Figure 1 – Walking along the wharf in the rain, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

This past Saturday morning I was walking along Salem’s historic Derby Wharf and I came upon this woman, smarter than I, with an umbrella also walking along the wharf. I was struck immediately by the scene, reminiscent perhaps, of a gloomy wet winter day in Holland. The point with Derby Wharf, with Hawthorne’s Custom’s House, with Derby Light, and with the resident Friendship Sloop is that the place is bathed in history and seems, even in the brightest light, to be haunted by ghosts. The filI of the wharf is loaded with shards of broken antique bottles and historic porcelain. I think these were dredged up from the harbor and I imagine someone unloading a ship from “the orient,” losing their balance, dropping and shattering a jug or jar – the momentary curse still echos.

I  realized that there were so many ways to view this photograph. Perhaps keep the colors muted but shifted just a bit to a pastel template. For the interpretation of Figure 1, I resorted to stylizing with the PRISMA, turning the image into something painterly. I stuck to a pastel palette but chose more saturated colors. I think that I will experiment with other approaches and interpretations, but for now I am very fond of this one.