Tyson Reeder wanted to do some drawings from the boat.
Undaunted by the pouring rain earlier in the morning, we set out on the Coney Island Creek to see what we could see.
“Let me know if you see anything you would like to draw.” I said.
“We can stop whenever.”
The interesting thing about ‘plein air’, is that finding a good place to draw from is just about as important as finding something good to draw.
Soon Tyson found a perfect spot.
I dropped him there to draw while I went off in search of flotsam.
I nosed the boat along the bank,
but I didn’t like any of the stuff I found.
I wondered what I was really looking for.
Back aboard Tyson’s floating studio, things were coming along well.
But we set off in search of something else.
Coney Island Creek is home to the famous ‘Ghost Ships’, but there are new wrecks here as well.
Ghost ships in the making.
We tied ourselves to the wrecks so that Tyson could draw.
Up ahead, there seemed to be something sticking out of the water.
At first, we couldn’t figure out if it had been left by the tide, or if it was a manmade construction.
Sculpture – we decided.
There even seemed to be some of the sculptors earlier work back up on the bank.
“What a generous gift to the world,” said Tyson.
A little further up, I spotted one of my favorite things.
This is a special kind of boat unique to the Coney Island Creek; a derelict jet ski turned in to a little fishing rowboat. This one was tied securely to a tree.
It started to rain again.
That gave Tyson another idea.
Rain drawings,
with water color pencil.
It was a great day for finding junk and drawing it, but weirdest find was yet to come.
I know that this might not look like much, but this is a severed pony tail of human hair, reading glasses, and a jock strap all tied together with fishing line. At the time we joked about the circumstances that brought these unique items together, but when I got home and looked back at the picture, I noticed the red ribbon woven through the hair. I think maybe it was some kind of shaman’s charm.
Back in Brooklyn it was raining like crazy.
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