Chesapeake
by Melissa Scott Sinclair
This painting, exemplary ofBarber's ear/,y work, shows the Stan ley Norman (built in 1902) and other Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks making "licks" over the oyster bars near Tilghman Island, Maryland. dredged for oysters during the 2008-09 season . Disease and mismanagement have caused the demise of one of America's projects was sailing from Annapolis to Martha's Vineyard with great fisheries and, with it, the magnificent skipjacks. Still, in Captain Walter Cronkite aboard his sailing ketch Wyntje, in orBarber's paintings these boats sail on forever. der to paint the famed newscaster's yacht entering Edgartown harbo r. When the artist began painting skipjacks in the earl y Melissa Scott Sinclair has written for The Virginian-Pilot in Nor1980s, th ere were twenty-six in the Chesapeake oyster Beet. folk, Virginia, the alternative paper Style Weekly, and other pubNow just fifteen of these venerable vessels remain , and on ly five lications. She is married to artist Joshua Barber, john Barber's son. SEA.HISTORY 127, SUMMER2009
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