The Art of Me

I am not an artist, but that didn't stop me from recognizing a big part of myself in the art of Elton Bennett.

Sea Birds Cry by Elton Bennett.

For a while, I've wanted to put some art of the Pacific Northwest on my wall, so some prints of Bennett's work caught my eye as I ate lunch at the Ocean Crest Resort on a recent trip to the beach at Moclips, Washington. They presented familiar scenes of the Washington coast in the soft, shadowy colors so common in the PNW.

Alone, the scenes in Bennett's work would have supplied me with enough interest for further research, but they also possessed a quality I knew I liked. After returning home and starting my investigation, I learned that Bennett had been a native of the Grays Harbor area in Washington, growing up and living not far from my hometown. That certainly struck a chord with me. The area had inspired much of his work, and I saw the care he had for some of the same things and places I grew up loving.

My photograph of a clam tide on January 2, 2015.

It wasn't just that Bennett's art portrayed a place I cared about though. As I examined his pieces in more detail, I discovered some of my own perspective in them. Many of his works emphasize the natural scene over human figures. Some contain no people at all. In those where people are present, the scenery often dwarfs the human, or the shadows or half-light blur them into the setting. I take photographs in much the same way. In fact, his piece Sea Birds Cry, which depicts the silhouettes of people digging clams against the blue-gray of the ocean and sky, recalled to mind some clam-tide pictures I took in 2015.

After conducting my research, I knew Bennett's art was the kind I wanted on my wall. I bought a print of Around the Cape, which beautifully expresses the essence of the coast on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. For more information about Bennett and his art, click here.

Although I could not have produced Bennett's art, its subject matter and perspective at least make me feel like it was created for me.