PATRICK ON THE DOOR

Davis W. Morton / 2005 / oil on canvas / 22 x 34 inches

    In the "Great Gatsby" there is a bill-board that keeps reappearing of just a pair of eyes wearing glasses.  Like a sphinx it seems to sadly watch as the innocence of America is taken over by the values of the “Roaring 20’s.”  In my Baltimore paintings the bill-board I use is electric.  But unlike Fitzgerald’s sphinx, my ATM sign is a harbinger for the progress that is coming.

     To encourage commerce, Baltimore is called “Charm City.” It does have the kind of charm that can be found at the “Inner Harbor.”  There brand new shops and restaurants can easily be replaced to give the public what it wants. But Baltimore also has another kind of charm that has evolved over decades, even centuries. The paradox of progress is that we can’t resist the money that it brings, even if it swallows the kind of charm we value most.

     In my Fells Point paintings I needed a King Arthur… a protector of the past… a man who might have walked down Thames Street 200 years ago.  In “Patrick on the Door” he stands guard out on the sidewalk.  But in “Patrick #2,” he has retreated to the doorway.  While other people look toward the water where Fells Point came from, one man to the left isn’t interested at all.  Instead he looks directly at the viewer as if he’s saying, “I’m here to stay.”

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 ©2006

Comments and Original Art by Davis W. Morton (#194)