Monhegan Island - A World All Its Own

 

On the Rocks at Monhegan
2021 watercolor by
Gregory E. Larson

Monhegan Island - A World All Its Own

travel memoir

by Gregory E. Larson

          It was a dreary, gray soup of fog off the coast of Maine when the D.T. Sheridan met its demise on November 7, 1948. The diesel-powered tugboat was hauling two barges of coal from Norfolk, Virginia, to Bangor, Maine. It struck the south, rocky shore of Monhegan Island, even though there was a working lighthouse at the top of the island, which is about a mile from the south shoreline. This was not a tragedy of Edmund Fitzgerald proportions. The outcome was better than most would think. A nearby seaman heard the crash, rescued the crew from the frigid waters, and got them to solid ground. Not sure what happened to the coal barges. Who knows, they might be floating somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle.

          The tugboat remained in pieces on the shore of Monhegan, until a storm in 1970 (probably during high tide) pushed a portion of the bow and hull up onto the rocks where it remains to rust and decay, and is visited by artists and the curious who happen to be on the island.

View of Monhegan Village from the overlook at the lighthouse
photo by the author

          There are sixty-four permanent residents on Monhegan Island, but I can only imagine the winters create a cold, bleak existence. In the warm summer months, the population increases tenfold. Artists, writers, and naturalists mix with tourists and wedding parties and they fill the little village to overflowing. The one-hour ferry ride from the Maine coast does a brisk business all summer long. It seems like a hobbit-land with a small village, lobster boats, evergreen forests, and granite cliffs with gulls swirling above the crashing waves. It would make a great setting for a whodunnit novel, and since the island is full of writers and artists, I’m sure there have been numerous stories about the quaint island where strange things can happen.

Forboding cliffs on the east side of Monhegan Island
photo by author

          On a summer trip to Monhegan in 2019, I was able to attempt to do some plein-air watercolor painting. ‘Attempt’ is the key word. I learned that I paint much better in a studio, so I took numerous photos while on the island and have completed watercolors of the D.T. Sheridan on the rocks and of the Monhegan Lighthouse. The sun, wind, and circumstances beyond my control all conspired to make outdoor watercolor painting a difficult and harrowing task. One morning, after several of us set up our easels on a beach, a crabby lobster-boat fisherman backed his pick-up truck towards my easel, then yelled, “You’re gonna have to move.” Three of us quickly gathered our things but felt dislodged in mind, body, and spirit. After backing his truck over our vantage points, the crabby guy got out and walked back towards the buildings on the shore. In another instance, I was on the lawn of the B&B where our instructor was staying, and I was deep into painting the ferry dock and the boats in the harbor when the proprietor hurried out the front door and yelled, “My mowing guy says he is going to be here in thirty minutes, so you’ll have to wrap up what you’re doing soon.” Oh, the travails of a plein-air artist.

Monhegan Lighthouse
2019 watercolor by
Gregory E. Larson

          So, if you ever have the interest to visit the island, take the Port Clyde Ferry, which travels past Marshall Point Lighthouse and ten miles into the open water of the Atlantic. After an hour’s ride you’ll pull up to the small village of Monhegan and disembark to find your hotel or B&B. The island is about two miles long and a half mile wide, and has numerous hiking trails running along the coast and into the forests. If you want to hike to the lighthouse and museum, you’ll have to turn north to follow the signs and trudge uphill, all the way to the top of the island.

If you walk south through the village, past the church, you’ll eventually end up at Lobster Cove, which has a pungent, fishy odor during low tide. Past the marshes and up on the rocks above the south shore is where you’ll find the rusting pieces of the D.T. Sheridan. I’m sure the gulls have been feasting along the shore for centuries and they’ll always be there. The view is timeless. Out towards the horizon, amongst the colorful, wooden buoys, you’ll see the lobster boats with the men working their traps in the brisk winds on the open sea . . . unless it is foggy, and who knows what can happen then.

