(water splashing)

(birds cawing)

(peaceful guitar music)

- [James] We used to
have a brook that ran

throughout our neighborhood,

and it traversed
many different areas

where the kids would gather.

It went by the sand pit,

where we used to jump and
see how far we could get.

It went through the woods,

where there was
an archery course.

It went down the hill
through the cow fields,

where we used to
go to build dams.

Each one of us
would build a dam,

and make what looked
like little communities,

and then when we were done,

the real fun was to
bust the first dam,

and then the next site
would be inundated,

and everything
would be destroyed,

and then it would overflow,
and the next dam would be hit.

(laughs) We loved that.

(peaceful guitar music)

So that brook really coursed
its way through our lives.

I had a piece called Red
Water Brook, a collage,

and I guess it's
a tribute to that.

(mellow guitar music)

The goal in what I'm doing

is to make the piece work,

and that means that the
colors are working together,

that it's cohesive.

I concentrate on
color, and texture,

and how that relates
one to the other.

(mellow guitar music)

(paper crinkling)

(uplifting guitar music)

Some years ago, I was
doing many residencies

in different places, and one
was at Vermont Studio Center,

and I was there for a month,

and at some point
during the month,

we decided we were
gonna throw a ball,

and the theme of the ball

was martyred saints
and natural disasters,

and I came as the most
obvious martyred saint, Jesus,

with blood on my face, and
wearing just a loincloth,

and a dirty, long-haired wig,

and a crown of
thorns, which I made

I think out of rosebushes.

And I did a performance
at the ball,

it was kinda like
a drag performance,

and I sang a Sonny and Cher
song, "I Got You, Babe",

in a voice that
mimicked Bob Dylan,

and I called for two
volunteers from the audience

who were also in
costume to be my backup,

and who would you
think volunteered?

It was Joan of Arc,
and Fire (laughs).

So they sang backup, and
they did a great job.

I was very popular after that.

I was very popular,
it was very unusual,

very unusual for me to
get so much attention

after that performance.

(lighthearted
acoustic guitar music)

Great Wass Island is
such an amazing place.

It's wild, and we see evidence

of both life and
death everywhere,

going through the
woods, and on the beach.

(lighthearted
acoustic guitar music)

You see the span of
life, you see old growth,

you see young growth.

You see trees that have fallen

that have been there for years.

You see trees that
have just fallen,

and everything is left for
nature to take care of,

and there's no human
intervention there.

Even the National Park lands
like Acadia, they're kept up,

and Great Wass Island is
unique this way, I think.

(lighthearted
acoustic guitar music)

The many times I've been there,
I've seen very few people,

and I love being
the only one there,

and feeling the space,

and really feeling
like I fill the space.

Great Wass Island is dramatic,

and Little Cape
Point is compelling.

It's wild, like much of the
preserve is wild, or all of it.

The land reaches
out into the water,

and the growth is isolated,
and surrounded by stone,

and like many promontories,
they are similar that way,

often growth
surrounded by stone.

(mellow acoustic guitar music)

(lively guitar music)

(introspective guitar music)

(paper ripping)

I grew up in a
small town in Maine.

It was a happy
childhood, I guess,

but I would also say
that I was troubled

growing up as well, in a way.

It got to a point
that I realized

school wasn't the most
important thing to me anymore.

I studied a lot,
and expected totally

to go the college route,
but it was my introduction

to dealing with bureaucracy.

I had all the credits
to graduate as a Junior,

only lacking Senior
English as a credit,

because I took Senior
English as a Junior,

and the whole point for
me was that I wanted

to graduate early
to move to Boston,

and to start living

what I considered my
life for the first time.

(frenetic music)

So I decided to
quit high school,

and I left for Boston
to really start my life,

and that's what it felt like,

to come out as a gay man,
and to pursue my life,

which felt hindered
back in Maine.

This was in the 1970s.

It would have been impossible

for me to feel comfortable
there at that time.

