The picture 'shoot' takes place in Friendship, Maine; a lobstering community with a harbor of tidy white working boats. Inland are modest homes, and tucked mostly out of sight are estates. Summer residents come with their families to enjoy the cool, scenic coastline and its nautical activities.
A well-dressed couple of middle age are waiting on the town wharf. The elegant lady is in a summer skirt and colorful blouse. Her husband, tall in linen trousers, has a well-groomed mustache. They expect to be picked up by a small boat and ferried to nearby Friendship Long Island. A visit to an island house and picnic awaits them after a short water journey. The water sheet is calm and displays many buoys placed by the lobstermen. Each buoy has two or three painted colors registered by the men in the town hall.
The picnic is on the lawn under a crab apple tree. Unlike the harbor, hemmed in by islands, the house site affords long views out to sea. After lunch, there are short walks in the island's woods. Included is the restful cemetery dominated by a tall, white hydrangea. Then the skiff ride back to the mainland. With embraces and handshakes, Edie and Barry headed back to their nearby river side home.
These structured abstract paintings recall the refined couple and their colorful surroundings. The water area sports numerous buoy colors. The wharfs, of weathered wood, are bounded by tall, white capped piles. The distant islands are edged with gray stone backed by thick spruce forest. Friendship, Maine has continued to attract us summer after summer.
Malcolm Montague Davis
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