Leaving Washington

30"x40" oil on canvas             $300 + s&h

I've mentioned in previous posts that I have a novel I've been chipping away at for years now that I'd love to have completed, published, and distributed in the not-too-distant future.  However, I've been more productive in creating paintings based on scenes in the story--not for the purpose of illustration but rather to have the literary process assist the painting process and vice versa.  Things I can capture in words can challenge me to create with paint and alternately it's a very healthy challenge to describe in my writing what I've painted intentionally or not.

In this scene my protagonist, a child, and his siblings leave their home in Washington with their mother and family friend/male guardian.  This move was made necessary with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act, which not only gave the legal go-ahead to law enforcement and "concerned" citizens to forcibly return fugitive slaves anywhere within the United States to their owner for reward, but it had the collateral effect of subjecting freed blacks to being sacked and kidnapped and having their free papers destroyed and disregarded.  This was particularly prevalent in slave-holding  jurisdictions known for harboring runaways on what is known as the Underground Railroad.  Washington, DC was one such place and I imagine my protagonist who is actually also my great (x3) grandfather and particularly his family may have felt the heat despite their freed status.

In this painting I tried to show the somberness of the moment--my characters' backs to us, lined up at the docks, waiting to be stowed away on a cargo steamer down the Potomac River and eventually carried north via the Chesapeake Bay.  The travel must happen at night so as not to be as easily noticed but the risk and fear is still there even amongst these "freed" people.