MARINE ART NEWS "His stuff is really good, isn't it?" says the artist John Stobart, member of the NMHS Overseers Council. And don't you think so, too? He 's talking about the work of Don Demers, the young artist from Kittery, Maine, whose work is featured in an insert by the Mystic Maritime Gallery in this issue of Sea History. We do really want to know what you think, because we want to steam on a slow bell in putting advertising inserts in Sea History. Our only other venture in this direction, again conducted with the Mystic Maritime Gallery, was an insert on the work of the late Tom Hoyne just over a year ago. Marine art is supported by commerce (we only wish it were supported more) and so is this magazine-but like most highly creative relationships, this is one where balance is essential. You may have noticed that junk does not spew out of Sea History as you open the magazine-we tum down all sorts of junky inserts. But, as noted above, Demers is not junk. Are we right in thinking the insert adds something to these pages? While we ponder such matters, on with the discussion of marine art, a field
in which we find real people actually doing things in the dimensional world rather than baking their brains in intellectual forcing houses. "I could not put the river out of my mind ," writes artist/ river pilot Lexie Palmer Palmore in the latest ASMA News, journal of the American Society of Marine Artists, describing how she joined the Delta Queen in 1974 to begin hercareeron the river. She went on to train and sail aboard the square rigger Elissa in Galveston, and to other challenges, culminating in the great one of opening an art gallery in Jefferson, East Texas, where she is also curator of the River Museum. She's reachable at 214 665-7372. Today' s leading portraitist of the Hudson River steamboats, marine artist Bill Muller, led a party of steamboat hi storians who dedicated a new memorial to the most famous of Hudson River steamboat portraitists, James Bard, who died in White Plains, New York, in 1919, and was buried in a pauper' s grave. A new gravestone, shaped like the paddlebox of an old steamboat, was dedicated to hi s memory. Another exploration in ASMA News is in the "splendid magic of the kiri-e
Raymond Massey
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From the China Trade Series by historian-artist Raymond Massey, the first American ship to circumnavigate the earth is shown rounding Diamond Head, midway through a three-year passage begun in Boston in 1787. One of four carefully researched, historically accurate images chronicling the lucrative China Trade that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, Columbia Rediviva is available separately or as a suite in a special personal-commission limited edition. Commissions are being accepted for a 12-month period. To reserve yours, or to order our 16-page illustrated catalog for $5, please call toll-free, 1-800-367-8047, ext. 453. Join us in Hawaii for
AVOYAGE TO CANTON: AMERICA'S CHINA TRADE December 28, 1990, Ship Store Gallery, Kapaa, Kauai.
Ship Store Gallery Kauai, Hawaii (808) 742-7123
world." Kiri-e, the art of continuous paper cut-outs, was traditionally used to print elaborate Japanese characters and designs on kimonos. As the art of cutting the paper itself as the finished artwork (all in one piece-not like a collage), it is discussed with compelling elan and elegance by Aki Sogabe, who teaches the art to children in Bellingham, Washington. Also explored (by Dimetrious Athas of Nahant) are the techniques of using gallons of paint instead of tubes, and other challenges of painting largescale murals . And there is a moving account by Don McMichael of going on a whale hunt with the Inunpiat people in Alaska. McMichael, who celebrated the cooperation of Soviet and American ships to liberate grey whales frozen in off Point Barrow two years ago, has made a print of his painting of the event, which has been presented to schoolchi ldren in Alaska and Siberia. Why does this grand journal have only 341 subscribers? Join up, and join the ASMA Annual Weekend, October 5-7 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Write ASMA, c/o Mrs. Nancy Stiles, 91 Pearsall Place, Bridgeport CT 06605. Ray Massey has recently finished a
COlUM~IA RtDIVIVA