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Rating: 
Summary: Master artist, master mariner
Review: This book is a biography (to 2002; he's nowhere near finished) of the artist Stewart Marshall, together with a generous selection of his paintings. The writing, by Andrew Scott, is faithful to Stewart's own voice, low key and modest, but the tale he tells is a life of extraordinary adventure. Each spring, Stewart sets off in his kayak Ahti to explore the remotest parts of the jagged British Columbia coast, alone for months, living off wild animals and plants, and painting what he sees. In autumn, sometimes very late autumn, storms blow him home to the tiny coastal village of Sointula, where he continues painting in his studio. The beauty of the coast that Stewart paints is beyond any words, and almost beyond any art--you have to breathe it in, I think--but if you cannot go there in person then Stewart's haunting pictures (in acrylic, watercolor and oil) are the next best thing. I should mention that late each summer BC's coastal waters and rivers begin to fill with the wild Pacific salmon on which all creatures there--from bears to wrens to 200 foot-tall Douglas firs--depend for life, and yet, despite this plenty, the BC government seems determined to condemn Stewart's coast to seacages full of farmed Atlantic salmon, a fish with 217 known diseases. If it succeeds, Stewart's archive of wild coastal beauty may one day be all we have left to admire. I bought just one copy of this book, and when it came I immediately wished I'd bought an extra copy in order to cut out the paintings for framing.
Rating:
Summary: Master artist, master mariner
Review: This book is a biography (to 2002; he's nowhere near finished) of the artist Stewart Marshall, together with a generous selection of his paintings. The writing, by Andrew Scott, is faithful to Stewart's own voice, low key and modest, but the tale he tells is a life of extraordinary adventure. Each spring, Stewart sets off in his kayak Ahti to explore the remotest parts of the jagged British Columbia coast, alone for months, living off wild animals and plants, and painting what he sees. In autumn, sometimes very late autumn, storms blow him home to the tiny coastal village of Sointula, where he continues painting in his studio. The beauty of the coast that Stewart paints is beyond any words, and almost beyond any art--you have to breathe it in, I think--but if you cannot go there in person then Stewart's haunting pictures (in acrylic, watercolor and oil) are the next best thing. I should mention that late each summer BC's coastal waters and rivers begin to fill with the wild Pacific salmon on which all creatures there--from bears to wrens to 200 foot-tall Douglas firs--depend for life, and yet, despite this plenty, the BC government seems determined to condemn Stewart's coast to seacages full of farmed Atlantic salmon, a fish with 217 known diseases. If it succeeds, Stewart's archive of wild coastal beauty may one day be all we have left to admire. I bought just one copy of this book, and when it came I immediately wished I'd bought an extra copy in order to cut out the paintings for framing.
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