Mary Green
Watercolor
3.25″ x 18″
3/31/2020
“Without my usual routines, the pandemic lockdown focused me toward the almost daily practice required for improvement in any skill — watercolor painting for me. Posting my work on a family text chain and my church email thread held me accountable and kept me going. Then the idea formed of painting some of the moments of this challenging time to commemorate the year. ‘Head Winds’ captures one of them.
“When I painted this scene of Possession Sound viewed from our deck, I had no idea that it would become a metaphor for the entire year. The usually peaceful waters between Whidbey and Hat Islands were instead turbulent on that very windy day in March, 2020. A tug boat towing a heavily loaded barge was aimed straight into head winds. I watched for several minutes as this drama slowly passed in front of me, thinking about the power of the tug boat and the sturdiness of the barge to bear heavy cargo. The cable connecting the two vessels was not visible from my distance, but I knew it was there. The barge had no power to move on its own. It was totally dependent on the might of the tug, and the connecting cable that pulled it forward.”
—Mary Green
