Pam's Tall Tales: April 2013

My friend, Victoria Lochhead, recently made an interesting post on some very beautiful Sutcliff photographs from the 1880's of Whitby fisherwomen. These photographs instantly reminded me of some unusual paintings, made around the same time by one of my favorite artists, Winslow Homer. Homer was a self-taught illustrator. He is well known in the USA for his watercolors of New England seascapes, as well as for two other series of paintings portraying the intense sunlight and ambience of the carribean or the coolness of the forest in scenes of hunting and fishing. I was initially attracted to him as a painter by the latter paintings because they capture the wild essence of the Adirondacks where we frequently spend our summers, camping on the islands of Lake George off Bolton's landing. Homer is not well known in the UK. However, he spent three years there, living two houses away from the lifeboat rescue station at Cullercoats, a fishing village on the opposite side of the bay from Whitby. During this time he painted many pictures of the fisherwomen. They are atypical of most of his paintings but he obviously greatly admired and captured their strength and endurance. His biography and complete works can be found at here.

A-Fisher-Girl-on-Beach-(Sketch-for-illustration-of-'The-Incoming-Tide')

Fisherwives

Perils-of-the-Sea

The-Fog-Horn

Waiting-for-the-Return-of-the-Fishing-Fleet

The New York winter kept us in feather coats until April. Needing warmth, we booked an early flight and stepped off the plane two hours later into a glorious Charleston, South Carolina spring morning. After crab cake and grits at “High Cotton” we strolled down Church St., the most romantic road in the USA, to photograph the Hugenot church and neighboring pretty pink houses glistening in the sun like iced wedding cakes.

French Hugenot Church, Charleston, SC

We caught a rip-roaring matinee of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” at the Dock St. Theatre, America’s first theatre that opened 1736 and is now housed in the former Planter’s Hotel, built in 1809. The sun was still shining when the theatre let out so we walked along the sea wall to get our bearings and capture the “Rainbow Row” of seafarers houses lining the Battery. The Battery was built to protect Charleston from Spanish marauders and was also the site where Colonel William Rhett hung pirates at low tide cutting loose their bodies at high tide as fodder for the sharks and alligators.

Pink House Church St, Charleston, SC

Rainbow Row, Charleston SC

Charleston was founded in 1670 and one of the earliest British colonies run by the Lord Proprietors. Unlike colonies to the North, Charleston had no religious mandate and was populated mainly by British colonials from Barbados. By 1775 is was the fourth largest city in British America after Philadelphia, New York and Boston and its prosperity was based on mercantile trading of indigo and “Carolina Gold” rice harvested from the surrounding plantations. Following the example of their namesake, Charles II, Charlestonians indulged in a hedonistic lifestyle. The wealthy planters built enormous, beautiful houses. Many of these old neighborhoods remain intact today thanks to the activities of the Historic Charleston Foundation that holds a “Festival of Houses and Gardens” every April. We signed up for three of their tours. These proved notable not only for the magnificense of the houses but also for the Southern hospitality and amazing hats and bow-ties worn by their lively octogenarian volunteers and guides, who were decked out for the occasion in full Sunday best.

Charleston house with Wisteria Fence

Charleston is a city of Caribbean pastel houses, balustraded balconies wreathed in confederate jasmine, wrought iron gated secret gardens, palmettos, live oak and crepe myrtle trees swaying with Spanish moss and walls draped in wisteria. It is also a town of good food, pedicabs, a burgeoning art scene and the Spoleto Music Festival. Charleston is good for the soul, charming and dripping in history at every turn of the road.

House with green wrought iron railings

Charleston survived a Great Fire (1740), an earthquake (1868) and two wars of secession. It won the first battle of the Revolution but fell three years later under bombardment from British canon located on the neighboring islands. The British told General Moultrie he had “made a gallant defense but that a great many rascals had given them information”. The British Colonel “Bloody Tarleton” and Sir Henry Clinton then proceeded to illegally overrule the conditions of surrender, demanding oaths of loyalty to the crown from the citizenry and hanging as traitors those who refused. All this is documented in moving paintings and letters held by the South Carolina Historical Society that occupies the “Fireproof Building” adjacent to federal, state, city and church buildings that make up the “Four Corners of the Law”.

Four Corners of Law, Charleston

eventually the brutality of the British was their undoing. After the war ended Charleston ladies feted George Washington. His statue stands in the park next to the Fireproof building along with tributes to General Beauregard, whose forces fired the first shots on Fort Sumter that started the American Civil War. Fort Sumter stands two miles out from the battery and guards the bay. We took a chilly boat trip and realized 10 minutes out to sea that nothing would be left to see except the Indigo South Carolina flag fluttering in the breeze – it comprises the palmetto and crescent – that commemorate the spongy palmetto stockade and crescent armor that saved General Moultrie from British bombardment.

Mr. Williams Jnr House

Broad Street divided Charleston historically and continues to do so socially to this day. On Monday, we toured the downtown historical district. Here the great fire of 1740 had lead to a preference for brick. Charleston lacks stone, therefore fake stone façade was etched into the stucco and the streets were paved with ships ballast. Houses were packed together with their sides facing the street and balconies, supported by Greek columns of different style on each floor, were erected to catch the sea breeze. On Tuesday, we walked the more northern “suburban” Wentworth, Hassall and Charlotte St. neighborhoods, where the planters moved out to build their larger mansions and town houses. On Wednesday, we drove to the neighboring Magnolia and Middleton rice plantations for a wine tasting and dinner. The gardens were a riot of azaleas and Spanish moss. Rice paddies along the river, creeks and reflecting ponds, were replete with alligators.

Magnolia Plantation

On Thursday we took the Palmetto Carriage Company’s mule ride – I had major misgivings about such an obviously touristy trip – but it was recomended by many locals turned out to be the highlight of the holiday. The guide was extremely knowledgeable and we wished we had taken it earlier in the week. In fact, I was so impressed I was ready to sign up for the pirate re-enactment walking tour run by his best friend in full swash-buckling drag. On Friday, we took one last stroll through the historic district, cruised the art shops, then snuggled into the sofas nestled on the rooftop of Henry’s Bar and ate our final bowl of divine she-crab soup. It was a great six days. As we drove to the airport the heavens opened in the wake of an Alabama tornado. By the time we reached New York we needed our feather coats.