For my first painting show many years ago, my artist statement read, "These paintings are about a port where repairs were needed on enough of the boats to employ all fifteen of us who lived there." I did not realize at that time how important such simplicity is. It was a show about a village in Corfu, Greece where I lived and worked when I was nineteen. Living there was like inhabiting the Bermuda Triangle of happiness. There was the port, a disco, and a restaurant where all of us met each night.
I left that island to go to art school and always assumed I would go back. I never
did, but it laid a strong blueprint for what I found made the world feel right. It is wonderful however, to return to images of boats.
When everyone
else is gone, and you are alone
And you find
this boat...
It will take
you a while
For you to decide it is a boat.
A few days later
you will be happy
you found it.
and then you will remember
I loved you
Stephen Lack
August, 2013
Sometimes the right boat or poem comes along.
Sometimes you have to be the one to make them.
