Balboa Yacht Club Pier

"My chief interest in painting, at the moment, is to capture the glare and blinding light of the sun in my canvases. This, of course, can only be accomplished by painting into the sun (this is not a very good thing for one's eyes). The object that captures the glare of the sun the best is the water. Since there is a lot of water to be found in Panama, I shall contribute a large part of my time painting water motifs."

Al Sprague, Artist's Journal, April 7, 1959

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Balboa Yacht Club Pier, 1959

How many memories can be wrapped up into one painting? Balboa Yacht Club Pier hits all kinds of levels for me. As a child I remember visiting my Grandma Sprague and admiring this painting hanging on her wall. There was just something very special about it. I loved the thickness of the paint in which Dad had used when painting this very familiar scene. His style reminded me of Van Gogh, the master painter that Dad was influenced by early on in his college years. 

I don't know how many times I walked the length of the Balboa Yacht Club pier with Dad to board our boat, Pasha. Or, how many nights I spent in the building of the Balboa Yacht Club with family and friends. When Dad was out on a weekend trip on the Pasha, I recall going down to the bottom bar of the Yacht Club and calling down to the islands with the radio just to check in to see how the fishing was going. I can still hear his voice as he would respond with excitement and joy for being out on the boat and in the Perlas Islands.

Balboa Yacht Club Pier was a painting that I treasured. I always hoped to hang it on my wall one day. But, when Grandma moved out of her house to a smaller apartment, she gave it to my brother, Mark. I was so very sad.

In 1990, I graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. Mark was finishing up his PhD in Oxford, MS at Ole Miss, where he had the painting, Balboa Yacht Club Pier. Everyone came to Memphis to attend my graduation and celebrate with me. What a surprise it was to walk into Mark's hotel room and find the painting, Balboa Yacht Club Pier hanging on the wall in place of the hotel room art. As soon as I saw it Mark said, "Happy graduation! It is yours!"

Over the years, Balboa Yacht Club Pier has traveled across several states and moved from house to house. It has always been displayed in a prominent location for me to enjoy. And, over the years the painting has brought back many memories of that old rickety pier. But now, it means even more as we spread Dad's ashes in the very spot that the Pasha was moored all those years ago and the place where Dad fished since childhood. So everytime I look at the painting, Balboa Yacht Club Pier,  I will remember Dad. "Rest in Peace Dad. I will love you to the end of my time here on earth and every time I look at Balboa Yacht Club Pier, I will think of you."