A Further Shore

Walt Whitman, in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” ecstatically invokes New York City’s waterways. Passionately, deliriously, Whitman calls out to the tides, the gulls, the ferry passengers, the light, the clouds, the ships, the sailors, the waves, the cities on the far shore. All humans are divine in his eyes, their reflected faces anointed by “fine spokes of light” in the passing waters. “Suspend” he cries, celebrating these moments unmoored from the sure time of the city. I come to Whitman’s water in my most recent work, A Further Shore. Inspired by the unfettered humanism of Whitman and by the shifting light and reflective waters of American Luminism, I am gathering images of life upon and alongside New York City’s waterways. After the ravages of Hurricane Sandy, I find it necessary to re-embrace the water as timeless balm, revelation, and rejuvenation. The title, A Further Shore, conjures the distant spires of Manhattan, as seen across the bays and harbors, rivers and creeks, and also returns the viewer to the far reaches of the outer boroughs. There, time moves according to season, ceaselessly circling back upon itself, eschewing the forward march of the grid. Daylight lengthens, the water warms and resounds with voices and motors. Daylight shortens, the waters cool into icy silence. Shoreline remnants tangle into fictive histories. Bridges arc from shore to shore, steel longings drawn between boroughs, eternally crossing the tides below. It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not, I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt… -Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry