Sunset River Marketplace art gallery in Calabash, N.C. will present an exhibition of works by Reid Stowe, the artist/mariner whose 1,000 Days At Sea odyssey garnered attention and grabbed the hearts of the sailing community, media and armchair sailors all over the globe. The exhibition, Flight Into Abstraction, runs from July 1 to 31 and features approximately 20 paintings in mixed media. An opening reception is scheduled on Saturday, July 6 from 2 to 5 p.m. The public is invited and there is no charge. In conjunction with the exhibition, Stowe will give a presentation titled Reflections of an Artist at Sea at the gallery on Wednesday, July 10 from 2 to 3 p.m. This is part of the gallery’s ongoing Creative Exchange series. There is no charge, but space is limited, so reservations are required.
Stowe’s voyage aboard his hand-built, 70-foot gaff-rigged schooner Anne prompted interviews and articles in publications such as New York magazine, The New Yorker, Cruising World magazine, Newsday and many Internet media outlets. The main goal of Stowe’s adventure was to remain at sea without resupplying or pulling into harbor for at least 1,000 days. On April 21, 2007, Stowe’s journey began when he departed the 12th Street Pier in Hoboken, New Jersey. During the days and months that followed, Stowe endured a collision with a freighter in the Atlantic, a stormy passage of Cape Horn, knockdown by a 60-foot rogue wave, and a broken desalinator. After 1,152 days, on June 17, 2010, the triumphant sailor returned to New York City’s Pier 81 with tales of ingenuity, good fortune, adventure and … art. While at sea, he worked on elements of the Sunset River Marketplace show and also completed two performance art concepts called “GPS art,” one in the Pacific Ocean, a 4,500-nautical mile whale and the other, a heart-shaped path 2,600 miles in circumference, in the Atlantic.
According to Stowe, his artistic and sailing endeavors have been intertwined from the start. Growing up on an Air Force base in Washington, he spent summers in North Carolina at his family’s beach house. Here he became inspired by sea life and learned to sail. He constructed his first sailboat in his front yard. He sculpted protective figureheads in the tradition of ancient seafaring cultures and began painting in the abstract. Stowe says, “My art has always been spiritual and ocean-inspired and my sailing has always been art-inspired. Each one feeds the other back and forth and exists simultaneously.”
Stowe has shown his work at galleries in New York, New York; Washington D.C., Toledo, Ohio; Palm Beach, Florida; Miami, Florida; Boulder, Colorado; Brussels, Belgium; and La Rochelle, France.
Sunset River Marketplace is located at 10283 Beach Drive SW (Hwy 179), Calabash, N.C. Regular hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit the website (www.sunsetrivermarketplace.