TWO FROM ALDEBURGH, ENGLAND

Trawler on the Beach, Aldeburgh, 15 x 11 inch ink and watercolor by George C. Clark    AVAILABLE

Some years ago my friend Lou Taylor (a fellow contributing artist in the U.S. Air Force Art Program) and I were invited to spend a week in England visiting Air Force installations there.  We stayed at the Visiting Officers Quarters on the American base at Mildenhall R.A.F. near Cambridge, and we visited three other bases in southern England.   Artists on these missions are issued orders from the Pentagon and are treated as the civilian equivalent of a full colonel.  Some Air Force trips are tightly packed with scheduled activities that leave little free time for the artists, but often, especially on longer trips, there is some discretionary time built in for the artists to do their own thing.  When that happens I am ready; I do my homework and bring a guidebook and map.  On this occasion, when our escorting officer told us that because of a British holiday we had a free day with the use of her rented car, Lou said he would like to paint some fishing boats if there were any around.  I knew he was going to say that, and I whipped out a Michelin roadmap of East Anglia and pointed out Aldeburgh,  a Victorian/Edwardian seaside resort with an active fishing fleet.  I navigated and our escort drove us there in about an hour.

Aldeburgh is a charming town that has maintained its hundred-year-old look.  It was a sunny October day, too cool for most beach activities but perfect for painting.  There is a high shingle beach, part of it reinforced with a concrete seawall, that protects the town from North Sea storms.  Fishermen haul their trawlers out of the water and winch them up paths of wooden beams like railroad ties to the top of the beach to keep them out of high waves.  I painted Trawler on the Beach on-site and researched three other paintings that I did later in the studio.  House on the Seawall is the only one of those I still have.  The house is located about 200 yards south of where I painted the trawler.

House on the Seawall, Aldeburgh,  36 x 42 inch oil on panel by George C. Clark    SOLD

Although it was late in the season, the famous fish and chips wagon on the beachfront was still open, and we had an excellent lunch.  When the counterman asked if I wanted vinegar on my chips I said yes, thinking I should have them local-style.  Then he asked if I wanted salt.  I said, "I thought you ate them with vinegar instead of salt here."  "Oh, no," he replied, "we use both."  So I did too, and they were delicious.