 Information Resource: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/d-t-sheridan-shipwreck

Monhegan Village near the ferry dock.
photo by the author

Selection to National Watercolor Exhibition

"Down the 'Great Unknown'"
2020 original watercolor by
Gregory E. Larson
(selected to National Watercolor Exhibition, Mark Arts Center, Wichita, Kansas, 
December 10, 2021 through January 29, 2022)

Selection to National Watercolor Exhibition
announcement by Gregory E. Larson

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the watercolor "Down the 'Great Unknown'" has been selected for the National Watercolor Exhibition in Wichita, Kansas from December 10, 2021 thru January 29, 2022. The jurist who selected the painting, Stephen Zhang, is a nationally known watercolor artist.

The exhibit is sponsored by the Kansas Watercolor Society and will take place in the Mark Arts Center, 1307 N. Rock Road, Wichita, KS 67206.

I was pleased with the outcome when I completed the painting shortly after my rafting trip through the Grand Canyon in the summer of 2020. The goal was to show the variety of colors in the water, rocks, and sky, and to provide depth for the viewer to feel as though they were on the raft with me.

I want to thank all of you who have continued your interest in my writings and paintings. The time spent at the laptop or in the art studio is a time of joy for me.

Sincerely,

Greg

P.S. I also want to share a short 3-minute video of some of the paintings. I owe much gratitude to fellow artist Catharine Deever for creating and editing the video, along with William Edward Williams for graciously allowing the use of his music as background.

Link to Video: https://youtu.be/GabEcPgfGQc

Link to online gallery: https://larsoncreativellc.com/#/down-the-great-unknown-rafting-the-grand-canyon/

Pérouges - A Medieval Village

Pérouges - A Medieval Village

a travel memoir by Gregory E. Larson

          I discovered one of France’s best kept secrets through a suggestion by my French son-in-law, Michel. He recommended a visit to Pérouges, a well-preserved, medieval hilltop village in the Ain River Valley just northeast of the city of Lyon. There have been numerous films made in Pérouges that have taken advantage of the historical setting.

The village was built from the 12th century through the 14th century.

          The history I was able to dredge up on the Internet says the stone village was established in the early 12^th century by settlers that came from Perugia, in the current Umbrian region of Italy. My curiosity was piqued and I wondered if they left as outcasts or on peaceful terms, just wanting to find a better life. Their village was on a trade route between Lyon and Geneva, and flourished due to the skilled craftsmen, linen-weavers, farmers and wine-makers. The original builders erected the stone walls of the buildings without any significant foundations, but all appear to remain quite sturdy and strong. Stone, tile, and brick are everywhere. Even the thick and bumpy cobblestones telegraph a message to the feet with every step that everything is made of stone. The only wood in the construction appears to be the roof timbers, the doors and the windows.

Stone was everywhere

          The tourists fill the streets during the summertime and on weekends in the fall, visiting the museum, shops and restaurants, or just wandering the small streets and alleyways. A favorite bakery delicacy are the Galettes des Pérouges, giant pizza-sized cookies. I saw a man carrying a half-dozen large boxes as he left the village on a Sunday evening, and assumed he wanted to enjoy the galettes long after his visit.

The Liberty Tree, a linden, was planted in the 1790s

          There was a small square in the middle of the village, with a linden tree that was planted in the 1790s, after the French Revolution. The Tree of Liberty is still alive, although its long branches are propped up with timbers. The restaurant/hotel had an outdoor dining area where people enjoyed their coffee, wine and local cuisine. It was the weekend, and there were groups of people in medieval costumes, including a small band playing songs with their flutes, stringed instruments and drums.

Medieval peasants dancing on the cobbles.

          I doubt that many Americans have visited there. None of the townspeople I met spoke English, so all of them had to endure my broken French. When I checked into the hotel, I was given a large skeleton key and a map to the room, which was in one of the stone buildings about a block away from the square. After a careful walk on the cobbles, I inserted the key into a lock on a thick wooden door to the room, which had an eerie, musty ambiance that screamed “old Europe.” There was an outdoor patio on the rear, overlooking the valley and the countryside.

