Audrey Bechler's Paintings: Time on the East Coast

I am back from a wonderful month on the East Coast. For me in all the places I have been, I love Cape Ann, the Newburyport area and Maine the best. It is physically the most beautiful. I so love the old New England architecture, the winding narrow roads, small villages with little downtown shops markets, a post office, and a church the granite shores, islands , inlets and ocean. Granite is a beautiful rock, quarried years ago, now the deep extracted pits are full of water. Many of the quarries are close to the ocean where the stone was loaded onto ships.

I experienced many synchronicities. I saw a Winslow Homer show at the Bowdoin art museum, Andrew Wyeth at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, as well as a premier showing of a movie documentary Wyeth Bold Strokes. The director was there as well as people that were in the movie including Helga. This film will be on America Masters, PBS in Sept. The next week I saw a film I Claude Monet, a history from the letters he wrote, narrated with images of the paintings that corresponded to information in the letters. I also attended an opening of a show of paintings of an artist friend . I saw a replica Viking ship over a hundred feet long that crossed the ocean and was in Rockland for a couple of days.

I did Paint the Town, an event where artists paint a scene in Waldoboro and then the paintings are hung and there is a reception, with lobster and good food , after which is the auction, a fun day. There were three pot lucks with friends. I went swimming and kayaked in Back cove.

The last weekend I spent with friends on Cape Ann. We stayed in a B and B in Lanesville My childhood and teenage years were summers in Rockport MA, an artist colony . We visited our favorite places, and went swimming at Good Harbor Beach. There is a retrospect show at the North Shore Art association of paintings by Don Stone, who died 2015. I was familiar with his work from my time in Rockport and latter when I myself was in a few National shows and I was a member of the Rockport and North Shore art Assoc. It was great to see so many of his paintings about 135?. He was an inspiration for me. I always respected his talent. The trip back to Eugene was long., delayed flight, missed connection, and I thought I lost my camera but found in a couple of days later in a pocket in my back pack. My friends at Ya Po Ah were glad to see me back. I love my friends, on the East Coast and the West Coast and to be able to stay at my old homestead that Doug and Christina now own. Life is a miracle. Doug cooked breakfast and Christina dinners. All I did was wash dishes. I do appreciate everything done for me but I don’t always let people know that.

I don’t consider myself a social person, I like my time alone. However the people I know bring me so much joy, and we need each other, we contribute to each others learning, loving and cooperation, accepting, our differences, accepting our faults, shown to us by others, so we can understand ourselves. We need to live long to appreciate what we have, to connect the dots. Here I am in the last act of my life. Behind the scenes are the ones that have assisted and taken part, like in a movie that in the end lists all the people that did their Jobs to make that movie, This is your life. I thank you all.