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The Beach by Diane M. Moore |
The above picture is one of the very few pictures I’ve painted during my lifetime and, of course, is in the rank of "very amateur art.” Now that summer is approaching, it represents my envee (desire, yearning, etc., in Cajun French) for beach life. The picture was executed on a visit to Gulf Shores, Alabama, and my visit there actually occurred in late spring almost twenty years ago.
I recorded this experience in a journal, then painted the picture. A week spent in sun and sand engendered a feeling of peace, which being near the ocean often does, and I was unencumbered enough not to care if my art “got out there,” as we often say about the dissemination of artistic effort. I wrote: “The umbrella lady comes at high tide, unlocks a painted white box, and many umbrellas, royal blue, spill out, accompanied by matching chairs. Set up, they represent linear thought, each bather’s pole placed in the sand in line with neighboring umbrella, plumb bob straight. A grove of blue palms under which lobster red legs jet toward the sea becomes visible. Waves vibrate monotonously… the sands are heavy with leisurely thought…On the beach everyone searches for something…gifts of the tides.”
This part of the calendar year I live on The Mountain, as it is called here at Sewanee, Tennessee (April 1to October 15) and develop a yearning for water and beach every year. However, we’re likely to schedule leisure time at other elevations; e.g., this weekend in a state park called Pickwick Landing on Pickwick Lake, not too far from the Shiloh National Military Park where my great-grandfather fought as a captain in a Tennessee regiment.
One of the recreational perks Tennessee offers is its state park system—56 of them located in all corners of this wide state. We’ve visited only four of them during our eleven-year sojourn. Many were built by members of the CCC and WPA who were part of programs instituted by President Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt established both programs in an effort to provide employment for indigent young men who needed jobs following the Great Depression.
Anyway, I won’t get to the beach this early in the season…and probably not at all…but we’ll enjoy a few days near a lake in a 1516-acre state park a few miles away from historic Savannah, Tennessee and the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge. I doubt if any art will result from the experience, but the thought of relaxing near a grand body of water is enough to satisfy my yen for sun and sandy beaches…for awhile.