Early sunlight filters through a window

          Early the next morning, I arose at the crack of dawn to walk the cobblestones and take pictures of the streets – a travel habit of mine, mainly to take advantage of the silence and the beautiful colors of light created by the rising sun and shadows. It’s a type of meditation to walk through a historical village in the silence, broken only by the birds singing in the morning. I looked out across the valley where patches of early morning fog clung to the trees on the hillsides.

A weathered lintel at an old doorway

          As I walked the narrow street that circled the interior of the village, I could smell the bakeries making their fresh creations of galettes and pastries. The light filtered through colored-glass windows and reflected off the patches of stucco, bricks and stones of the walls surrounding me. Weathered wood-beam lintels showed their age through the coarse-grained and sun-bleached surfaces. The green plants and vines gave a sense of life to the hard surfaces. A weathered and abandoned well was overgrown with flowers and vines.

Vines and plants at the old well

          I traversed the oval route around the village, and came to the Fortress Church at the far west end. The narrow street was almost dark, with deep shadows created by the doors, windows and large roof overhangs. The church tower appeared in all its splendor, with sunlight reflecting from the roof and cross. The image became my inspiration to do a watercolor, and I added two monks walking toward the church to give the painting some scale and sense of timelessness. It was another travel moment for safekeeping. Painting the scene with watercolor helps me do that.  

Perouges - A Medieval Village
2021 original watercolor by
Gregory E. Larson

                   

Pictures in a Picture

KC Crossroads
2021 watercolor
by Gregory E. Larson

Pictures in a Picture

memoir

by Gregory E. Larson

          It was a late Spring evening on Main Street in the Crossroads District, just south of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The pandemic was beginning to wane, but masks were still required to board the streetcar. I hopped on at Union Station and rode north to an intersection near a restaurant where I was to meet friends for dinner.

          Being a bit early, I walked around the block to look at new apartments and condo buildings, outdoor coffee bars and pubs. With a lot of young adults moving into the Crossroads, there is finally a critical mass of population to create a successful inner city with a nice mix of businesses.

          I stopped at the restaurant, did not see my friends inside, so I sat at an empty set of tables on the outside on the Main Street sidewalk. That’s when I noticed the buildings on the west side of the street. The windows had the most unusual reflections of some of the colorful new condo buildings just to my east. My fascination grew intense because each window had a reflection that made it look like an abstract painting. Each building looked like a wall with a collection of modern art. And, oh, the bricks had a texture and color worth remembering.

I took some cellphone photographs and noticed the streetcar coming by, so I took a photo of it. The reflections from the front of the streetcar were even more abstract.

I thought there might be a painting in the scene, a collection of abstract pictures within the picture, so to speak. When I decided to begin the watercolor, my goal was to have the viewer feel the bricks, not just see them. I want the viewer to feel the movement of the streetcar and the notice the reflections off the walls and the windows.

While I worked on the painting over the course of  two weeks, it made me think of one of my favorite movies: Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock. The entire movie took place in an urban courtyard of an apartment building. Jimmy Stewart was confined to a wheelchair, so he spent most of the day as a voyeur, watching the comings and goings of the apartment dwellers. He shared his thoughts with Grace Kelly, who came to see him from time to time, and she was stressed with his voyeurisms, and couldn’t believe the stories he shared about what was going on in the other windows of the urban scene. The buildings never changed but the people dynamics were what made the movie so interesting. People dynamics – that’s what makes cities interesting. The buildings just become the backdrop.

If you are an afficionado of Hitchcock movies, you know that the old man, Alfred himself, finds a cameo scene somewhere in each movie, on the sidewalks or in the crowds moving about. In that spirit, I’ve begun to paint myself into different urban scenes, walking incognito, blending into the surroundings.

