Painting with Andrew Wyeth

48 hours on his former island and studio off the coast of Maine

There’s a quote from Andrew Wyeth when he was painting watercolors on the coast of Maine in his twenties along the lines of: I didn’t want to waste time sleeping when I could be painting.

Or at least I think it’s a quote. I’ve had a hard time finding it again…

I really did think I’d read that quote during my first moments upon arriving at his old studio in Allen Island, Maine for a 48 hour residency… and I definitely held it close in my mind as I painted, probably more over a 48 hour period than any other point in my life… but for the life of me I can’t find it again in Richard Meryman’s expansive Wyeth biography I brought along.

Was it some kind of literary hallucination?

Am I just bad at rereading books?

Well… I think I was just more interested in watching the way saltwater gives a unique sheen to watercolor paint and how the wine dark sea morphed into Caribbean teal when it hit the cliffs and how that ocean spray exploded again and again and again…

What I can say for a fact is that my time on the island was incredibly special. Also INCREDIBLY fortuitous.

I was fresh off a week and half of What Is Color? book events, ending at my alma mater Colby College. I knew I had a few days in between my workshops and lecture there and another event at the Tang Museum for the Saratoga Book Festival. I also knew Colby recently bought Allen (and its neighboring Benner) islands off of the Wyeths, dubbing it their new Island Campus. I can’t say I’m the most up-to-date alum, but still I’ve gotten scores of emails about this place and have always thought… hmmm that seems cool. How could I snag some time there?

So I did the thing you always have to do in college, or anywhere really. I just asked.

To my surprise, the answer was Of course! Just meet the boat in Port Clyde at 4pm. Stay in The Farmhouse. You’ll have island to yourself. Enjoy!

From there, it felt like that opening scene out of Portrait of a Lady on Fire—except I luckily didn’t have to jump in after my canvases. And, well, most of the rest of the movie…

I arrived around sunset and immediately got to work painting the light on the channel between Allen and Benner islands.

The first night, plus my likely-apocryphal Wyeth quote, set the tone.

I painted a lot.

I spent the next day circling the mile-long island like my dog Waldo would before settling down for a nap. I had my paints, my sketchbooks, and fishing rod. (Rod mostly for show as the fish didn’t seem to appreciate my artistic journey…)

And I promise, I did sleep too. A little bit. But how do you sleep in with a sunrise like this?

My fun challenge now is making sense of all these paintings.

The only thing I know for certain is I want to go back.

I can’t say enough times THANK YOU to everyone (Véronique Plesch, Bevin Engman, Whitney King and others) at Colby who made this stay possible. But I can say it one more time: THANK YOU!

-Steven

PS, I’ve really appreciated the few studio visits I’ve already had with this new work. Thanks to Fraser Taylor for pointing me towards Joan Eardley’s work and providing this inspirational image of plein air work and all its soaked glory. Looks cozy!