Where the Grain Meets the Tide: A Memory in Wood

Sometimes the best stories are already written in the grain of the wood, waiting for an artist to trace the lines. While sitting down to paint on these heavily textured panels, I noticed a singular wood knot that didn't look like a knot at all, but rather the sleek, elliptical hull of a kayak. Reimagining it with a vibrant pop of yellow acrylic ink, the surrounding whorls and burls of the timber suddenly transformed into the rhythmic tidal patterns of the Provincetown bay beach. This serendipitous discovery unlocked a distant summer memory—a quiet morning years ago spent watching a yellow kayak drift against the shifting blues, sea-foam greens, and sunset pinks of the Cape. By letting the organic flow of the wood dictate the composition, these paintings become a dialogue between nature’s hidden geometry and a nostalgic coastal moment frozen in time.