Water Closet for October 21, 2016

[pullquote]”The artist’s dabs had deeply caught the moods of light playing ceaselessly on rocks, seaweeds and water. At a relatively calm period Hassam had even captured a pebble beach beneath water.”[/pullquote] Just a few miles east of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire and Maine waters, a cluster of rocky islands juts from the sea. The Isles of Shoals are named south to north: White, Lunging, Starr, Smutty Nose, Appledore, and Duck. Of hard granite and softer basalt differentially eroded, and small in area, they present miles of up and down surfaces to twice daily visiting tides and almost constant ocean swells. Duck Island is barely seen at high water. Surf tells us it is there. The islands’ basalt dikes have worn down to low tide levels producing mini-gorges with tide pools where the students of the Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore study. Indian children for hundreds for years before and after collecting sea birds’ eggs from high ledge nesting areas, must have searched the same pools for lobsters. Five centuries ago big hearted men in little ships came from the Old World in the warmer months to salt and dry cod on the rocks above the tides. The fishermen of adventurer and entrepreneur John Smith were included in their numbers. The 17^th century name of the group was Smyth’s Isles. Upon colonization of our coasts ever more fishermen with families populated them. In the 18^th century the isles were a busy place. The waters around them and to the east beyond were rich with fish. Fishing from the islands declined as 19^th century fishermen with schooners carrying efficient dories and tub trawls traveled ever further from the mainland ports of Gloucester, Newburyport, Boston, Portland and nearby Portsmouth.

American impressionist Childe Hassam spent summers at the Isles of Shoals. Inspired by their rocky edges carved by tides and swells he left us with many world famous paintings of them. The softer basalt has eroded faster than the granite it penetrated many millions of years ago leaving behind this gorge. The bands on its lower walls are seaweeds ever changing in color as do the daily lights and tides. – Internet photo

As fisher folks left tourists discovered the lovely steep banked islands fringed with bands of seaweeds visible at low tide. When the surface of clear cold water is calm the floating tough algae firmly attached can be admired to some depth without diving. Charismatic Celia Thaxter’s family and others built hotels on the high solid rock of Starr and Appledore.   Young Celia, interested in the arts, invited those with similar interests to visit. Painters and literary lights such as Emerson, Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, and Melville visited summers. Among the guests a favorite of Celia’s was the young up and coming impressionist painter Childe Hassam who came decked out in Victorian artistic garb with his oils and water color pigments. The impressionistic period was blooming in France. Hassam soon became a celebrated impressionist here and there. In becoming so the world learned of the lovely Isles of Shoals. His Shoals paintings will be on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem until November 6^th.

Hassam visited friend poet Celia Thaxter on Appledore the largest of the Isles of Shoals’ six ragged islands. Some of his Shoals’ paintings are presently on exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum. – Internet photo

Stream Steamers Joan Caulfield, a fine water color painter, her husband John, and the old Closeteer visited the exhibit last week and were much impressed with Hassam’s impressions of places similar to those they know. Red and Joan have a place on the rocky coast of Down East Maine. The old Closeteer spent eight summer weeks forty years ago studying marine biology in the intertidal pools of Appledore while a student at the Shoals Marine Laboratory run by Cornell and New Hampshire Universities. While standing before Hassam’s famous paintings of steep wave-dashed shores that long ago summer returned to him strongly, even its briny smells. The artist’s dabs had deeply caught the moods of light playing ceaselessly on rocks, seaweeds and water. At a relatively calm period Hassam had even captured a pebble beach beneath water. The three Middleton visitors stood before the beach painting for five minutes and returned again before leaving. Viewed from the right distance its spots of paint come alive. The old Closeteer recognized several gorges where he had kneeled on the edges of their tide pools. Dead for a century Hassam lives on in his art. Words won’t do for amateurs to describe paintings, but the three visitors luckily happened upon a tour conducted by a curator, part of a team of marine scientists, curators, and photographers who put the show together. Her words helped tie in the science and history of Hassam’s and poet Celia’s time on the shoals. One wall features photographs taken of similar views to his by photographer Alexandra de Steigner who lived nineteen winters alone as caretaker on Appledore. All in all an excellent exhibit of the work of a man right up there with Monet and other, better known impressionists. Check with your library for passes that will cover part of the museum’s admission. Some summer ask the Shoals Marine Laboratory for permission to visit Appledore. When there find Celia’s famous flower garden painted by her friend and still lovingly kept by volunteers. The hotels and Celia’s house were swept away by fire in 1914. The few surviving wooden buildings are occupied by researchers and students. New buildings have been added. Sit with easel or camera where Hassam had as he viewed favorite scenes or just stand quietly and listen to the water, wind, rock, and gull music heard for thousands of years by Indians, early Old World fishermen, Smith, and the visiting geniuses of Celia’s time. Gather your own impressions; the brain will serve as film and canvas.   You share DNA with the creatures in the pools and surrounding ocean that refreshes their water every few hours. We wonder as moods ebb and flow if there aren’t residual tides in us.
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WATER RESOURCE AND CONSERVATION INFORMATION
FOR MIDDLETON, BOXFORD AND TOPSFIELD`

Ipswich R. Flow Rate (S. Middleton USGS Gage) in Cubic Feet/ Second (CFS):
For Oct 18, 2016  Normal . . . 8.4 CFS     Current Rate . . .Not Available
*Danvers Water Filtration Plant, Lake Street, Middleton is the source for actual precipitation data thru Sep.
** Middleton Stream Team is the source of actual precipitation data for Oct.
Normals data is from the National Climatic Data Center.
THE WATER CLOSET is provided by the Middleton Stream Team: www.middletonstreamteam.org or         <MSTMiddletonMA@gmail.com> or (978) 777-4584