Summer Racing

So happy to be sailing again.

Sailboats

Pierre Auguste Renoir

1885

I'm back at it after many years of children, jobs, and busy schedules creating shifting priorities.  But sailing has always been a part of my life., if not through my own experience, than through my husband and my collegiate sailor daughter.

I began sailing and racing when I was about 10 in Bluejays on Long Island Sound.  Then around college age, I became a wooden boat "purist" in Mystic, Connecticut - until I moved to Newport, Rhode Island and discovered J-24s.  So fun and fast and competitive!  And then my oldest daughter was born and we moved to Maine.  That's when life shifted.

Girl With Sailboat

Edmund Charles Tarbell

1899

But my girls are all grown up now and I have time again, I mean my own time, and I've gained perspective on what I really want to spend my time doing, like racing sailboats for one.  Three years ago I was invited to join a crew on a J-42 and I've been racing with them since.  We compete well in the fleet, but more important is that the other people on the boat are pretty wonderful, as friends and sailors.  We laugh a lot, and kick butt on the racecourse, too.  Summer Sundays can be no better.

"Eventyr"
(Maine Sailing Partners Photo)

Of course, the views of MDI from off shore are amazing and I never grow tired of the quality of light, color, and composition of the mountains, islands, water and sky.  These were the first breathtaking views of the artists who came to MDI one hundred and fifty years ago.  They traveled here by boat, quicker than the overland routes of the time.  And it was the mountains that came into view first, from many miles away, assuming it wasn't foggy and stormy.  Then it would have been awe and fear inspiring.

Off Mount Desert Island
Fitz Hugh Lane
1856

"Rising in unique configuration from the sea . . . is Mount Desert Island on the Maine coast.  Peculiar to its topography are the conjunctions of sheer cliffs and ocean plane, and of evergreen, pink granite, and northern light."   (John Wilmerding, The Artist's Mount Desert) 



I will miss racing this Sunday because I've just arrived in NYC - art center of the universe!! I'm here for a week of art immersion, attending the Lincoln Center Institute and as many galleries and museums as I can fit in seven days.  I will post from here this week.

. . . connection (?) . . . MDI . . . sailing . . . art . . . roy lichtenstein . . . nyc . . .

Sailboats Through the Trees

Roy Lichtenstein

1984

I like this Roy Lichtenstein . . .