I have to confess that sometimes I dream that I am in a painting, walking around, trying to get a better look at the surroundings. Sometimes the best real way to do that is to go back to the location. If that is not possible, I move around on Google Streetview to inspect details from a different angle. When I finish a painting, I have a feeling that a little bit of my spirit is left on the spot where the view takes place.

I almost forgot – the dinner and conversation with friends that evening was very good. As we left the restaurant, the city had begun to darken. The windows, the car headlights and the shops were now the light sources – maybe there’s another painting down the road, an homage to Edward Hopper and Nighthawks.

 

Postscript

 

Amelia Earhart Home - Atchison, Kansas
2021 watercolor
by Gregory E. Larson
Third Place Award

I recently completed a watercolor of the Amelia Earhart Home in Atchison, Kansas. It was selected to be in the exhibit, Home, at the Buttonwood Art Space. I went down to see the paintings after they were hung. To my surprise, the little Amelia Earhart Home painting has a cameo wall in the lobby at the beginning of the exhibit, which is titled “Home,” and includes approximately 150 paintings from 80 artists. The exhibit ends Sept. 23, 2021.

Positive Energy

 

Pair of Seals - bronze sculpture by  Trader Vic (Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr.)

Positive Energy

memoir 

Gregory E. Larson

          Preface: My entire career as an architect was an educational experience. I was a somewhat naïve kid from Kansas, and once I was thrust into the business world, it seemed every day was an adventure in meeting new and different people and ideas. It definitely was not boring. Working for over 30 years for Hallmark and Crown Center, the variety of people and projects made life interesting. This memoir is a vignette that gives a peek into those fascinating times.

          Do you remember the Trader Vic’s restaurants? I’m sure that some of you do. They had fancy drinks and an interior atmosphere that I’d call “funky tiki-hut a la South Pacific.” Kansas City had one for many years in the Westin Hotel. Very popular, especially at lunch time, it was an oasis during the workday for three-martini lunches, with an odd mix of politicians, power brokers in business suits, rendezvous couples and tourists. The management cultivated the repeat clients and had their booths waiting for their appointed arrival.

          At the height of their success, there were 25 restaurants, including ones in London, Munich, Singapore and Tokyo. I also remember the lines in the strange rock song, titled “Werewolves of London,” by Warren Zevon:

          I saw a werewolf drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s

          His hair was perfect. Nah!

          Ah-ooooo, werewolves of London

          The founder of Trader Vic’s, Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. (1902-1984), was a self-made man. In 1934, he spent $500 and opened a small restaurant near his parents’ grocery store in Oakland, California. The little restaurant, named Hinky Dinks became a hit and at some point the name was changed to Trader Vic’s.

          Nothing seemed to curb Victor’s drive and energy. As a six-year-old boy he had tuberculosis. Complications required amputation of one of his legs, but he never complained. He was a writer and self-taught artist who painted and created sculpture and jewelry. His passion was the South Pacific and the drinks and cuisine that came from there. He claimed to have invented the Mai Tai cocktail in 1944 (rum with lime and orange juice).

          I never met Victor, but my path crossed with the restaurant during a two-year project of renovating the entire Westin Hotel at Crown Center (1986-1988). I was responsible for meeting with the design consultants, and then coordinated an in-house team to transform the concepts into construction drawings for the contractors. Crown Center had hired a west-coast hotel design firm, but Trader Vic’s had their own designer from San Francisco that they used for their renovations. During the initial meetings with representatives from Trader Vic’s, we learned that the “tiki look” was getting worn out, and they were changing the interior design of the restaurants to have a “marine antique” look with giant ship models, marine lights, nautical accoutrements and paintings. Of course, most of the meetings took place during lunch at Trader Vic’s. I acquired a taste for their grilled mahi-mahi. I’d never had anything like it, nor have I found anything as good since. The mahi-mahi was cut in thin pieces and grilled with a light coating of something a bit crunchy. The herbs and spices melded with the lemon and butter.

