LIVES LIKE ANY | 2015 Doug Dodge saw me setting up my easel on the side of the road as he was driving to work. He pulled over and asked if I would be stopping by his shop. Doug’s boatshed is paradise for a guy who likes boats, woodworking, and Down East accents. I paint there every time I go to Jonesport and we’ve become friends. I told him I’d come over later, and that this time I wanted to make my painting about him, not his boats or shop. It’s a difficult time for Doug. His wife has Alzheimer’s and is at the stage where she has to be watched every minute. Friends come over to help so he can go to the shop and get work done, but he doesn’t get much sleep. He’s got Lyme disease and the antibiotics are beating him up. The boat he’s building is taking longer than planned and that has created serious problems. In spite of it all DOUG & DOZER (DETAIL) OIL ON BOARD H. 16 x W. 24 INCHES
he plugs right along and still speaks with a chuckle. Doug doesn’t have time to spare so I painted the room first, placing the sawhorse in the position where I expected him to sit. When I suggested he should be holding something — a tool maybe, or piece of wood — Doug reached up into the rack and pulled down a model that had been used to loft one of his boats. He sat on the horse and talked about his wife as he gently moved a square of sandpaper across the hull. Doug’s dog, Dozer, the fattest black Lab I’ve ever seen, staggered in from where he had been sunning himself on the road. He plopped down in the back near the band saw, lifting a large cloud of sawdust. Dozer likes to be where the action is, as long as he doesn’t have to walk far. I only had Doug in front of me for about twenty minutes but it was a good twenty, with no distractions. He looked tired although he talked in detail about the next boat he planned to build, which I took as a good sign. For me that’s the perfect painting experience: when the content constructs itself organically. The shed, the pose, the dog, the hull model, were all out of Doug’s life, all there for the seeing.
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