Oil painting

My kitten post didn't send my web stats through the roof like I thought (feared) it would. And here I thought everyone loved kittens! Maybe baby squirrels? No. . .  I'll have to think of another way to increase my stats, and go back to posting paintings.

The World Prodigy -  o/c

While we wait for the BP oil well to be finally plugged, I'll offer an older painting of The World Prodigy which ran aground in 1989, spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil into Narraganset Bay and polluting a stretch of the RI coast.  At the time I wasn't trying to make an environmental statement with the choice of subject, but in 1989 I was painting the working waterfront and the tankers and ships which unloaded at the Providence docks. I think I just wanted to capture the drama of the island of light and activity in the dark sea.

Luckily for R.I. the coastline has recovered. Not all victims of spills are as lucky. The impact of another spill which took place 20 years ago, the Exxon Valdez, is still felt and remembered by Alaskan artists.  I fear that will be the case for the people of the Gulf as well.