About Mark Island Lighthouse:
Today's lighthouse is Mark Island Lighthouse, or sometimes called Winter Harbor Light, which we saw taking a lighthouse boat tour starting from Bar Harbor, Maine. This lighthouse is under private ownership now and has a history of being home to writers since its de-commission. Unfortunately, the log books which record much of a lighthouse's history have been lost since the 80's and it is still hoped to have them returned (even a reward is offered!).
From January 1, 1857 to August 1933 Mark Island Lighthouse was manned and its location about a mile away from shore made it a good spot for the keepers, so close to shore.
Here is a funny little story from the lighthousefriends.org website:
"The last keeper of Winter Harbor Lighthouse was Captain Lester “Cap” Leighton. His grandson, Chan Noyes was christened on the way to the island. When Chan was one year old his mother stepped out of the station’s boat at the island, slipped, and “dunked” them both in the water. “That was my christening,” Chan said.
Although Leighton lived in nearby Prospect Harbor until 1970 (when he passed away at the age of 94), he never returned to Mark Island again after leaving in 1933."
There are ghosts in and around the lighthouse; you can read up more at the lighthouse friends' website by clicking here.
Show Opening
My solo show at Sunbury Shores Art Center has come and go (read more here) and I'm still catching up on getting my house up and ready along with the various tasks around the inn such as planting planters of summer flowers for 5 full days, getting one of our guest rooms, gutted, remodelled and finished... The kids are still home-schooling full tilt. Never a dull moment!
I wanted to have a little 'installation' for my opening and as I had worked on figure drawings this winter and spring, I did include some of them in the show as well as my time line was quite tight and I wanted to showcase only 2016 artwork that had not been shown previously (which I did manage except 3 pieces which were not from this year, but fit the show nicely). So, to tie over over from lighthouses to figure drawings, my friend Natasha offered to be the model for this 'installation'.
'Inspiration- human and man-made' was the name of the show. For the installation I wanted a wooden lighthouse-garden-sculpture as the 'man-made' lighthouse part and Natasha, body painted in blues and greens as the 'human' part bridging the two themes. Spears Fishing and Charters' co-owner Ally graciously lent me her business' lighthouse and of course Natasha was symbolizing the ocean, the nature to embrace the lighthouse.
So many people came out, thank you each and everyone! You made this a very special day for me! Thank you, thank you!
I will continue to feature the paintings from the show and soon will head out to a special little paint-away;-)- stay tuned!!
