The other day I was whizzing along Seashore Avenue when I spotted a field of cairns (artistically stacked stones) along the shore, shown in the following two photographs.
I couldn’t believe it. These would have taken forever for someone to build, and given that they were delicately placed in most cases they would not last through winter storms. These clearly haven’t been around for thousands of years.
I decided to return late in the afternoon when shadows would be more pronounced. As I was photographing I met a woman and her daughter who were also photographing. I asked her if she knew who built these. She said it’s kind of an annual
community effort, starting each spring. People just come down and build something artistic looking. Before you know it, the whole place is an art gallery. I shot about 80 frames, here are but a few.
The largest of these is the cairn, shown in the upper right of the second photograph. Here it is up close in the following photo.
A competitor of the great cairn is the structure, below, with the great cairn in the background.
This next photograph shows one of two structures that I found with an arch-like design–very nice. All of which illustrates the artistic focus of the mid-coast. It is loaded with artists and galleries of all sorts. I’m not sure if the ocean and mountains attract artists, or they inspire their residents to become artists–perhaps it’s both. In any event, it would seem that coasts and mountains are good for our mental health and general inspiration.
There were so many other fascinating pieces of art work, but there just isn’t room to display them all in this post.
-From Portland and the mid-coast
Stephen Fielding Images 