Sierra Leone, West Africa, 1974

Freetown in Blue

Tinguilinta in Red

Kafala

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa, in 1974. About 200 of us came over on a flight from Philadelphia. We stayed in the capitol, Freetown, to take language lessons and wait for our specific assignments. Sometimes - following in Graham Green's footsteps - we would go to the City Hotel for a beer. He wrote his first novel, The Heart of the Matter, in Freetown during WWII.

Fifteen year old prostitutes from Liberia would sit on the front porch of the City Hotel waiting for customers. Russian sailors stood at the bar having a drink. Uzi machine guns on their backs.

After Freetown we went inland to Bo for further instruction. We met a number of German families also living in a compound nearby. Everybody there kept a pet mongoose to keep the deadly 'two step' snakes (green mambas) at bay. Spitting cobras were common too.

The Abu Construction Company was rebuilding the road system in the entire country. The Chinese were rebuilding the rail lines. The United States provided the Peace Corps Volunteers. I traveled to Kenema by bus as I was supposed to eventually be posted at the Kenema Technical Institute. That town has lately been in the news as a center for Ebola treatment. 

Now, for the first time in forty years, I am printing the black and white negatives of photos taken there . They are the subjects for new paintings on paper. I took these photographs with a Topcon Super-D 35mm film camera. It had a fixed 50mm 1.4 lens. That used to be considered a 'normal' lens; closest to the view you see with your eye. In those days I used Kodak Tri-X 400 ASA film. The film was developed in a lab in Africa. Negatives have been stored in a box ever since.

 19" x 13" paintings:

Boy Under Grapefruit Tree

Bundu Dance

City Hotel

Tinguilinta

Boy Under Grapefruit Tree

Tinguilinta

City Hotel

Boys Rolling Tires in Green, Kenema, studio view.

A '60s postcard of Freetown. That's the City Hotel in the middle, behind the Texaco sign.

11" x 8 1/2" Paintings:

City Hotel, Freetown

Woodworking Class, Kenema

Launch to Tinguilinta at Anchor

'Head,' painted wood, H. 15", 2014.

Art with no politics, no hatred.

This morning Bartley and I were talking over coffee about how artists use unpleasant subjects and images in order to get attention; painter Jenny Saville; the new Met Opera performance of 'Death of Klinghoffer,' etc. My answer to her was that sometimes the most powerful, touching and courageous art demonstrates restraint; is not at all bombastic. She replied, "Honey, I wish you would post that." I said OK.

Here are representations of fall colors expressed in two ways. They are photos I took of four Canada Geese landing in a pond at dusk. And an ancient dance in a very poor West African town. Simple statements. With actual and implied references to landscape. Nothing about butchery or killing diseases. No politics, no hatred.

As I'm typing this I just received an e-mail from a friend in London: "...yes, the world is going mad……… p.s. the art world runs on greed."

Canada geese landing in water; bold horizontal landscape elements.
Sharon, CT, 21 October 2014.

A Bundu ceremonial dance in Kenema, Sierra Leone, 1974.
Painting on paper with photo, 19" x 13", 2014

Additional Paintings on Paper

'Brown and Gold Summer Field'

'St. John's, Hong Kong'

'Vermont Landscape'