Maine Memories: Low Tide and Pink Flamingos

Plein Air Ponderings

Bar Island, Mt. Desert, Maine / July 16, 2024

Brad and I walked out to Bar Island, right across from downtown Bar Harbor, and found a spot to sit below the ruins of an old building. The sandbar that connects this island to town is covered during high tide so we’re watching the water—if you miss the crossing you have to swim or call for a boat to shuttle you back. Brad is painting old pier pilings, five rotted out wooden poles standing crooked in the rocks and dry sea grass.

“Bar Island,” Brad Davis, 2024, oil on wood, 9”x12”

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Our spot is hidden; we scrambled off the trail to get here, holding onto an old rope someone tied to a thick stump. We can barely hear the voices of hikers on the hill above us. We leave Maine tomorrow. Today we woke up early on accident—Brad first, then me. We went fishing off the dock and I caught two mackerel! My first ones. Brad didn't catch anything but he fried one on our stove with just water—we weren’t prepared. It tasted delicious, so clean and healthy, sea salty.

The morning was foggy and dreamlike. One crew of lobstermen were loading and prepping their boat, taking the skiff out and moving big totes around. Their voices carried over the water so we could hear their joking and cursing. An older lady came out to fish on the smaller dock across from us. A big brown jacket and white bucket.

After we ate the fish we took showers and got our things organized so we can head out early tomorrow. We ate a big breakfast at Sylvia's, a cafe inside an old strip mall building that feels like something off the set of Northern Exposure, a show from the early 90s that both of our parents watched when we were babies. The whole place is wood paneled and there’s and a health clinic with a big interior window in the hallway on your way to the bathroom. Then we did our laundry at the Laundromat, I think that’s its actual name.

Our trip has been a dream. We celebrated our one month wedding anniversary just last week and drove from Kentucky all the way up to Maine. Last night we were driving around Mt. Desert Island after painting and writing at the Seawall. It was dusk and most of the little shops were closing up, the pink horizon visible through the trees and old buildings as we rounded curves in the island roads. Driving through Southwest Harbor we noticed a white tent and a crowd of people dancing, music pouring onto the grassy lawn beneath a bright moon.

We pulled the car over and walked back down the street toward the tent, the steel drum renditions of familiar songs. No one stopped dancing to explain, but we learned from banners and a Google search that the Flamingo Festival has been happening since the 1970s when the late Southwest Harbor resident Don Featherstone invented the pink flamingo lawn ornament. We stuck around and listened to the bright music; I even got Brad to dance to a song or two! Then we climbed back into our rental car and drove through the night to our campground by the bay where we caught mackerel this morning.

Brad walking back from Bar Island—we made it before high tide!

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Brad’s show “End of an Era” is currently on view at Abend Gallery in Denver! Can’t make it out to the gallery? See all the paintings here!