I hope this week's artwork will offer you a few moments of relief during this difficult time, with our wishes to be well and stay safe...
Fulfilling a Dream...
In 1998, at the age of 50, Brechin Morgan left New England aboard his 27' Pacific Seacraft Cutter "Otter" to sail alone around the world. During his voyage, he sailed 32,000 miles and visited 32 countries. He returned i n 2003, becoming only the 232nd person to solo circumnavigate the globe, receiving The Joshua Slocum Society Golden Circle Award in recognition. Using his artwork we'll travel with him over the next few weeks to some of the most beloved and exotic harbors in the world. With a studio in Bridgeport, CT he has been painting from the watercolor sketchbooks he filled on the voyage, along with his the ten volume journal, logs, and boxes of reference photos.

We hope you'll enjoy sharing this journey in sketches and paintings, brought to you by Artist Brechin Morgan...
Using Brec's paintings and sketchbooks and his own words, we'll follow his route from East to West - this week from Block Island (1) to the Marquesas (7) as shown on his charted map above.
(1.) Southeast Light, Block Island
(2.) Bermuda
(3.) Tortola, British Virgin Islands
(3.) Nevis
"Nevis was my personal center of the world which connects the sea girded earth to the anticipation of paradise rising in its shrouded peak. I felt the dream of approaching a sun dappled island. Nevis was both a beginning and golden end. There in Charlestown Harbor I raised anchor to head west for the Panama Canal and the Pacific. There was a fishing skiff next to me then and on its sides were written the words 'God Provides.' There too, four and a half years later I put the anchor down in the same spot for a second time. A different skiff floated nearby and on its side was written 'Eternal.' The alpha and omega of my voyage as I closed the circle and became the 232nd person to join the small lineage of solo circumnavigators begun in 1898 with Joshua Slocum."
(4.) Panama Canal
(5.) Galapagos Islands
(6.) Galapagos Islands

"From the deck of my small boat, a speck on the vast 3,000 miles of sea between Galapagos and Marquesas, I watched trade wind clouds roll slowly overhead toward the western horizon day after lazy day. I watched the moon rise and fall in its cycle spilling silver on the dark water and the southern cross rise on moonless nights. I watched the morning turn to afternoon and still the wind behind ruffling hair on my arms and pushing us along with genoa poled out to port and the main vanged and prevented to leeward. Equatorial afternoon sun back-lit the sails and sparkled the water - the sail shadows, oases of cool on the hot decks and gurgling water ran beside the hull. A hypnotic easy rhythm of days and the sweep of rolling ocean connected me with ancient sailors and ships that had crossed the same lonely blue - they too saw the primordial chase of wind and wave - the same heaving seas rolling back to before the earth had formed. "
(7.) Mt Temetiu Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
"I arrived at the Marquesas Islands after a 25 day downwind passage from the Galapagos and stopped at the second island north in the chain, Hiva Oa. Mt Temetiu rose majestically in the center of the island four thousand feet above the surrounding blue sea. Gauguin had retreated to this lovely island for the last three years of his life hoping to find a more “natural” society and get far from the westernizing French colonial influence he found in Tahiti. His grave was in a hillside cemetery above the main village of Atuona. I walked up the hill and among the gravestones where I found his low square-cut volcanic rock tomb. At its head was a three foot high cast bronze statue that he originally carved from wood of a crouching woman with her foot on a wolf's head. On it's base was inscribed 'Oviri' in Polynesian, meaning “wild." While at the foot of his tomb, a light breeze sent fragrant white frangipani petals floating down from a sheltering tree onto the rust colored rock. I looked across the stones down the hill to the endless lonely blue sea drawing a thin line of white surf along the shore so far from his home. I made a watercolor. I sat a long time. Back on Otter, anchored safely in the harbor, Mt Timetiu glowed gold in the late afternoon sunlight as the hill I had walked darkened."
Next Week....Onward to Caledonia!
Looking Forward to Being Able to Opening Our Doors to You Again Soon!
Please feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of the artwork on my website, or to put my resources to work for you, at  [email protected].
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