(frenetic music)

(birds chirping)

(peaceful acoustic guitar music)

I really feel I'm creating
when I'm in the garden,

and I think there are parallels

to how I work outside, and
how I work inside on my art.

I am a methodical worker,

I like to work at a
slow and steady pace.

Sometimes someone will ask me,

"Why don't you use a wheelbarrow
to move those stones?"

And for me, that
would feel laborious,

where carrying a
stone in my hands

feels like a meditation,
and I think in my art, too,

I like a process that
is slow in coming.

I don't respond to
something immediate,

like the splash of paint,
creating an image that way.

(birds chirping)

(cautious guitar music)

I like to go to cemeteries.

It's not so much to
look at the stones,

but to look at the landscape.

My first introduction
to landscaping

was when I worked
in the cemeteries

in my neighborhood growing up.

(gritty guitar music)
(crows cawing)

We did some planting
and care-taking.

It was really park-like, and
many cemeteries are like parks,

with shrubs, and trees,
and where I worked,

there was a lot of
attention put to

how the grounds were presented.

(ethereal guitar music)

(methodical guitar music)

(paper ripping)

Glue it and put it,

so now I'm just
gonna straighten it.

(methodical acoustic
guitar music)

At 17, I decided to leave
the country and go to Europe,

and I told everyone that I
knew, including my parents,

that I wouldn't be
contacting anybody.

It turned out to be
a couple of years.

I needed to see what
it was that I am.

I was feeling that
so much of who I am

is reflected in everyone I know,

and I wanted to feel
what it was like

to be free of that, free of
what people expected of me.

Being in Europe,
one of the things

that impressed me
most was in Spain,

seeing the anarchist symbol
graffitied on walls everywhere,

and I really loved seeing that,

because it felt like

there were like-minded
people all around me.

I went to Spain to do
an action at Gibraltar,

to protest, in a group,

fighting against the
border being closed

on the Spanish side,

and the border was closed
because Spain wanted

to force Britain to yield
the island to Spain,

and we went to the beach,

and swam about a
mile to the island,

and were chased by the Spanish
police in motorized boats,

so we arrived on the island,

and were arrested by the British
police for illegal entry,

and the next day, we
got to the high fence

at the Spanish border,
and we climbed over it,

and entered Spain, and for that,

we were deported to
Perpignan, France,

in an overnight truck with
semi-automatics pointed at us.

(water splashing)

I think if I were able
to choose a personality,

I would love to be someone who
was oriented toward people,

but I'm not, and
that colors my life

as an artist, and
just as a human being.

It is one aspect of my life

that has posed the
greatest challenge.

(quirky music)

(waves crashing)

(mellow guitar music)

I hadn't heard of the
cliffs at Ironbound.

I first saw them
from Winter Harbor,

and was just mesmerized, and
seeing them from a distance,

I was really intrigued.

Even though I enjoyed
seeing the cliffs up close,

I didn't need that
to depict them,

because I could imagine
how they looked.

(man singing in
foreign language)

- [James] I just did
different configurations,

basically just putting
shapes together.

(man singing in
foreign language)

- There's too much
happening in the sky.

It's competing with
everything else,

especially the rocks, and the
sky should be more serene,

or the rocks should be plain,

and not many different
colors and patterns.

You know, it's a peaceful scene,

and it should convey
that, and the colors

are doing just the opposite.

Yeah, I think this
piece is gonna change.

(mellow guitar music)

Great Wass Island is wild,
and nothing is tended,

or cared for, and
it's interesting to me

that in the garden,
I'm just the opposite,

where I'm pulling out all the
dead things that I can find,

and I'm pulling out
growth that I don't want,

and I'm really controlling
the environment

in a significant way,
but a garden is about

bringing order into nature.

I'm reading a book by
Vita Sackville-West,

who was an avid gardener in
the late 1800s, early 1900s,

and she says, "To be a gardener,
you need to be ruthless."

And so I keep that in mind

as I'm pulling out
the Black Eyed Susan.

