I am not painting the place. I am painting the memory of the place.
This is what I saw waiting for a ferry that was late: one lamp, the pier running into still water, and the sky doing something extraordinary that nobody on the boat would look up to see. The aurora was green and magenta that night. I poured it across the top third and let it spill into the reflection, then painted the lamp, the railing, the planks. Three things you can name. The rest is flow.
The lamp is the only warm light
Pale gold against cold blue. It does not compete with the aurora—it marks the edge of the human claim. This is as far as we go, and past this the sky can do what it likes.
I painted the lamp first, on a separate layer, with a hard edge. Then I poured the aurora in bands, tilting the surface so the paint moved but the lamp stayed still. The glow in the water is not a copy of the glow above. It is the same pour, reflected and softened where it meets the fjord.
Ruby called it serene yet dynamic
I will take that. The aurora flows. The lamp waits. Those are not the same kind of time, and a picture that holds both without choosing one is the picture I was after.
What I left out: the ferry schedule board, the bench, the car park, the village across the water. Four hundred photographs of this pier. The painting has one lamp and two kinds of light.
For a hallway or a bedroom
For someone who wants a window onto cold air and big sky. For a wall that can take green and magenta without the room turning into an art gallery.
Not for a small space that already has a lot going on. The aurora takes up half the picture, and it will take up the room if the room is not ready for it.
Matte fine art poster, in 3 sizes — 16×12, 24×18, 32×24 in. Ships free within the continental US.
