Where land meets sea

power clash produces beauty

Where the land meets the sea produces healing landscapes for me. By healing landscapes, I mean places with a reservoir of beauty that is both timeless and changing, and that cause me to see beauty, even in storms. This newsletter takes a break from my genealogical writings and focuses a bit more on my visual art.

This is a recent work (oil on stretched canvas). Painting such scenes from memory, photos or imagination is a foundational part of my visual art, and when I am stressed I often doodle, sketch or paint beach or ocean scenes. I love where the land meets the sea.

A great privilege of my job is that it can be done reasonably well from home, and in some ways, my writing productivity increased with solitary time during the pandemic. This is not inevitable and many do not have this advantage, and the pandemic has hammered home for me the numerous privileges that I enjoy in my life and have often taken for granted. I have walked on the beach a lot during the pandemic, alone, or with Martha watching our dog run and play.

Don’t get excited, that is a photo, not a painting! But what a scene—the dawning of a new day, and new opportunities and second, or third or fourth chances bring both hope and responsibility not to squander.

The end of the day at the sea brings a touch of melancholy, but also rest. A day done and faith that there will be another tomorrow (oil on stretched canvas).

I also enjoy painting and sketching sea birds, and have become fascinated by their behaviors that I never thought twice about for half a Century. It seems that many sea birds dry their wings, or at least I think that is what this painting (acrylic on stretched canvas) was seeking to depict.

Below is an early sketch from about a year ago, of Tower Bridge in London, with the Thames meandering below. Actually, in reality it flows quite fast even though that is easy to miss, like the waters cannot wait to get back to the sea.

Even this scene of a winter morning in the Mountains is the start of a journey to the Ocean, but what a metaphor for life—so many changes in form, function, temperature and uncertainty about exactly where we are going or how long it will take to get there.

With my two sons Peter and Sam, we have what we call the “Taylor boys standing rule” which is something like “when in doubt, shut up and do your job” or “no chatter, take care of your business.” (my daughter Morgan is about the most diligent person I know so has heretofore not needed said reminder). A lighthouse epitomizes this rule, standing watch through thick and thin, always vigilant and diligent, trapped between the collision of land and sea.

Don Taylor