NoTes

In 1967, I completed a large painting, of a fisherman kneeling on the piers at Perkins Beach in Cleveland, Ohio. I enjoyed walks at Perkins Beach, especially during stormy weather. Most of my early paintings and poems have been lost, probably to the garbage, including my fisherman painting and poem. So this new painting, The Last Fisherman, is an echo, enhancement, reimagining of that earlier work.

It also echoes my unproduced 1997 science fiction screenplay Cambrian Tomorrow. The oceans are depleted of the edible fish. Jellyfish, starfish, deep sea anglers and scavenger species proliferate. Our fisherman is primitive, using spear and wearing clothes covered in man’s First Symbols. Yet the world is modern and hopeful. The Moon encrusted with technology. Ocean cities rising upon pillars above sunken seamounts webbed in lights down into the ocean deep. A helicopter spies the spectacle of The Last Fisherman.