Wellfleet Harbor, MA

Cape Cod, and more specifically, Wellfleet Harbor, has been our summer destination for over 40 years. Staying in Deja View, a small cabin on a bluff overlooking the bay, always provided inspiration close at hand. Over the years, I portrayed the quiet majesty of this scene in various media. This most recent rendition of the bay is part of a limited series of monotype prints (Wellfleet Harbor I - IV).

The path leading to Wellfleet Harbor from the cabin is short, inviting me to walk there often. It would have been difficult to render this particular view in plein air however, because once the inks dry, they won’t properly transfer to paper. I therefore used the vision of the harbor that I always carry around in my head to recreate the view: First, I depicted the scene with colored inks on an acrylic plate, then I covered both plate and ink with dampened paper. Passing the sandwich of plate +paper through a hand-pulled press provided the even pressure necessary for faithful transfer of ink from plate to paper. The 4 similar images in this series of Wellfleet Harbor monotypes share the same ink palette with individual variations in texture.