Ceres Street From The Water, or, Is There Something Strangely Fascinating About This Image?

This view is from the middle bridge (the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge) over the Piscataqua, looking back at Portsmouth from the Maine side. Phillip Augusta, who was my partner in re:Ports. Magazine at the time, (1981) had taken some nice photos from this angle, and I used them as reference material. I moved the North Church steeple over to the right to balance things out. From this angle in real life it's actually over above the tugboats.

At time I drew this, I had been reading a lot about "subliminal perception," and how advertising photos and illustrations were alleged to have disturbing images of sex and death embedded in them to subconsciously stimulate consumers. Things like skulls and sexual organs hidden in the ice cubes. (I have actually found some of these in magazine ads, but I don't know if they affect viewer's behavior.)

So, doing this drawing, I thought it would be cool to put some four-letter words in the sky, and see if maybe people became strangely fascinated by the image. I imagined people staring at it on the wall, saying, "I don't know what it is, but there is just something about this drawing that really gets me!"

So, how is it working? Are you strangely fascinated? At the time I was drawing it I was so worried that people would actually really notice the words that I kept covering them up more and more. So they are pretty much obscured. If you click on the image above, it will come up bigger.

Here's something that you will be able to notice. The clouds form eyes, nose, and mouth, slanting down and to the right. With the steeple going right into the mouth. At the time, I thought a skull face hidden in the sky would be oh-so diabolically devious. Turns out, it is remarkably similar to the now famous mask from the movie Scream, which came out 15 years later.

This image has been hanging on the wall over a booth in Rosa's Restaurant for about 20 years. I wonder if it affects patrons' dining experiences?

Peace Action at North Church, Portsmouth, NH

I sent this out as a New Year's card this year. Happy New Year to you, too. Yes, I know that was a while ago. This is another recycled pen and ink drawing of the steeple renovations about 15 years ago. I added the banner and did a fake 4-color out-of-register effect.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's the image from a card I sent out for Valentine's Day 2007. Yeah, I know it's not Valentine's Day today; I just ran across this in my files and decided to put it up here. And the repair-guy-on-the-steeple subject goes with the previous post.

As of right now, the North Church steeple is bright and white and clean-looking. But a couple years ago it was in serious need of repair and paint. The rust and stains and peeling paint gave the thing some interesting character. But cleanliness is next to godliness. Is the purpose of the steeple to point the way to heaven? Or maybe it's a kind of lightning rod for spiritual energy, drawing down holiness into the church. Other, non-Christian religions have steeples too, right? Mosques have minarets. So maybe steeples/minarets are a human thing, rather than a Christian thing.

New Year's Card 2008

I sent this image out as a New Year's Card for 2008: "Time to take down the lights." I did the pen and ink drawing about 15 years ago or so when the steeple was being worked on.