Oil on canvas

30"x40"

$1,495

I waited at least 35 years to paint this boat. I took a black and white Polaroid of it on the beach at Port Aransas, where my family had Summer homes. The view of the original photo was looking into the dunes, but I decided I liked it better turned the other direction so I could show the surf and the birds in the background.

Although a storm was likely the reason the boat was up into the dunes in the first place, like many boats propped up in backyards and vacant lots on the island at the time, this boat surely met its date with the bulldozer after Hurricane Celia hit the coast in the summer of 1971. Our home’s backyard had an old family-made cabin cruiser that went into that same landfill, along with many houses and most of what was left of the old boats on the island.

I think of this painting as a tribute to those days where, in its heyday, a boat like this carried visiting fishermen, like Teddy Roosevelt, out the Aransas Jetties and into the Gulf after big Tarpon and Sails. I sure miss those old boats. I try to paint as many old boats as I can find before they are destroyed and forgotten for good.