Where Did I get This Shirt

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When I was thirteen I talked my best friend into going camping with me in the Adirondacks. We lived in Utica, New York, and the intended destination was a resort town called Old Forge. Early on a Saturday morning we set off with our packs, on bicycles, for this destination which was sixty miles distant.

We were not prepared for the fact that we were pedaling into the mountains and the trip turned out to be uphill all day long. We arrived in the late afternoon, rented a canoe, and paddled to a place called Alger Island, an island for camping accessible only by boat. As soon as we were out of the canoe and on the island we laid down in a lean-to, more dead than alive, and fell absolutely sound asleep.

I was the first to wake up, and since my friend was still sleeping and the sun had not set, I went out in the canoe by myself for a short while. No sooner did I get a little way out from the shore than a huge storm began, with fierce gusts if wind and hail. This storm blew me out into the middle of the lake and then blew me right out of the canoe. There was a terrible moment in the water when I realized that the canoe was still upright and blowing away but since it was two thirds full of water I managed to catch up to it. Once back in the canoe the storm, as if with a mind of its own, proceeded to blow me to the further shore. Once the canoe was beached I tipped it over, crawled under it to get out of the rain and hail and then just lay there grateful to be alive.

There was a knock on the canoe, someone looked under the edge and said, “Would you like some Pancakes?” I was ship wrecked on the beach of a camp, and the owners took me in, gave me a change of dry clothes, and explained that they had watched me capsize from their porch, and were just about to come after me when I got back into the canoe.

When we were finished with a dinner of pancakes the storm ended, the setting sun came out from behind clouds, and I thanked them and headed out in the canoe, for the island The water was now calm and still, and orange in the light of the setting sun.

Back at the lean-to my friend was still sound asleep having slept through the storm. I woke him up and told him the whole story. He refused to believe any part of it. I said, “Well then, where did I get this shirt?

This entire little painting on heavy weight paper is carried out very expressionistically, but in the bottom can be found a tent, an overturned boat, a dock with a canoe next to it, one of those pine logs on the ground with all those short little broken off branches, a lake, some mountains, and light trying to shine through the clouds of an overcast sky. A lot of the texture is three dimensional in nature and comes from the paper itself, the surface is waxed and polished with a rag giving it an interesting finish which doesn’t show up in a scan.

This drawing measures 5.25” x 8.5”. It is painted on gessoed and tinted watercolor paper with a acrylic washes of paint. It is signed and dated on the back, Richard Britell, October 7, 2001.