Conserve the Point

Conserve the Point is the name of this week’s color sketch in gouache and a work-in-progress painting. This will be an image packed post today, gentle reader! But, before we get to the images, here is more info about this blog. This is a place where, each week, I share my paintings, inspiration, gallery openings, plus an occasional dose of art history. Whether this is your first or millionth visit here, hiya, hello and a warm welcome! I choose a theme to guide my paintings each year. To read about this year’s painting theme, check the description in this link here. To subscribe and get a weekly dose of color for yourself, subscribe here. Ready for more about Conserve the Point? OK! Here goes.

Doomed Project

First, I need to confess something I realized recently. “The Point” is doomed. Why do I say that? Because it’s a beautiful, pristine, undeveloped part of a very popular vacation spot here in North Carolina called Topsail Island. Don’t get me wrong! I wish the Point would be preserved and protected so that people who walk to the end of Topsail Island would be able to enjoy views unobstructed by beach houses. Right now this color sketch that I completed a few weeks ago, is what you would see.

This gouache color sketch is 5×7.5 inches and painted on cold press paper. It is a tool I’m using as I work on a larger version of this painting in oils. So, nothing here is ready for sale yet. I have started a much bigger painting that’s 12 inches by 24 inches in oils. Here’s the first pass of this painting.

I used the upper third of the color sketch and my imagination to paint the first pass of the oil painting. But I am putting this painting aside for now. Why? Because I am hoping to return to Topsail Island later this fall to work on this piece “from life” as they say in painting world. In other words, I want to go back to the Point and work on this painting while I’m on location.

I don’t have any dates to travel back to this treasured place. And, you know, every summer when we leave, we both figure the island might get completely destroyed by a hurricane and be lost forever. The place is less than a mile wide in spots. And, I swear it has a big red “X” for hurricanes to stop and hover. But ya know, that’s the beauty of barrier islands.

Working Title and Inspiration

If I weren’t so glum about the prospects of this beautiful place being ruined by one couple’s plan to develop it, I would have called this painting a different name. Such as? Oh maybe Sunlight and Shadow at Topsail. Why? Because I love looking at paintings throughout history to inspire my own. And, here’s an example of a gorgeous, inspirational painting called Sunlight and Shadow: The Newbury Marshes from 1871 by Martin Johnson Heade. I’m pretty sure I have shared this painting in the past. It popped into my head during this summer’s Topsail Island visit because there were several days when the clouds were as pink as they are in this painting. Check it out here! And look as the sky in the painting…it’s…green!!!

More Inspiration

As I pondered painting and art history this week, I was reminded of another artist who launched a very successful anti-development campaign in New Hampshire just a little over one hundred years ago. Here’s Abbott Handerson Thayer‘s beautiful painting of Mount Monadnock.

The story goes that Thayer was walking through the woods near Mount Monadnock and came across a sign nailed on a tree that read: “PRIVATE WAY / NO PASSING.” The sign, posted by a wealthy woman and her son-in-law, was intended to keep people away from the road, two houses, they had already built. Thayer dreaded the thought of any further development plans.

Not only did Thayer admonish the two land owners by saying “You might as well write your names across the face of the Birth of Venus or the Sistine Madonna because you had bought it for $200,000, as write with your road across the upraised face of the until now shrine of many pilgrims.” OK that last part of his quote is a bit hard to read, isn’t it? But he clearly believed any and all development on the land was equivalent to defacing a work of art.

Thayer’s Solution

Thayer and his son, Gerald, crafted an amazing strategy to save the land from further development. They worked with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forest to trace the ownership of the land in question. The society found 89 heirs to the land and a court ruled in favor of those heirs. Here’s my source for this resourceful and brilliant solution. There does not seem to be any debate about the current ownership of the land that makes up the Point. And while time is ticking away, there is a teenie tiny slice of hope in my mind about this heavenly place on earth.

If nothing else, I will do my best to paint this place I love so much to help everyone see and remember and cherish this beautiful view.

What Do You Think

How about you gentle reader? Do you think I should just give up and let go of the idea that the southern point of Topsail Island is worth saving? What about your thoughts on building second homes? Do you think, if you had the money, you should be able to build a second home on pristine land no matter what? I wish I could understand the mindset of this kind of thinking. So, if you have a way to help me learn and understand, or not, please do share in the comments below.