Flag 12

CANTON (Stars)

Essex Shipbuilding Museum - Essex, Massachusetts

Resin and paint used in the process of rebuilding/refinishing an old sailboat by a husband and wife before leaving with their family to live on the boat for a month.

FIELD (Stripes)

Pigeon Cove Ferments Distillery -Gloucester, Massachusetts

Juice and berries gathered from the last stage of production of a batch of blueberry and cinnamon kombucha.

CANTON DETAIL

CANTON STORY

This section of the flag was created at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum. I’ve lived on the East Coast for a long time and have spent a LOT of time in the ocean but I grew up in the Midwest. The ocean and all that comes with it still feels special and somehow new to me even after all these years. I wanted to include a depiction of work done associated with what happens when you reach the edge of the continent. It’s a different America here than where I grew up. I had stopped at countless boat yards and docks looking for someone working on their boat and somehow always got there the day after they cleaned up their mess.

I decided to stop in at the museum to see if there was any work happening there that might provide some good marks for a flag. Before we even got to the parking lot we could see a huge sailboat on lifts in front of the museum. We pulled in and it looked like I was too late again. A woman was buffing out a painted section on the side of the boat and I got ready to leave. My wife Meg pushed me to go talk to her so I reluctantly got out of the car.

The boat was being refurbished by a couple who were finishing up and prepping to leave the next week with their three kids to live on the boat for a month (he is a boat builder by trade). They bought the boat for $1.25 and had spent the last months investing their time and money into making it seaworthy. They planned for a month-long stay on the boat but said they were open to extending that quite a bit if things worked out well for their family over the course of that first month. They said that they still had plenty of messy work left to do so I left the plywood with them to use as a palette/workspace. A week later I drove by and found the board left in an old jeep where they kept their paint and supplies. I think it’s beautiful - the marks of a labor of love - messy and beautiful.

FIELD DETAIL

FIELD STORY

This section of the flag was collected by my wife, Meg. I had wanted to collect marks from Pigeon Cove Distillery to represent a small business, startup distillery, local product and all the craftsmanship and care that goes into building up a business on a local level - feels pretty American to me. I had stopped by their distillery location 3 previous times and never found them open. Meg tried one more time and finally found them there and they were happy to help and take part in my project.

The marks on this section are from the offpour at the end of the distillery process for a blueberry and cinnamon kombucha. I actually had to clean off a lot of whole blueberries from the section because they were too big and wouldn’t stay on the board after drying which left a lot of blueberry seeds and skins still on the board. I was really excited when Meg came home with this for a couple reasons: I had tried so many times and we finally got the section, the color was awesome and would create a great pairing for a new flag, and blueberry cinnamon is one of my favorite flavors that they make at Pigeon Cove Ferments.