Isalos Fine Art

Forgive me, reader, for I have been lazy. It has been two weeks since my last blog.

And it's not like there's nothing to write about; in fact, there's just too darn much. Oh yes, the potlucks and meetings still abound. So far this week we've had two potlucks and one business seminar. Tonight there's a meeting of Stonington Art Galleries (that's right- we're organizing... gallery walks will start this summer). After that, there's the documentary "Supersize Me" at the Opera House, brought to us for free by the Healthy Island Project. Tomorrow night "Brokeback Mountain" starts at the Opera House (although there will be a live performance on Friday night). Of course, I'll be challenged to find a good  time to see the movie, since I have a blacksmithing class on Thursday nights. Saturday night is "Men Who Cook", a fundraiser for Seamark Community Arts.

Last week wasn't much different, as far as busy-ness goes.

I was talking on the phone with a friend who owns a house here, but so far spends winters elsewhere. "I thought you were going to live here," I said.

He responded predictably: "There's not enough going on."

Of course I'm thinking that I didn't move here to have such a full schedule. I'm the sort of person who, when my appointment book starts getting full, looks for ways to erase those appointments.

Buick, Rust, Salt   photo by M Daugherty

Since I'm rambling, I may as well complain about our car. When you write "I'm the sort of person who..." there's so many directions you could go. I'm the sort of person who is proud of driving a worthless car, and might even brag about not making car payments for what...twelve, thirteen years or so. I'd much rather buy art. But now the repair payments are as high as car payments, and we still don't have a dependable car. I just hate the idea of throwing our money at Detroit or Korea, or perhaps more to the point- the finance company. But then we start imagining ourselves driving that shiny new machine with multiple cup holders and a great stereo, and we wonder what kind of people we'll become with such  impressive wheels beneath us. And then I think of the salt coming off the harbor, eating away at the car, whether it's shiny and new or old and ugly, and the myth of "durable goods" hits home.

If only I could drive a painting.

Yesterday morning we left before sunrise to attend a marketing seminar in Ellsworth, and we arrived early- a week early. So we took a drive. Schoodic Point was being pounded by post-storm waves. Rebecca, in her zeal to get photos of these waves, lamented that without something recognizeble to give a sense of scale to the waves, you couldn't tell how big they were. Being a great supporter of the arts, I volunteered to get into the picture.

Here I am... strolling atop a granite ledge, far above the waves below...

 Wait a minute, that wave looks...

REALLY BIG... 

#!**%@^##! 

 Okay, now I'm wet.  And here comes another...

I dried-off by the time we got home.  

That's the way The Bangor Daily News puts it in Kristen Andresen's review of a five-artist show of large-scale landscapes currently hanging at the University of Maine Museum of Art. Included in the show is Kola's "Sneifellsness Peninsula No. 4. '89 Icelandic Series". The show also includes work by April Gornik, Lois Dodd, Neil Welliver and Rackstraw Downes.

Vaino Kola - Rebecca Daugherty photo

(the forest in the background is his own creation)

Also, a collection of ten Kola paintings are currently on display at the State House  in Augusta. It looks like we'll have to get off the island again one of these days to go see some art.