The palpable pleasure of pleassure craft
Acrylic on masonite, 28 x 17 inches (2011, 2012)

Actually the date on this work is a little misleading: I did the initial drawing on canvas back in January 2003, only to finish it in 2012 . . . . only 9 years later! I often have 30 or 40 paintings on the go at once. So there are always companions works to turn to should the work in progress not appeal to me that day.

Lamella is a scale or plate or layer. As I have applied it here, the lamella is that peeling bit or slab of paint.

Painting the porch, a kid's toy and even a boat is a short term application of armour against the weather. Aside form the deep penetration of machine injected checmicals into wood, paint only bonds temporarily with wood fibers. The constant freeze and thaw, the bleaching of sunlight, and the seasonal wetting and drying on a painted boat hull tear away the tenuous chemical bonds of wood and paint, falling away to reveal once again the bare skin.

Our subject boat has many many lamella sites. In some spots the protection of the paint has been gone for so long that the wood is now well on its road to rot.

The labour is in the muscle pain and strain to remove, replace or just re-paint the elements that can be saved.

The love is the driver, that mix of head, heart and pocketbook that make repair possible. This time maybe. Who knows about next year.

Please do not reproduce the images in this display.
Contact Douglas Laing Arts & Letters for further information.
P.O. Box 659, Winchester, Ontario. K0C 2K0   613-774-5180
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© 2012 Douglas Laing