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Ocean Creek
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Photographer's Note |
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In Memory of James D. Mayhew-American Ocean Portrait Painter 1925-2004 JD, born in Oklahoma, absolutely loves this pictured area ( Mendocino and Caspar). He moved there over 30 years ago and built his house and studio on the Pacific headlands where most of his subjects live." Whales, Sea birds, Skunks, and the world's biggest collection of Gophers. and he was not only a friend of mine but a distant cousin we discovered much later. JD was my guru of photography for the sea. For it was he who made the style of painting which graced homes and libraries around the world, a place for the true artists brush; of whales and creatures only alive in best of man. I could not paint a stroke with a brush....so with this in mind and a camera in hand I proceeded to create a look to my ocean pictures, which closely resembled the great master painters of the Pacific Ocean. Through a series of darkroom filtering techniques, utilizing the darkroom of the Mendocino Art Center and the College of the Redwoods...I came as close as I could. Alas they cannot be reprinted here; The process too demanding and the prints way to large to scan, which would do them no justice. Exception is this only one which is a smaller 11x14 Picture. The creek is an unassuming small trickle which can not be perceived from the highway which passes only 100 yards to it's east, yet this is where it meets its goal of voiding into the ocean...as I spent so much time on the ocean and on shoreline, I felt as if I were becoming one with earth. I could hear voices in the wind and see visions in the clouds. I could feel the pulse by the waves and heart from its surge. I stood alone on the westernmost parts of the lower 48 states....all alone, knowing that "I knew what was coming"...as if I were Paul Revere...The ocean gave me my power.... Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
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