman's Voice of Fire for a million dollars.
"Looks like a colour swatch from Bill's hardware store" said Maynard.
He said nothing, just sat there in silence and turned his head to the window to watch the snow fall.
Sip his coffee and recall the time he went to Toronto to visit his nephew, and saw blocks of shape and colour throughout the city.
On buildings and in playgrounds.
Once he saw a blue and a red butted up against each other on a large advertisement in a mall window. He thought it would make a good combination for a buoy. There was a blurr down the centre of the two colours creating a different effect.
Mauve or some kind of brownish purple? He wasn't sure. Didn't matter cause they couldn't see it. They couldn't see how they were all different with their buoys. How it connected them to their place. Some were yellow and black.
Just like their dad's were in Whitehead.
Clyde Mackenzie's was unique. All red with a casual white dot in the middle. Just like Clyde to break with tradition.
He never wore shoes if he didn't half to.
Still, he knew he was a modernist before they were. He had the evidence; it was all around him.
Had been for hudreds of years. He would go to Ottawa one day and see those abstract paintings for himself. Bring his wife just for fun.
No...not a chance. He needed to walk his dog.
Steven Rhude, January 7th, 2012
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