Dine East

“Built for Cape Cod”
18 x 24" oil on canvas

How glorious! Alas! Three consecutive days of plein air painting, this time in the Morehead City, NC area! “Built for Cape Cod” is named for the boats you see here, built in someone’s yard in a coastal area of North Carolina referred to as “Down East” — actually pronounced by the locals as Dine East. They pronounce a long i as oi, and so these people known as “High Tiders” are commonly called Hoi Toiders. I’m not making this up, promise. Sometimes referred to as the Queen’s English, some believe the dialect to be a hold over from Elizabethan times when this part of North Carolina was first settled. It’s a fascinating area, and one that I love to paint.

The skiffs in the painting are going to be sent up to Cape Cod. The man who operates this boat works hails from Massachusetts. When I asked he and his family if he’s accepted there, his Dine East born-and-bred daughter-in-law replied, “We’re trying [to accept him]”. Down East has a tradition of boat building that goes back a couple centuries, and so naturally, I was curious about the intrusion of a boat builder, especially one from “up North”.

Check out the painting below that shows me at work on the painting. I was heavily layered so am not really as fat as I appear here.


Painting skiffs in Down East