“Painting realistically is like a golf game. You know where you have to go, and you hit the ball in a straight line to reach your goal. Abstraction is more like a tennis game. You hit the ball over the net, and you never know where it’s going to come back.” John Laurent, painter and educator, 1921–2005
Tom Glover’s Muddy Weir depicts an historic fishing weir in Newmarket, New Hampshire, on the tidal section of the Lamprey River within Schanda Conservation Park. Native Americans constructed the original weir here: a series of stakes set into rocks, with willow screens hung from these to filter fish as they moved through the water. A fisherman would stand on a platform placed atop the weir to spear the captured fish. European settlers continued to maintain a weir in this area into the 1900s, and the weir depicted here is still visible from Schanda Park.
Beyond the painting’s historic subject matter is a beautiful rendering of gilded light and shimmering water, with a background of rich spring greens peeking out from behind the pines. Glover’s painting technique employs mark making, collage (applied screen in the center), and an emphasis on highlight, shade, and shadow. Glover explains that he chooses to work both realistically and abstractly to achieve his goals, in homage to the late, renowned seacoast artist John Laurent, who was a mentor to him. This toggling between two modes is a way for him “to keep one’s mind flexing, adjusting, and adapting,” he said. “Abstracting experiences is the process of distilling the experience into its very fundamental and rudimentary aspects.”
Glover is widely known in New England for his paintings of coastlines and the things that are found around coastal areas. Buoys, docks, fish nets, and boats inhabit his work and point to his interest in our relationship with nature, most particularly water. In Muddy Weir, he brings us to a different location. He shows us the particular beauty of something simple, quiet, and historic – away from the grandeur and industry of the seascape.
Tom Glover may be reached through his website. He teaches at Sanctuary Arts in Eliot, Maine, and has been an Artist in Residence on Appledore Island for Shoals Marine Laboratory. He is also an oil painting restorer and picture framer. He will have an exhibition of his paintings of Hurricane Island, Maine, this fall at Cove Street Gallery in Portland, Maine.