          This was in the ’80s before Autocad computer drawings and electronic sharing of information. During the coordination effort, it was necessary for me to go to San Francisco with a marked-up a set of their drawings along with comments and questions. I also took a set of the beginnings of the construction documents.

          Upon arrival at the downtown hotel, a near-disaster was averted. After I paid the fare and tip to the cabbie, the bellhop greeted me at the cab and grabbed my luggage. All of a sudden the cab driver started to pull away from the curb. In a split second, I realized the blueprints were in the back seat. I slammed my palm on the trunk of the cab and yelled, “Stop!”  and let out a sigh of relief when the brake lights came on. All of the notes for the meeting would have disappeared in the night if I hadn’t slapped the trunk.

          The next day I met with the design firm in downtown San Francisco. I was so happy to have the marked-up blueprints and the meeting went smoothly. In the afternoon, the Trader Vic’s representative came and we updated him on the progress of the plans. He then suggested we go over to Oakland with him to see their warehouse where the decorations and antiques were stored. After the warehouse visit, he planned to take us to the flagship (no pun intended) Trader Vic restaurant in Emeryville. Oh boy, more grilled mahi-mahi!

          Across the Bay Bridge we went, and arrived at the warehouse full of interesting items, and met an unforgettable warehouse manager with a vintage hippie-look: blue jeans, Hawaiian shirt loosely buttoned with gray chest hairs poking out, puka-shell necklace, long hair and wire-rim glasses. He was proud to give us a tour. The warehouse was like a candy store full of interior decorations: unique chandeliers, brass ship barometers, harpoons, giant ship models. I could have poked around for hours.

          When it was time to leave for dinner, the representative whispered something in the warehouse manager’s ear. He disappeared and quickly returned with a small box, which he opened and pulled out a small bronze sculpture of two seals.

          “This is a memento for you, and a token of our appreciation for your work on the space in Kansas City. It is one of Trader Vic's sculptures.” He handed it to me and I almost dropped it. The weight of the cast bronze sculpture was about three times what I expected for such a small item.” I was truly moved by their friendship. Moments like those made all the hard work worthwhile.

          Being the observing architect, I looked up and noticed something a bit odd. Over each truck dock was a large steel-frame pyramid hanging from a chain. Each pyramid was about eight feet wide and the pyramid point was about four feet high.

Pyramid frame hanging above the dock

          I turned to the warehouse manager and asked, “What are the pyramids for?”

          Our eyes locked and the old hippie gave me a deadly serious response, “Those are what give us positive energy.”

          Okay, I thought. I guess I’m not in Kansas anymore. I responded, “Hey, whatever works,” and we all chuckled. I wondered if they were something requested by Victor Bergeron or something the manager decided to install. I never asked.

         While having dinner by the bay that evening, I thought about how fascinating the business trips were, but it was always good to get back home to Kansas.

Tenby Harbour

Tenby Harbour, Wales

 

Tenby Harbour – Pembrokeshire County,Wales, U.K.

memoir

by Gregory E. Larson

          The travel literature in 2008 described Tenby as a picturesque harbour and a must see. Gretta, my wife, shared more information as she did her research for the trip. "It sounds like Tenby gets pretty crowded in the summer with vacationers, or those on holiday, as they call it. There are tour boat rides to Caldey Island where an order of monks have an abbey, AND they make chocolate. How cool is that? Oh, and there's a tea garden, too."

          I could tell by the look in Gretta’s eyes that the harbour and the tour boat ride were definitely on the list of activities. I decided to put in my two-cents-worth. “We could hit a pub in town for lunch with Ale and Cider.” That would give her tea and chocolate, and give me ale and snacks. Something for both of us.

          The day trip to Tenby, Wales, didn’t disappoint. Arriving early in the day, we were able to park the rental car in a car park for a few pounds, and we scurried into the charming village of pastel-colored town homes. Streets and alleyways angled in every direction, with views down to the harbour full of sailboats and fishing vessels. After purchasing tickets for the trip to Caldey Island, we felt like pinballs dropping down to the harbour as we walked out on the seawall and down the stairs to the water’s edge to board the tour boat.

