TEN FOOT ISLAND

Davis W. Morton / 2000 / oil on canvas / 12 X 21 inches

      Ten Foot Island is about two miles northwest by boat on the Potomac River from Violets Lock in Potomac, Maryland.  Because the vegetation is so thick, this is the only island on the river, east of Pinto, Maryland, where I have not yet found a place to land my boat.

     When I had my horse I used to go exploring in the woods.  At the end of a day, the image that would haunt me was always a trail I had never been down or a hill I had never been over.  Today, I explore rivers in my kayak.  I go up and down a river from its end toward its beginning, until the water is so shallow I have to walk and drag my boat. Now, on the river when the sun goes down, it is the image of the last bend I was paddling toward that I take home.

     In my paintings I do want to say something of nature’s beauty, but to me the heart of that beauty is its mystery, and exploring the unknown is not only my greatest pleasure, it is the subject of all my work.  When viewers look at the islands or the shorelines in my paintings, I don’t want them to say, “Isn’t that pretty?” I want the need to go exploring to be irresistible.  I want them to be looking for a place to land.

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