This is one of eight paintings created during a special stay on Cape Lookout, NC, by invitation of the National Parks Service. Twelve other artists and I were invited to “respond visually” to our natural environment of sea, sand, and wild life during eight days in residence on this beautiful stretch of National Seashore. The only drawback, purely circumstantial, was that we started the week during Hurricane Bob, and discovered, when we finally got onto the island, that mosquitoes had survived the storm en masse and were hungry for blood! Therefore, our outdoor, on-site, “plein-air” opportunities were limited. Thus, this painting was born inside of the Coast Guard Museum, inspired by old photographs of brave men risking their lives at sea to save those in peril. The flip side of this work is that people not only strive to enjoy the sea’s beauty and bounty, and thus, occasionally, to survive the sea’s natural dangers, but also put sea-life in danger by polluting its waters and discarding plastics and other trash into its depths. Likewise, the sea can be a friend or foe to people, depending on circumstances.
Ellen Elmes
PO Box SVCC
Richlands, VA 24641-1101
email: ellen.elmes@sw.edu
phone: 276.964.7205
fax: 276.964.7720