Summer Heat

“The view haunted me for decades, and I was determined to paint it. When I finally returned to sketch the scene beneath the bridge, nothing had changed, even the clothes on the line, as if it had all been stopped in time, waiting for me to capture it.”—By Meredith d’Ambrosio

The Disappearing Land

By Meredith d’Ambrosio

DUXBURY Massachusetts—(Weekly Hubris)—7/21/2014— In the early 1950s, on our weekly trek to Magnolia, my father would drive the family in our beach wagon to the North Shore of Boston, by way of the Mystic River Bridge, overlooking Boston Harbor. I would always strain my neck looking out of the left side of the car as we passed this Charlestown street below. The view haunted me for decades, and I was determined to paint it. When I finally returned to sketch the scene beneath the bridge, nothing had changed, even the clothes on the line, as if it had all been stopped in time, waiting for me to capture it.

In 1985, the well-known jazz radio announcer, Giuseppe Balaris, of Milano, Italy, organized an extensive concert tour for me to play piano and sing all over Italy. It was my first time overseas. Every city was filled with historic charm. Toward the end of the tour, I performed in an enormous packed church in Venice. During my solo performance, a slide show of my paintings was projected on a screen behind me. The next day, Giuseppe accompanied me around the canals of Venice. I took along a small sketch pad and camera. We walked across a footbridge similar to the bridge in the painting here above. I was captivated by the scene to my left, and we lingered there for several minutes while I captured a quick study. We continued on to Bologna, the last stop of the concert tour, the next morning. A warm, welcoming note was left for me on the piano by Bob Dorough, who had played at the same club the previous night. Unfortunately, the night before, having failed to take heed of a warning to avoid drinking the tap water in Venice, a stomach virus began to develop, to put it mildly. Of course, the show must go on—with interruptions at 20-minute intervals for a fast trip to the loo, and then back to the piano—a lesson never to be forgotten.

Soon after the rose-rimmed sun rose amid stormy black-and-mauve-colored clouds, my Chocolate Lab, Clifford Brown, and I began our morning jaunt to the bottom of Daniels Island. We didn’t walk very far from the cottage before we were stopped by a scene I had never seen in all my years of living there: hundreds of Queen Anne’s Lace flowers covered the neighbor’s yard. I ran back to the cottage for my camera. The next morning, with easel and necessary equipment in hand, I returned to set up across the road. To my dismay, the Queen Anne’s Lace had been completely mown down the previous afternoon. I refused to be discouraged. To determine where the flowers had been situated on the lawn, my camera would save the day.

Note: Meredith d’Ambrosio’s exhibition of paintings entitled “Landscapes Of The North Countries” will run from Sunday, November 15, 2015 through Sunday, February 14, 2016 at the Art Complex of Duxbury, Massachusetts, 189 Alden Street, Duxbury MA; daily opening times, 1 till 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday; Monday and Tuesday, closed. The opening reception will be held on Sunday, November 15, 2015, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.; Ms. d’Ambrosio will give a concert, accompanied by Chris Taylor on piano.