Elusive

Every year, about mid-summer, there is a show and auction sale of antique boats at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York. I caught this wonderful mahogany speed boat, a fore runner of the modern 'cigarette boat', as it left the Alexandria Bay boat basin during the Antique Boat Show several years ago. She has just passed the Sunken Rock lighthouse, at Alexandria Bay, New York, heading back upriver toward Clayton. When the captain opened the throttle, she was gone in a flash.

I loved the way the cumulus clouds were building in the sky and the way the sun shone on the highly polished varnish finish on the hull of the boat. The long, narrow shape of the canvas adds thrust to this composition, and the bow-view accentuates the length of the boat in relation to the size of the figures in the cockpit. The original painting is done in alkyd on a canvas panel. It measures 12 inches by 24 inches. It now hangs in one of the beautiful old summer homes on an island on the Canadian side of the river.