The Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake is a watery world which has been left to invent itself over the past four centuries as a place apart from the rest of America, and 'Shoremen have attempted to secede from Maryland and the Union on more than one occasion.

This is the land where Frederick Douglass - born two dozen miles from my own slave-built house - resisted his captors, teaching himself to read in secret, in the end changing the course of the American Civil War.  This is where Harriet Tubman led slaves north across moonlit wheat fields tracked by Nightriders.

In the middle of the last century bridges were thrown across the Bay forever changing the culture of this peninsula, eradicating a remote, slow-paced and unique way of life in less then one generation.

I once intended my paintings to be a record of our collective memory and a testament for my grandchildren and their children, so that they could know what a magical place this was.

But I have changed my mind: this place is still magical and wonderful, and if you are reading this, you care about the Bay and the Eastern Shore. 

If you give a damn about this place then do something to save it; remember why you came here - for the semi-backward rural lifestyle; for the colorful characters who take forever to actually get anything done.  And hey, if the cell service is non-existent, so be it; you really don't want to take the call anyway.......trust me.

Support our farmers.

Support our watermen.  

Resist development.

Buy local.

And just slow down and smell the honeysuckle.

Pax Americana,

The Artist