The Winds of Fate

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.

‘Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through life:

‘Tis the set of the soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Artwork by Ira Barkoff.  Image source.

I’ve always loved this poem. I came across it at a time when I really needed to read it to myself. So I wrote it down somewhere and now I found it again. I thought I would share it here.

The painting by Ira Barkoff is of the Maine coastline. I’ve never been out there. It would be different then the California coastline, but probably just as nice. Lavender ocean is something different. Turquoise ocean is calming.

A little description from ArtNet.com

“The coast lies quiet… the ebb and flow of sea serene on this clear summer day. Banks of white clouds fill a pale purple sky – the ocean, too, wears waves of lavender. Shallows, and surges of surf gleam with aqua translucency while foreground sandbars glow red-gold. A sailboat skims the horizon, passing stands of trees on the distant shore.

The warming tones and textures of the sandbars are touchstones; mooring, for the voyage over the sea. Color contrasts are exquisite - the shallows offer particularly profound passages – and time seems to still at this place.”

Barkoff explains his artistic process as a kind of translation. “When I paint a mountain or a tree, I’m not literally trying to capture the mountain or the tree – that’s what a photograph does. I’m trying to express my inner spirit in the painting, to transcend the physical to reach the spiritual. I’m creating a landscape of spatial relationships, spatial experiences and designs that unfold to the viewer, a little at a time, thus creating light, air and mystery.”