Oct. 21/2019: I was in New York City last Thursday after test-sailing boats in Annapolis and stopped in to see this show. All I can say is: WOW! Reid was there to greet me, first time I’d seen him live and in-person since we sailed up New York Harbor together on his schooner Anne after he completed his record-breaking 1,152-day voyage in June 2010. Mostly what Reid has been doing since then is taking care of his aging dad in North Carolina, raising his son Darshen with his partner Soanya Ahmad, and making art. Lots of art!
Coincidentally, this show is up just a few blocks from where I first met Reid in 2002, when he was living aboard Anne on the Chelsea piers, working to make his dream of the world’s longest voyage a reality. All of the work in the show is informed by and inspired by Reid’s lifetime of voyaging and most particularly his Thousand (Plus) Day Voyage. It’s generating quite a bit of buzz in NYC art circles. Reid’s style has definitely matured and if he’s ever going to break out into the big time it’s going to be now.
If you’re in the area I urge you to check this show out before it closes!
That’s Reid on the left and your humble narrator in front of my favorite piece in the show. This big diptych is a painting/collage incorporating actual charts Reid used during the Thousand Day Voyage and other tantalizing tidbits from his sailing career, including a scrap of text from the first magazine article I wrote about Reid
Reid and I aboard Anne prior to his triumphant return to Manhattan in 2010
Another very cool piece from the show. This incorporates a reproduction of a portrait of Reid painted by Jean-Michel Basquiat when they were hanging together making art on St. Bart back in the ‘80s
IN OTHER NEWS: As long as we’re talking about LONG VOYAGES… I’d be remiss if I’d didn’t mention that another acquaintance of mine (we’ve corresponded a bit, but have never met), Randall Reeves, has as of October 19 finally completed his solo Figure 8 Voyage, a double circumnavigation of Antarctica and the Americas via Cape Horn (twice) and the Northwest Passage.
Randall where the ice is big. It took him two attempts to pull this voyage off
Hop over to Randall’s Figure 8 Facebook page and you can watch a video of him finishing the Figure 8 in Sausalito, California.
For a lot more detail on the whole adventure, check out his SAILfeed posts.
The post REID STOWE: Art Inspired by His Voyaging on Display in Chelsea (Plus a Big Thumbs Up for Randall Reeves!) appeared first on Wave Train.
The post REID STOWE: Art Inspired by His Voyaging on Display in Chelsea (Plus a Big Thumbs Up for Randall Reeves!) appeared first on Sailfeed.