Putting the Ocean in Ocean City

Since I’ve been raving about the ocean and water lately, I thought I’d offer something oceanic that’s a little more down to earth:

William Theodore Van Doren. Somewhere In Ocean City. Oil on paper, 2010, 10.75 x 13.75.

I was looking through two dozen images from Ocean City, Maryland, and was going to paint two beach chairs under a beach umbrella, but ended up closer to the water.

Sunset, Saturday, 9 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Westminster, Carroll County, Md. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

My view was from the top of a hill near the famed, fun and funky Baugher’s Family Restaurant, just down to the left or south, and, on another hill, facing this one from the left, McDaniel College.

To sit and write under a hotel room blanket is one way to have visions. This particular one was an ocean I’ve never seen.

It’s warm and blue, possibly the Indian. It’s vertical rather than the more familiar horizontal – portrait, not landscape (or seascape). So everything moves from below your feet above your head, even air, inside the water, to breathe. You’re walking, looking into the ocean, and you’re in it. What makes this ocean so special is it’s a completely landlocked concept.

Southeast Santa Monica, 1981

Walk up 33rd Street toward Pearl. The sky is blue water. Trees are short. Birds drink the air and the sound of their drinking is singing and their flying is swimming. The street is wide and I wait for it to buckle from the shifting of the ocean floor. At one spot the sidewalk has already popped up. An old gentleman in a light blue hat greets me every day. We speak words but I don’t remember them, only his grace and dignity until I realize he’s a friendly old fish and there were never any words, just bubbles.

Sunset, Saturday, 26 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

We managed to get out today after seven days of being snowed in. While we were traveling around the roads and parking lots lined with dirty snow and slush, the sky made me think about the beach in L.A. A strange thing about a city that borders the ocean is that no matter who you are or where you live or how you stand in that city, when you get to the edge, that ocean is yours as much as anyone’s.