In 1992 I met modern men and women from the UK and the US who were housed at the Naval School on Poros Island. Each morning they would row to a different site, hoping to match the speed of the ancient Greeks: http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/trireme/. I, at 5’6”, was invited to sit in one of the rowers’ seats one morning. I found it cramped, suggesting that either the ancient Greek seamen were not as tall as I, or they weren’t bothered by tight quarters. Not being a rower but very excited about a remembrance of things past, I sketched the rowers as they prepared to leave for Corinth and other sites in the Saronic Gulf, and the replica trireme: the pen and ink drawings here reflect those 1992 trips.
My watercolor Trireme Celebration was executed back in the studio from my memory of the last exciting night as they rowed through the “passage” between the mainland and Poros Island, fireworks lighting the sky and adding to the celebratory nature of the Porosians (people of Poros) who gathered to cheer on the rowers. The Mayor and his council voted to present that particular watercolor to Prince Charles on his visit to Poros Island in early August, 1994. |
