Five of the six boys in this re-creation of Homer’s art are I Know ME participants. They “became” subjects in the Winslow Homer painting one afternoon in September. Before we posed them at Birch Point State Park they had never heard of Homer or seen any of his work. Now they will never forget it. The re-creation is an homage to Winslow Homer and not a copy, just as the boys, while assuming the same poses as the originals, have their own thoughts and ambitions as they look out to sea.
In the 1870’s Maine artist, Winslow Homer, painted boys on the beach watching ships and thinking about their future. Would they sail away to foreign ports someday? Would they be adventurers, businessmen, explorers, or just clerks watching the world go by? We’ll never know what happened to the boy models in this painting but we hope to expand the lives of Maine youth by introducing them to great art.
In I Know ME the youth have experiences that would not have been possible without the program. In the summer of 2019 these boys and others in the I Am Art project will host an art exhibit and will travel to the Winslow Homer studio in Prout’s Neck. If one of the purposes of great art is to make you see the world differently, then the purpose has been fulfilled. Birch Point, Prout’s Neck, and even boyhood have been redefined by this project.