9 x 12
Oil on Birch Panel
Commissioned Painting
After seeing my painting "Sand Fiddlers" a few members of a medical practice commissioned me to paint a retiring physician's grandson and daughter-in-law playing their violins in the backyard of their summer retreat on the banks of Bath Creek at the end of King St in Bath, NC
This was not the first time fiddle bows were raised on Bonners Point as almost two hundred years ago in 1718 Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, and his crew landed on shore here and overnight transformed the once sleepy village into a high octane rum and music fueled party town. Teach enjoyed instant celebrity status entertaining high social notables with stories from the high seas as his crew broke the limits of whatever debauchery on land could provide. The Governor of the North Carolina Colony, Charles Eden, ingratiated the famous pirate with a Royal Proclamation Pardon that allowed Teach to then freely squire around the town and plantations as if he were royalty himself.
Quickly indoctrinating himself into the gentleman planter lifestyle, Teach chose his fourteenth wife - the teenage daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. Boredom on land soon set in though which lead to the reassembly of the crew for one last round of sea robbing. Blackbeard met his demise soon after further east at the end of Pamlico Sound at the mouth of Ocracoke Inlet when he was killed by Royal Navy Lt. Robert Maynard. Maynard hung Teach's head under the bowsprit of his sloop for all to see as he sailed back North to the Virginia Colony.
