The Two Souls Of Gloucester, Massachusetts (cont.)

Fishermen switched to herring when the cod was restricted, but that species is now in decline.  Before going into the Crow’s Nest I meet a man selling bait herring out of his car to recreational fishermen. He has some “secret” sources that sell him herring before all of it is salted, pumped into stainless steel tanks, and trucked to Maine for lobstering bait.  He offers me a litany of Gloucester’s troubles.

“Boston is trying to buy this town”, he said.

“What does that mean?  How can they do that?”

“Because the town is near bankrupt.  They want to use the name of Gloucester to bring in high tech.” 

Though not a fisherman, Kevin feels the pain. “The government should be helping us, not hurting us.”  In a city full of bitter ex-fishermen or fishermen who have to work part time at something else to make ends meet, the popular opinion holds that the fish are coming back, but the regulations will have destroyed the industry and there will be no more fishermen.

One of the largest photographs on the Crow’s Nest wall is of the Andrea Gail, the lost fishing boat of The Perfect Storm fame.  Next to it a wall hanging, painted by local fifth graders after a field trip to their town’s famous bar, pays tribute.  For the crew of the Andrea Gail the hunger for a desperately needed payload catch and the dangers of fishing collided in tragedy.   Turning my eyes from the pictures of the crew on the wall, I look back at Kevin.

“Kevin, what do you local folks think about all us visitors coming into the bar?”

 “We say we hate the tourists, but they keep us alive.”  The cynicism of Kevin and the bait seller sadden me.  And so does the condition of the fishing industry.

At the end of the day I head to my room at the Accommodations of Rocky Neck right in the middle of the Rocky Neck Art Colony, the oldest working art colony in America.  The Rocky Neck area of Gloucester juts out into the south side of the harbor, creating the sheltered Smith’s Cove.  The colony, in existence since1844, has inspired a number of famous American artists including Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Fritz Henry Lane, a Gloucester native.  Today about thirty artists have studios in the Rocky Neck Art Colony, including my neighbor for the weekend, the maritime impressionistic oil painter, John Nesta.  Looking over at his dock pulls my mind away from the fishermen and their troubles.

The wind and brine have weathered the dock tied behind the John Nesta Gallery overlooking Smith's Cove.  Rust speckles the chairs and benches, and the sun has bleached the toys.  A sailboat and a dory, moored and disintegrating alongside the dock, rest on the sand twice a day.  An anchor and a rudder have retired here.   But life decorates and encircles this heap of flotsam. Geraniums and petunias flourish in buckets. Birdfeeders dangle from riggings taken out of service, and songbirds and gulls drop by. Corn in a basin tied to the dock is dinner for a pair of swans that sails in to visit their benefactor. Around the cove riggings clang against masts that will sail tomorrow.  A neighbor grills a steak and laughs with friends.  Pink and orange blend in the sky above the cove and dazzle for a moment before nightfall.  I am in the other soul of Gloucester.

I meet John Nesta, and he talks with me about Rocky Neck and about his paintings with a tenderness in his voice.

“I came to Rocky Neck for an art show 31 years ago and never left.  There’s something inspiring about this place that draws people.” 

A wrought iron fence shelters the front door of Nesta’s gallery.  Plants and flowers grow and hang everywhere out front.  Picture windows jut out on both sides of the door like glass boxes holding displays of sand, shells, starfish, and colored sand glass.  Inside the studio oil paintings hang on walls, rest on easels, and stand lined up on the floor.  On one of my visits to the gallery Nesta doesn’t hear the bell on the door, and I am grateful for the privilege of looking at his paintings in solitude— the sea, fishing boats, lobster boats, salt marsh, State Pier, Gloucester neighborhoods, harbor, sea smoke, lighthouse, and that pink-orange light. 

When Nesta hears me and comes in, I ask him if he thinks the sagging economy will have an impact on the summer season at the Art Colony this year.

“Probably some," he says, "but you keep on painting because you love it.  And you never know each day who will come into your studio.”  That week a visitor from Russia had come in to buy a painting.  He has one of Nesta’s oils already, but his wife asked him to bring home another on this trip. 

“It’s just like the fishermen who keep going out every day because that might be the day for the big catch.”

On my last day there I take one last walk through Rocky Neck to remember galleries, restaurants with decks out over the cove, visitors strolling and eating ice cream cones, residents tending their flowers, narrow streets, the calm of the ocean. And then I make a last stop at the John Nesta Gallery. 

“John, which is your favorite painting in the Gallery?”

He hesitates, looking almost like he is struggling.  “They’re all special, and it’s sometimes hard to let them go.  They’re all unique.  Each one is a scene that I captured on that day but will never be exactly the same at any other time.  And each one brings back to my mind that day, and I remember everything about it. My primary interest in art is to be in love with my next painting.” 

As I leave Rocky Neck, I struggle to reconcile the two emotions that Gloucester has evoked in me—sadness and inspiration. Two disconnected souls exist side by side here in the same body. When I ask Nesta about the struggles of the fishing industry, he thinks about art.  “It’s getting harder and harder to find interesting boats to paint.”  When I tell Kevin at the Crow’s Nest where I’m staying on Rocky Neck, he says, “That’s posh.  I never go over there.”   

Before I leave Gloucester, I visit the Cape Ann Historical Museum.  Standing in front of an oil titled “Fishing Boats, Gloucester” done by Carlo Sinagra in 1948, the two souls of Gloucester come together for me.  Sinagra had been born into a Gloucester fishing family originally from Sicily.   Both a fisherman and an artist, he specialized in painting Gloucester fishing boats.  In 1978 he perished when his fishing vessel the Alligator was lost at sea on a return trip from Nova Scotia.

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