Cape Flattery Moonlight
by James Williamson
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Price
$3,200
Dimensions
26.000 x 16.000 inches
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Title
Cape Flattery Moonlight
Artist
James Williamson
Medium
Painting - Watercolor And Gouache
Description
"Cold hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight, red is gray, and gray is white, but we decide which is right, and which is an illusion."-Moody Blues
Artist James Williamson ASMA,
Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists
Cape Flattery Moonlight...an original watercolor painting by artist James Williamson recreated as a fine art image and greeting card by Fine Art America.
A lighthouse is much needed at Cape Flattery, and I would recommend that it be situated on Tatoochi Island, a small island, almost touching the Northwest extremity of Cape Flattery, stated Wm. P. McArthur on his survey of the area in 1849-50.
In August 1854 congress authorized $39,000 for construction. Among the building materials were huge blocks of huge sandstone from the Bellingham, Washington area, blocks measuring two feet in thickness.
The northwestern corner of the United States is marked by a lighthouse. The Cape Flattery Light beams out into the Pacific from barren Tatoosh Island at the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Thirty miles across the stormy strait is Canada's Vancouver Island.
Not only is Cape Flattery the most northwesterly lighthouse in the continental United States, but it is also one of the nation's most isolated light stations. The sixty-five- foot stone tower and Cape Cod-style dwelling stand as a testament to the loneliness and hardiness of lighthouse keepers and their families.
Among the West's first great navigational sentinels, this lighthouse was completed and placed in operation in 1857, during the administration of President James Buchanan. The stone tower rose directly out of the keeper's dwelling so that he could climb its steps and service the light without braving harsh weather. Tatoosh Island is itself 100 feet high so that the focal plane of the light is 165 feet above the sea.
The original first-order Fresnel lens was manufactured in Paris in 1854. The lens had been purchased for the Point Loma Lighthouse in San Diego but was placed in the Cape Flattery Light instead because the former lighthouse was too small to hold a first-order lens. After nearly a century of service, it was replaced by a fourth-order rotating lens. Its light still marks the cape. A red sector warns mariners of Duncan Rock, a ship-destroying rock that rises unexpectedly out of the turbulent Pacific Waters.
A U.S. Signal Corps weather station was established on the island in 1883. Mother Nature gave the hardy weathermen plenty to measure-an average of 215 inches of rain a year and seasonal storms of prodigious ferocity.
Today, the Cape Flattery Lighthouse is automated. But for more than a century, the light was operated manually by keepers who lived and worked at the station. Living at the edge of the sea and maintaining their life-saving sentinels, the keepers and their lighthouses appeal to our romantic instincts.
Vulnerable to gales, blasted frequently by high winds, and under constant assault by the often-freezing waters of the Pacific, remote Tatoosh Island could hardly be described as a paradise. Nonetheless, the Indians of Washington's Olympic Peninsula considered it something of a Valhalla. Braving the churning ocean in their dugout canoes, the Makah Indians gathered on Tatoosh-their word for Thunderbird, the native lightning god - to celebrate the summer and, occasionally, to bury their dead. Not surprisingly, they were reluctant to give the island up when officials in faraway Washington, D.C., selected it as an ideal location for a lighthouse.
Cape Flattery: A place where nature's enduring beauty embraces a majestic sentinel. Cape Flattery Light captures the historical, architectural and romantic beauty of this striking landmark.
Only someone with a closed mind or a cold heart will not be at least momentarily drawn to a lighthouse, for its attraction is at once visual, emotional and intellectual. F. Ross Holland, Jr.
The Painting: Award winning watercolor Cape Flattery Light faithfully captures the stunning color of a Pacific Northwest Coast sunset plus the commanding form of this sturdy lighthouse.
The Lighthouse: A symbol of help, this stalwart structure stands at Land's End symbolizing stoicism, heroism, duty and faithfulness. A link between land and sea, lighthouses symbolize the courage and prowess of builders and mariners; they are part of the history of each region of the world.
The Artist: Mr. Williamson's hope is that his exquisite painting will introduce more people to the stature and grace of these beautiful structures and inspire interest in their history and preservation.
Cape Flattery Light Copyright James Williamson, ASMA All Rights Reserved.
Uploaded
January 9th, 2012
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