          While sitting in the boat, waiting to start the fifteen-minute trip to Caldey Island, I snapped a picture of the harbour as the clouds filled most of the sky. For a Kansan, it was a rare view of boats and the colorful buildings of the town. Gretta looked excited. She was more than ready to get to the land of tea and chocolate, so I snapped a picture of her in the tour boat.

Gretta ready for the tour to the island of tea and chocolate

          Finally, the boat began to pull out of the harbour and past the seawall. We passed the lifeboat station and launch ramp, and bounced on the waves as we continued to Caldey Island. The wind was cold and brisk, with intermittent sun and clouds. I concluded after a few days in England and Wales that I could easily be a weatherman there in the summertime. Every morning the forecast was for a low of 48F and a high of 68F, and cloudy with a chance of rain. Day after day, that forecast would suffice.

Lifeboat Station and Launch Ramp

Coastline of Caldey Island

Tea Time

          We walked through the woods on the isle until we found the monk’s chocolate factory. Then we stopped for tea, scones, and clotted cream. Gretta was almost giddy while having tea. She looked like she was living out a fantasy from her childhood.

          After tea, we walked out onto the paths that followed the coastline of the island, to look at the rocks and take a photo of the lighthouse. Other than a few short months of summer, the place looked like it would be pretty bleak most of the year.

Back in Tenby, we spent part of the afternoon at a local pub that was a half-level below the street. One had to duck below the beams inside, just to get to the bar. It had that old musty smell with a pinch of ale thrown in.

I had fun ordering the beer from the cask, called Old Speckled Hen. I ordered Gretta a Strongbow Cider. Two men at the bar looked at me and one said, “Hey laddie, you don’t sound like you are from around here.”

I replied, “So you didn’t detect my Cockney accent?” They burst out laughing.

“Okay, so where are you really from.”

“Kansas, U.S.A.”

“Is that a fact? Is it flat out there in the middle of the country?”

“Part of it is flat out in Western Kansas, but I’m from around Kansas City, and there are a lot of hills around the Kansas and Missouri Rivers.”

They looked me over again and one of them said, “You are a long way from home, for sure.”

The buddies at the bar talked about how they and their spouses took a trip once a year, and they picked Tenby. One of them said, “Our wives have been out shopping all day.” He looked at his buddy and said, “I suppose we’d better go find them or the two of us may be forced to sleep in a tent tonight out by the caravans.”

Gretta and I enjoyed the nuts and chips with our drinks, soaking in the local atmosphere, the laughs of the patrons and the smell of ale. And that was pretty much our day in Tenby.

The Red Boat - Tenby Harbour
2021 watercolor by Gregory E. Larson

* * *

Now, in 2021, I scrolled through the photos with mixed emotions, happy and sad; happy to see how much fun Gretta and I had on the trip, and sad that she’s not here to re-live the memories with me. I looked at the harbour photo and decided to do a large watercolor of the red fishing boat with all the harbour and buildings in the background. I knew it needed to be a large painting to get all the details. The photo was taken on a cloudy day, so I wanted to make the painting a sunny day, to make the colors more vivid. It was my most ambitious watercolor to date.

While I worked on the painting, I would think of that moment in time, just before our tour boat began to move, when I took the photo of the harbour. I’m glad that tour put me in the spot to see the harbour from it’s edge, all the way back to the townhomes lined up on the hillside. I decided, yes, it was a picturesque harbour, just as the travel literature described it.

The Streets of Chicago

 

Early morning sunlight shines on the Chicago Loop

The Streets of Chicago

memoir

by Gregory E. Larson                                                                                     

Some people say that big cities never sleep. I’ll take exception to that. Sometimes they are almost asleep. At least, that is what it seemed when I walked the empty sidewalks of downtown Chicago on a Sunday Spring morning years ago. For an architect, Chicago is like a candy store with buildings dripping with a wide variety of details.

