Week #30, Seafood Industry IV

Dusti Bongé, Untitled (Boats at the Dock), c. 1942, pastel on paper, 11 ½” x 15 ½”.

This week’s drawing by Dusti Bongé of her cherished Biloxi's seafood industry scenery does not feature any factories or equipment, just a small fleet of fishing boats. They are all moored at the dock, suggesting the fishermen are getting a deserved break from their daily toil.

This sketch, looking over the calm water instead of toward the chaotic jumble of industrial structures on the waterfront, exudes a sense of serenity. The arrangement of the boats around the main pier, jutting out into the water toward the horizon, away from the viewer, almost invites you to walk onto it.

Compositionally, the pier is placed starting at the center bottom of the paper and extended out toward the left stopping about one third of the way up. As such the main focus of the work, the cluster of docked boats, is all contained in a horizontal swath in the lower half of the composition with the top half simply showing the water beyond, a stroke of green on the other bank, and the sky above. The vertical masts of the boats are the only parts breaking up this horizontal emphasis. All the boats to the right of the pier have their bows facing the viewer while the ones on the left are facing outward.

The work, created with swift, loose pastel marks, is clearly intended as a quick study. Each boat is represented by a few effortless black outlines, and some blue and white surfaces with red accents. All of these together work to create a clear sense of perspective, while at the same time the flatly colored surfaces indicating port and starboard have the hallmarks of Dusti’s cubist style.

This piece exhibits one of the drawbacks of pastel as a medium, namely, the likelihood areas in the work could get accidentally smudged as on the boats to the left. Of course, smudging can also serve as one of the advantages of using pastels.