The couple looked as though they were lost, not sure whether to take a left onto Barstow Street toward the library or continue on toward the beach. I had seen them earlier while on my daily walk. They were at the end of Long Wharf looking out over the harbor, glancing up at the newly refurbished swordfish, turning toward Goodspeed Island and finally pointing toward the lighthouse before turning back toward Water Street.

            As I passed them at the stone monument to our ship-building legacy, I felt compelled to ask if they needed assistance. They did. They wanted to get to the lighthouse. I told them it was a short walk. They asked if they could drive. That and prerequisite fanny packs gave it away, they were tourists. The word tourist can take on a negative connotation to some (not me), so I’ll politely call them visitors.

            Naturally, being a good-hearted soul and proud of our heritage, I segued into an unsolicited lecture about our cherished village’s history, regaling them of our whale ship-building prowess that I was sure our visitors would appreciate. Sensing they had no interest in the details of my tale, I asked where they were from. He was from Ecuador and a professor. She was from Columbia and also worked at a college.

            When asked how they happened upon Mattapoisett, I immediately felt sorry for the couple, who said they were here to see the Arabella, the floating YouTube sensation recently launched into our harbor. I had to tell them they were a few weeks late, hoping they had not come all the way from South America to see it. (They had not, only from Rhode Island.)

            It seems our little village has become quite popular. Even the national news featured Mattapoisett the day after the launch. Alas, our secret is out. Heck, how are you supposed to keep a secret if the whole world knows about our idyllic village? Our Shangri-la of seaside serenity is becoming, shall I say wistfully, too well known. The genie is out of the bottle. The cat is out of the bag.

            Over the past month or so, I have met people from all over the world. During the celebrated launch, I spoke with folks from Australia, Germany, Ireland, and several states. The Fourth of July Road Race had runners from as far away as San Francisco. Recent weekends have seen an increase in bicycle traffic, presumably due to the new bike trail. One woman I spoke with said she had rarely been to Mattapoisett, though she lived in Fairhaven.

            Some of this newfound popularity may have been the fault of my friend, man-about-town, motorcycle enthusiast and cranberry grower (who will remain nameless to protect me) and who blabbed about our desirability in an article in the big city newspaper north of here. Citing our beautiful scenery, quaint village and cool sea breezes, he noted that real estate was relatively inexpensive compared to the Boston area.

            If you call million-dollar homes … unaffordable to the masses, the hoi-polloi, the working stiff … affordable, he was right. If you check out the real estate section of that northern journal, you will see nothing but multi-million-dollar estates. A million-dollar home here seems downright cheap. Ripe for strangers seeking their own place in paradise.

            Every person I have spoken with from far-away places has said they wished they could move here. According to a local realtor, many have. And they are not looking for summer homes. What does this mean for our quiet, little town? Sidewalks on both sides of the street and no parking on them? Landscapers’ trailers everywhere. Year-round restaurants … well that might not be bad. What’s next … change the name of our town to the “Poi”?

            Change, that’s what will happen, and nobody wants change. Right?

            So, here’s the deal. Listen up all you foreigners, day-trippers, carpetbaggers and city slickers yearning to inhabit our piece of heaven, our special place. No doubt you’ve seen the bumper stickers “Mattapoisett is Special.” Don’t believe it. It’s a terrible place. Just awful.

            Let this old, townie curmudgeon set you straight. It is cold in the winter. The winds blow off the harbor.      There are no pretty boats out there. The streets are desolate. The restaurants are mostly closed. Peace and quiet prevail. You don’t want that, right? This is our little secret!

            Do you think that will discourage the interlopers? Oh well, probably not.

            Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.

By Dick Morgado

            For centuries artists have used color and/or shading to communicate light such as moon or sunlight, lamps and candles, or moods. The contrast between light and dark, the tension created by these two visual forces, continues to create opportunities for the artist to explore new realms of expression. Now the Marion Art Center’s gallery walls are covered with new ways that the use of light is being presented in a two-person show titled Illuminations.

            Tamalin Baumgarten and Meredith Leich are two women for which the world of art can rejoice. Baumgarten’s works have been described as realistic and likened to Edward Hopper. Juxtaposed to Baumgarten’s paintings are Meredith Leich’s videos and photographs of fine art quality. The two artists met in 2017 while in residency at a summer art colony in Vermont. Their friendship has become creatively entwined as they more recently managed the summer art colony at the Avalon on Cuttyhunk Island.

            For Baumgarten, being on Cuttyhunk is like going home, although as a child growing up on the west coast, she seldom visited the Buzzards Bay Island. Her grandfather David Baumgarten and his wife Marilyn Snow lived in the home from 1957 until Snow’s passing in 1982. Subsequently, the residence was bequeathed to the town and a foundation for permanent conservatorship.

            The two artists find working together on Cuttyhunk a place where their inspiration becomes aspiration. As Baumgarten pursues a more traditional use of mediums, oils and subject matter, Leich takes on technology with themes both surprising and unique.

            Leich is a photographer and an environmentalist using her art to communicate the issue of climate change. In her website biography, she states, “I’m an animator, painter and installation artist whose work explores the nature, place-based in histories and climate change through scientific research and intuitive visual exploration.”

Leich possesses the talent for finding the inner lives of inanimate objects, glaciers and buildings, for instance.

The pieces on display at the MAC show her employment of a complicated process, taking sequential photographs of large objects such as factories in Fall River, over which light is placed and videotaped. One image shows the rise and fall of a projected tide against an old factory, while another, of a glacier, includes brilliant, white curvilinear lines. That theme can be found in several of her inkjet compositions. They could denote the passage of time or the omnipresence of the spirit in the natural world.

            Baumgarten’s themes are luminous in her use of color to convey light as it plays against old homes and structures. The paintings are oil on panel, a time-consuming and exacting painting method. She doesn’t give the viewer the full story; we see the corner of a room, the front façade of a church, a row of small sailboats seemingly to float above the water.

When asked about the absence of people in her painting, Baumgarten said, “The viewer is the person in the painting, unseen but there.” She said her paintings are full but full of stillness that comes through in her use of muted tones. “These tones hold memories…. Light and shadow are the focus; color would take that away – it would interfere.”

            To give her finished works an even softer textured appearance, the artist uses a soft brush to gently stipple over paint on the panel. The effect gives the painting a glossy finish that adds to the mood of the tones. One attendee who is familiar with various forms of artistic expression commented, “I’ve never seen that before!”

            To see for yourself, head over to the Marion Art Center before the lights go out on this truly original exhibition. Visit Marionartcenter.org.

By Marilou Newell