THE GOLDFINCH

“I’d love to be an artist,” visitors often say when I meet them in our gallery at 41 Main Street, Rockport, Massachusetts. I respond with tongue in cheek, sometimes startling my listeners, “It’s a great life if you like poverty, rejection and working with hazardous materials,” On the contrary, as an artist I have found much excitement and satisfaction and have had a whole host of meaningful experiences taking brush to canvas surrounded by the beauties and wonders of nature. I am blessed with warm memories of those who have frequented the gallery to purchase my paintings as well, sharing heartwarming moments and making new friends. The following is a true account of one of the most unimaginable set of circumstances which has occurred during my career as an artist.

I was in a garden at the Yankee Clipper Inn in Rockport, which was owned by friends Bob and Barbara Ellis. I spent many lovely summer days painting there with my husband, Michael. It was a charming, peaceful and picturesque seaside setting, the headlands of the village lay across blue Sandy Bay, with the Straitsmouth Island lighthouse in the distance. Lobstermen hauled their traps, sailboats drifted in and out of the scene. The garden included pink hollyhocks, brilliant golden sunflowers, peonies, petunias, magenta loosestrife, clusters of white daisies, spikes of purple salvia, cleomes, liatris, bright orange heirloom poppies (planted 60 years prior), among others—a marvelous array of blooms, textures, and colors, a striking contrast to the blues of Sandy Bay.

In quiet contemplation, as I do at the start of each painting, I took a moment to pray. I found painting there a spiritual experience, feeling close to my Creator and contemplating the hymn, “My Father’s World.” Sometimes the grass and leaves would rustle and I’d ponder the strain, “In the rustling grass, I hear Him pass, God Speaks to me everywhere.” I was in perfect harmony with my world. My paint brush jumped all over the canvas in quick strokes, excitement grew as I took in the inspiration of capturing that time and place on canvas.

There was a new white wooden bird feeder with gingerbread trim in a corner of the garden. It sat atop a tall pole and looked like a birdhouse with open sides. A colorful little goldfinch flew to it time and again during the morning, like a bright yellow flower in flight. He perched and fluttered on the edge. Sometimes he lingered. I was amused by his antics as his soft, “tweetie” announced his pleasure and added to my delight. He seemed such an integral part of the garden I knew I must include him in the painting. Appropriately I titled it, The Goldfinch.

My canvas was fairly large and it took weeks to complete. When it was ready, I hung it in a conspicuous place on the back wall of the gallery, up over the old upright piano. One warm summer Saturday evening, a woman passing by the open door noticed the painting and came in to admire it up close. I told her where I was when I painted it and described the meaning of the title and the experience I had at the Inn garden, and the pleasant encounter with the little yellow bird. She was familiar with the hymn, “My Father’s World.” As coincidence would have it, she and her husband were guests at the Inn, and she said she’d like to think about purchasing the painting, but needed to talk it over with her husband.

The next day, as we’ve done for years, being Sunday, we opened up the gallery at 1:00 p.m. Soon afterwards, the woman from the previous night walked in accompanied by her husband. She had a story of her own to relate. She’d gone to church that morning, walking the short distance to the Pigeon Cove Chapel, where she was a little late arriving. Upon entering the church, she heard the congregation singing a tune she quickly recognized. Goose bumps sprouted on her arms, for it was the hymn, “My Father’s World!”

During her walk back to the Inn after the church service, she wondered at what had occurred. The day was bright, sunny and ideal, like the day I painted, The Goldfinch. Once back at the Inn she stopped to look at the garden, and thought about the painting of it she’d seen the night before. Goose bumps popped up again when she saw the little goldfinch, as he appeared in the painting, sitting on his lofty perch! She hurried to her room to tell her husband about the coincidences and said, “Honey, I think God wants us to purchase the painting I saw last night.”

Well, that certainly was a week for goose bumps, now it was my turn as she related her side of the story and we all just wondered at the experiences we’d had and the awesome way God arranged it all. So they purchased The Goldfinch and took it to their home to enjoy, a weaving of God’s plan and a perfect memento of their stay at the Yankee Clipper Inn in the marvelous little village by the sea, Rockport, Massachusetts.

Spring Has Sprung

Nature's putting on a show. A flurry of trees and shrubs blossom thoughout the village. Fragrant, pink, yellow and white buds have burst their seams.

"All Nature Sings" (and round me rings the music of the speres, from the hymn "My Father's World). Summer's on the way!

A ROCKPORT SUMMER
The long winter days are passing
And my heart is yearning to be
In the place of my greatest contentment,
Little Rockport by the sea.

I long for a Rockport summer,
Where the sun rises red in the bay,
And sailboats race as we stroll the beach
At the start of each beautiful day.

What makes this place so special,
Little Rockport by the sea,
The waves rolling in and the children at play
Or the shade of a spreading tree?

The gulls atop the Motif,
With lobster boats passing by,
Where artists are happily painting
The harbor, sea, and sky

Backyard clambakes and sweet foggy air
And the sound of a distant horn.
Granite walls and Twin Lights tall,
And bells on a Sunday morn

I long for a Rockport summer
And roses ‘round every door
With white picket fences and gates of blue
That wind down to the shore.

The Fourth of July is exciting
as marching bands come and go
And the fireworks sputter and crackle
Beneath the bonfire’s glow.

I long for a Rockport summer
With friendly folks passing by
And the east wind blows on a balmy day
While the sun rises high in the sky

Tides may rise and tides may fall,
But my heart is yearning to be
In the place of my greatest contentment,
Little Rockport by the sea.

©Dorothy Ramsey Stoffa, 1987