On a beach
(watercolor illustration on paper, 2006)
"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?"
Steven Wright
"When the earth floods from global warming, the swimmers will rule the world."
Author Unknown
"Do men who have got all their marbles go swimming in lakes with their clothes on?"
P.G. Wodehouse
"People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you'll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow."
Erma Bombeck
I painted this illustration while reading Doctorow's Ragtime. As I often do I tried to envision every detail of whatever I was reading about in the book. In my mind I went back to New Rochelle as it was in the beginning of the twentieth century. I took a ride on a trolley, I walked on the dusty streets and I visited a local beach, where I saw a bunch of people wearing funny-looking, (by our standards), bathing suits, which was a special treat for me since I always loved those.
I got interested in the 1920's bathing suits as a little girl, when I saw a picture of a woman from that time period wearing a strange outfit resembling a sailor's suit. I was about six years old, so I didn't recognize it as a bathing suit until I was told what it was. Shortly thereafter I saw a man's swimming outfit from the same decade and its horizontal stripes got stuck in my mind forever. As a grown-up I did an extensive research on bathing attire throughout history, but couldn't find anything funkier or funnier-looking than the bathing suits of the early twentieth century.