I really love the
flower, but overall,

it just is, well it's
causing disorder.

The garden looks disorderly,

and so I'm replacing
them with Echinacea,

and some other plants
that look good all summer,

and don't die quickly.

(water hissing)

I like to go hiking
a lot in this area,

and one of the things that I do

is pay attention to the
plant life on these hikes,

and I let that influence
the choices I make

in what I introduce
into the garden.

I grow a lot of Thyme: Creeping
Thyme, Wooly Thyme both,

and the Thyme makes me
think of carpets of lichen

that I see in the
forest or in the woods.

(mellow guitar music)

(peaceful guitar music)

For many years, I've been
coming to Sorrento, Maine,

for the summer, and
the rest of the year

I'm in the San
Francisco Bay area,

with my partner, John.

We've been together 35 years.

John and I were so excited

when we found out that Sorrento

was the smallest town in Maine

that passed an
anti-bias ordinance on
behalf of gay people.

I've noticed that if John
weren't part of my life,

being here alone feels
so much different

than how it feels,

so his presence is here
even though I'm alone.

I explore the Maine
Coast, which I love,

and especially the area
around here, around Acadia,

and further down east.

(peaceful guitar music)

Yeah, inspiration,
I get inspiration

from the landscape around me,

and that continues.

I'm drawn to doing
abstract work,

but I keep going back
to doing the landscape,

and I guess it's a
source of inspiration

that doesn't dry up.

There's always a different
way to interpret what you see.

(peaceful guitar music)

Oh, okay, so I'm not
sure how to state that.

- [Rick] What I need
you stating in some way

is the name of the piece.

Cape Little whatever
it's called.

(mellow guitar music)

- I'm gonna say Great
Wass Island, you know,

because that I know.

(mellow guitar music)

- [Rick] If the
name of the piece

ends up being "Cape Point"--
- It won't be that.

- [Rick] You said it might be--

- [James] Right, Promontory,
One Wass Island Point,

Great Wass Island--
- You won't say little?

- [James] No, I'm not
gonna call it that.

- [Rick] Little,
what the hell is it?

- [James] Little Cape Point.

- [Rick] Little
Cape Point, yeah.

- [James] I mean, it
works okay for a piece,

because no one's, they'll
look at it and say,

"Well, this is cute."

And then they won't
remember it, and it's fine,

but for you, you need something

that people will remember.

- [Rick] No, but it could be

a simpler version of it,
like Making Cape Point.

And that's its actual name.

- [James] Yeah, but
Cape Point, it's weird,

and I find it an odd name.

- Why?
- To me, cape and point

seem either synonymous,
or close to it.

- [Rick] It's still
a beautiful point.

- [James] It's a
beautiful point,

and I'm not hung up on the name.

I don't think of the name.

- [Rick] Then why not just
call it Little Cape Point,

and then we can also
call the film that?

(mellow guitar music)

(sandpaper gritting)

(introspective guitar music)

- [James] The four Great
Wass images that I did

are each a different location
on Great Wass Island.

Great Wass Island One,

or I guess it's
called Great Wass One,

the dominant color
of that one is blue,

and I typically avoid blue.

In Great Wass Two, the
bright green of the grass

is central, and gives a contrast

with the lighter scheme
of the rest of the piece.

For Great Wass Three, the bright
golden yellow-orange color

of the seaweed give
it some nice contrast.

Also, with this one, I have
the high tide mark of the rock.

I would say the dominant feature

of the Great Wass
Four is the sky.

It's a very detailed and
moody vision of the sky.

It's different from the
other three Great Wasses

in that there's more
nuance in the depiction.

(mellow guitar music)

(gentle guitar music)

When I work, the image
makes certain demands

that guide the outcome of
the piece I'm working on.

In art, like in life,

you don't always know how
things are gonna turn out.

(water splashing)

(gentle guitar music)

At 17, I wanted to
feel what it was like

to be free of what
people expected of me,

and I'm not sure what
I discovered in that.

(uplifting guitar music)