‘Outer Bar Island’ is an original, one-of-a-kind oil painting by Alison C. Dibble. It was painted on location in Corea, Maine, in a wild part of the rocky coast. I was in such a state of mind that I failed to notice that I had the back label on the panel upside down, but I think that adds to the piece and I’ve left it that way rather than re-paint the scene.

There I was on the shore at a very low tide, in one of my favorite places on the Downeast Maine coast. Low tide is necessary if I’m going to walk to the spot from which I painted this because the ocean fills in around these islands twice a day. One does want to keep an eye on the low spot where the tide will come across the bar first of all when it is returning. I had hauled along the paints and I set up by some old fishing gear that had washed up in a storm. The light was going, I had to work fast to capture that rosy blush on the ledges at Outer Bar Island.

For me, the isolation represented by some of Maine’s beautiful islands can be a metaphor for what we all endured during the pandemic, or it can represent our resilience and ability to step back from the busy-ness of our lives and be apart, just a little, for a time. We can gain perspective, and have a little peace, and then go back into the fray and pick up where we left off.

To actually BE on one of these islands is like stepping off the trail into a wilderness. There is usually not any path to follow into the interior, there’s trash that has blown or washed in, and there is typically not any fresh water so you want to have along your drinks and your sandwich or it’s a hungry time. But there’s a magic to it, an intangible peacefulness that I can’t get anywhere else. That’s what I was trying to convey in this painting.

I think it would look attractive in a simple white frame. The painting is sold unframed for now, though I might frame it if it’s in my studio for a while. It will need to be framed to hang, though it could be displayed in a small stand, the kind used for displaying an art conk or an antique plate.