When the light cracked through the curtains at the Burnham Hotel (the historical Reliance Building), I couldn’t resist the temptation to go exploring on my own. I pulled on my clothes, rode the elevator, then slipped out into the quiet of the early morning. The sunlight reflected off the tops of the buildings and the light filtered down into the urban canyons.

Rarely a car passed by, and I saw few pedestrians. The “L” was operating but the cars looked empty. I made slow footsteps, peering up at terra cotta details and looking down alleyways. The contrast of the shadows and light gave way to thoughts of the Jimi Hendrix song The Wind Cries Mary, with the line “the traffic lights, they turn blue tomorrow,” and more thoughts of slow, bluesy saxophone jazz that accompanies the detective stories.

An empty Michigan Avenue

It was an odd feeling to be in a quiet interlude of a vibrant city. I kept walking towards Michigan Avenue near the Art Institute. Empty streets there, too. Every so often I’d take a photo of a detail or a window. I kept walking, looking down streets I’d never seen before. One block west of Michigan Avenue there was a small street that was almost as narrow as an alley, but it was a designated street named Garland Court. I turned north and looked at an amazing patchwork-quilt of building sizes and styles. To my right was a classical-style building with a huge overhanging cornice at the top. To my left was a new building of stone and glass. The morning light shone brightly on the tops of the buildings, but the old-style streetlamps were still shining along Garland Court.

"A Slice in Time - Chicago 2008" (2021 watercolor by Gregory E. Larson)

Looking north to the intersection at Randolph Street, there was an old stucco building with stone trim and a modern brick building with an atrium at the front. Beyond that was a stunning mixture of buildings and colors. In the distance, the Trump tower with cranes at the top was under construction along the Chicago River, on the site which the Chicago Sun-Times building once occupied. I had attended a continuing-education session for architects in Kansas City and learned the concrete used in the Trump Tower was a new innovative chemical mixture that was 40% stronger than typical concrete. The soupy mix design allowed it to be pumped over 1,000 vertical feet. The curing time for the concrete was much faster than standard mixes, thus the forms were removed and the project was allowed to rise at a rapid rate.

There was also a neo-gothic pencil-like tower that I’ve since learned is the Mather Building (The Chicago Quarters Hotel). A man named Mather was a railroad magnate who built railroad cars. He commissioned the design and construction of what was then the tallest building in Chicago at 42 stories when it was completed in 1928. I took photos of what I thought was the prize view of the early-morning exploration. Since I rarely get to the large cities, this was the gemstone of my Sunday morning wandering.

Over a decade later, as I started painting the watercolors, I went back to the Chicago image, made a copy and showed it to one of my art instructors. He said, “Greg, I think you are biting off more than you can chew. You should wait and save that for a time after you’ve gotten a lot more painting experience.

This year I decided to really push myself to take on larger and more difficult paintings. It felt like the time was right to tackle the painting of the Chicago view. I researched the surroundings on Google “street view” and the internet. I learned the building on the left is a condo tower named The Heritage at Millenium Park. At the time of its completion in 2005 at 57 stories, it was the largest and tallest condo building in Chicago. Taller residential towers have since sprouted in Chicago and other large cities to satisfy the market for spaces with magnificent views out onto the cityscapes.

As I planned the painting, I realized the street looked so empty on that Sunday morning, so I decided to add a 2008 Ford, Crown-Vic cab on the street, and to add more action, I painted myself (my better side) walking north on the right sidewalk.

To my surprise, I discovered that part of the view I photographed in 2008 no longer exists. Two blocks north of where I took the photo, a new building blocks the view of the Mather Building. It made me realize that I was very lucky to see the older view, being there on that Sunday morning with the early light, thus I gave the painting the title of “A Slice in Time – Chicago 2008.”

Neo-Gothic detail on a Chicago building