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Posted on 3/6/2016 11:40:04 AM
By Summer Nelson
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Catalina Darling will be featured at Minnesota Marine Art Museum from April 15th to July 24th, 2016. Selected for this juried exhibition are contemporary marine paintings and sculptures from the American Society of Marine Artists (ASMA). There are 50 works selected by a panel of Judges from submissions of ASMA members. For more information, head to: http://www.mmam.org/
Catalina Darling 12" x 18"
The story behind this painting is so real and sweet...We left Oceanside Harbor Friday evening coming down off of a flurry of working through the week and then rushing around to get the boat stocked up with the essentials for the crossing and a weekend in Catalina – mostly fruit, granola, yogurt, some veggies and chicken for the grill, and rum. By the time we got underway, our adrenaline was starting to taper off and sun was hanging low in the sky. As the setting sun lit the horizon over glassy dark blue water, we saw a pod of 50 or more Pacific White Sided Dolphins approaching. They surrounded the boat and played off our bow-wake, vying between each other for the positions closest to the wake, jumping and crisscrossing with one another. The mood was light and looked like it was going to be a charmed evening at sea.
Unfortunately, first impressions aren't always correct, and what took place over the course of the night mostly consisted of me hanging off the side, violently seasick, and Micaiah with one hand on the tiller, and the other hand holding the back of my belt. I finally passed out on one of the benches in the cockpit around 2:00 am, covered in a Mexican blanket, slightly damp and completely drained.
When I woke up it was just before sunrise and the view of the Island off the bow was just about the prettiest and most welcome sight. I looked at Micaiah, he has this way of always looking the same even after a sleepless night at the helm, jacket zipped all the way up, hat on, eating a granola bar or something. A slight breeze picked up, so we cut the motor and put the sails up to let the wind take us through the home stretch. The boat slid into the harbor and we tied on to our mooring, got into this little wood dinghy that my brother had loaned us and started to paddle ashore. We did not ROW ashore because the oars were a mismatched set, one much larger than the other, so when you put them into the oarlocks and tried to row, it was impossible to go straight, it just wanted to do circles. So I took one oar and he took the other, and we lazily paddled that little boat in to the beach. I couldn't help but laugh at the juxtaposition of the experience through the night with this gorgeous day.
Micaiah had snapped a photo of that moment with his iphone (included below). Later when he decided to paint the scene, he set up a dinghy in the back yard and dragged me out of bed at 8:00am on a Saturday morning to re-shoot the paddling in the same lighting to get more detail.
The last time Micaiah had a piece selected for the prestigious ASMA show was in 2010, when the painting below, Leucadia Evening High Tide (Study 2) was chosen for the ASMA North Regional Exhibition at Wisconsin Maritime Museum & Minnesota Marine Art Museum.
Leucadia Evening High Tide (Study 2) 15" x 30"
Also, more locally, Glow was exhibited last month at the Forest & Ocean Gallery in Laguna Beach. Selected by the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association Jury for the “Romance of the Landscape” show, Glow received an Honorable Mention in the competition.
Glow 15" x 30"
