Award-wining painter Robert Beck has been returning to the northern coast of Maine each year to document life in the fishing towns and villages. Beck is known for addressing subjects through multiple-painting ‘visual essays’. These have included bodies of work painted on a towboat pushing barges down the Mississippi, traveling with surgeons in Senegal, and a 44-image exploration of the contemporary American West. Beck’s work in Maine is his largest body of work on a common subject. This book is a companion piece to the 2016 solo exhibition of Robert Beck’s paintings at the Maine Maritime Museum, titled Over East — An Artist’s Journal: The Contemporary Maritime Community. Included with images painted from life among the locals as they work, and studio paintings created from recollection, are a dozen essays written about his experiences. These paintings and stories are a celebration of a distinctly American place and culture, revered for its heritage, work ethic, and natural beauty.