E~N~E

E ~ N ~ E

"The dogfish are back" *

                                                    -Kimball Petty, Little Deer Isle, Maine

* Local Mainers response to the returning 'summer people', who like the small sand shark ( dogfish) only come when the weather is warm (er).

DOWNEAST

 Blue Hill From Parker Point

James Aponovich

oil on canvas

As far as I know, there is no agreed upon point as to where "Downeast" actually begins. To mariners gunkholing up the Maine coast, it starts when you set your compass East / Northeast to follow the coast after Cape Elizabeth. To others, it is when the glacially fingered Mid Coast opens to Penobscot Bay, home of ancient volcanos. To diehards, it's only after you reach lonely Naskeag and set out onto Blue Hill or Jericho Bay that the real Downeast begins,. It is also, as they say.....

.......A STATE OF MIND

Pine Tree, Sebasco, Maine

James Aponovich

oil on canvas

We have lived there, for fifteen years we owned a house on Eggemoggin Reach,  about a mile from the Deer Isle bridge. We lived amongst the aging hippie diaspora   who settled there seeking the "good life,' albeit on rocky soil and frigid waters. We also knew the Grindles and Grays,  descendants of English prisoners released on the shore of what was then Massachusetts Bay Colony, later the British exported 

their 'unwanteds' to Australia. We were friends with Consuela and Julia, aristocratic Atlanta belles who taught us gardening and grace. We were all there bound by one common question, often asked: "How did you ever find this place?" We all came there from different circumstances and for different reasons, but the convergence united us all until the tide turned and it was time to move on.

THE TIDAL POOL

The Tidal Pool, Low Tide

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 8" x 12"

The current thinking is that early in our planets life, the earth was only rock, no water and little, if any

atmosphere. Our little sphere endured an aerial bombardment of asteroids, leaving craters and somehow, water, which after countless eons, created oceans.We still go to the coast of Maine and find that primordial scene recreated, the ebb and flow of water and rock. The scars from that violent epoch are still visible on that other rock, our Moon. On Earth the scars are hidden, but here the sea gradually erodes the granite shore exposing the once molten, ancient basalt. As the land slips under the sea and the Earth spins under the Moon, it all becomes magic.

Moon Rise Over the Gulf of Maine, High Tide

James Aponovich

"The sea has many voices, many gods and many voices."

                              -T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets