RELIEF CARVING: PROMISE (of a New Day)

PROMISE (of a New Day) shows the view that a sailor on a square-rigged sailing vessel experiences when sent aloft as a lookout at the masthead at daybreak. After coming on deck from the cramped confinement below decks in pre-dawn to begin the next duty watch, the sailor savors the serenity aloft while the promise of a new day unfolds as the sun breaks the horizon. A giant albatross flies past and veers off to investigate another sailing vessel that has appeared in the same stretch of ocean, heading in the same direction, and shore-based sea birds appear, bringing a promise of fair weather, and soon, a landfall, bringing our sailor thoughts of returning home. The piece was created as a live demonstration as part of the Mystic Seaport Museum A Way With Wood exhibit in the Collins Gallery during the reopening of the Museum following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece expresses the artist's hope for everyone's return to their home ports.

This hand-carved clear northern pine piece has four types of carving. The gilded edge and the lettering are incised; the sky is carved with a small veiner gouge to capture light on the edges of the clouds and sun's rays; the sea is carved in bas-relief style; the "wings" bracketing the lettering are relief promise and also gilded. Nineteenth-century ship carvers such as Mystic's own Campbell & Colby often carved decorative scenes as panels affixed to ships' transoms. The vessel name and home port were required to be displayed.

More information about wood carving at Mystic Seaport can be found at https://www.mysticseaport.org/explore/village/ship-carver/.

Item measures 58" long by 22" high and must be picked up at the Museum.