Ogunquit News
George R. Carpenter remembered
By C. Ayn Douglass
A lone piper, Douglas Cols, stands on the beach playing one of George Carpenter's favorite songs during a memorial service held for Carpenter on Wednesday, Sept. 13.
Photo by C. Ayn Douglass
OGUNQUIT - Against a backdrop of roaring seas and a cloud-studded sky, more than 100 friends, admirers, family members and fellow artists gathered at Ogunquit Beach on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 13, to celebrate the life of the unofficial "Mayor of Perkins Cove," George R. Carpenter.
Carpenter died on June 18, 2006.
A lone piper, Douglas Cols, stood on the beach playing "Over the Sea to Skye," one of Carpenter's favorite tunes, and the invocation by Robert C. Fellows opened with a comment often heard said by Carpenter, "Look at that sky!"
Carpenter, by his own count, had estimated he created 18,000 pieces of art while living in Ogunquit and operating his studio in Perkins Cove, and loved a good sky and heavy seas. He would have appreciated the weather conditions that rolled into Ogunquit later in the day that created huge ground swells and pounding waves at the mouth of Perkins Cove.
Locals and visitors alike commemorated Carpenter in a remembrance book placed outside his studio in the cove. Since his passing, the blank pages have been filled with scribbles, sketches and memories of his significance in both the art world and the politics of the cove.
Ogunquit artist Judith Woodbury remembered her last encounter with Carpenter two or three days before his death as completely opposite from any other conversation she had ever had with him.
"I always had to shore myself up before talking with George," she said. "We always got into it when we talked … That day, he motioned to me to come over and I braced myself for another round, but he said to me 'I always respected you,' and I was just overwhelmed."
Carpenter was known to roar at people when he felt it was appropriate. During the memorial, Fellows recalled a story about Carpenter when a tourist came to his studio and was evaluating a painting to hang over her sofa. She couldn't decide if the colors complimented her decor or not, and Carpenter's acerbic comments about her standard for choosing art drove her out of the studio.
"Keep your brushes wet," were the words he lived by.
Carpenter's ashes were taken out to sea on Friday along with several of his brushes. He had a strong connection with Native American beliefs and in that tradition, the tools of an individual's trade frequently are sent to the afterlife with the remains.
"To have touched so many lives through his spirit and his art is a true form of immortality," were the words written on the cover page of the memorial service program.
George R. Carpenter: Dec. 13, 1929 - June 18, 2006.
