oil on canvas · 1901 · h. veller
a small boat, lit, halfway home across a flat evening sea. the painting hangs on the stair down to the harbour-room, which is to say: above the place where the real ferry would be seen returning, were the building close enough to the water for this to be true. it is not.
veller painted ferries when there were no ferries in her life. she painted this in a winter in which she did not leave the town she was in for any reason, and could not have. the boat in the painting has been read, by visitors, as carrying their own grandfathers home from somewhere or other. veller would not have minded.
field-note the lit windows are five, on certain afternoons six. the painting is small; it is hard to be certain. someone has counted six.
ferry a seascape harbour lighthouse letter from the ferryman