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Surfers, North Carolina, 16" x 12", oil on board, June 2005 http://tomlohre.com/VHG0604.pdf For several years while Tom’s daughter was a baby the family would take a North Carolina vacation, first attending his wife’s family reunion in Kinston and then driving the forty five minutes to Emerald Island for a week at the beach. Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier was just up the road. They stayed at The Islander of Emerald Isle, a two story brick motel where you can drive right up to the door or have a concrete balcony surrounding the second floor. Just across the way was a carnival, water slide and immediately east, a trailer park. The days were spend lazily watching the waves, walking the beach and avoiding the ants bubbling out from the ground on an otherwise beautiful green lawn butting up against the beach grass and dunes. This occurred for several years and Tom would paint a composition from the balcony overlooking the beach for two years. The first painting was done underneath the wood staircase looking out into the blazing heat rising off the white sand. The simple umbrellas and beach goers filled the center of the canvas. The next painting showed the dune ridgeline with a lone palm tree just after being stripped of its palm fronds from a hurricane. The simple shoots restoring the life of a solid trunk. The third painting was this work. Tom had heard of American Beach in Florida where African Americans could enjoy themselves without the oppression of the white beaches. The fourth painting was the emerald grasses the cover the surface of the intercostal. The Surfers illustrates ability of surfers to cross over the race barrier and ride the same waves. The boards are tou jour meaning whatever the state of the art is they are on equal footing. The bush in the lower left blooms handsomely in June and lines the hedge along the barrier between the dunes and the parking lot. The technique is thin
veils of half stand oil and half dammar varnish medium tinted with oil
paint over scraped gesso over Masonite.
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Painting
of North Carolina Surfers
