This painting was inspired by children frolicking at the shore of Lake Michigan in the Sleeping Bear Dunes on a hot day. A boy in the distance bends down to build a sandcastle, while in the foreground, a girl runs through a small stream, heading into the big lake.
This small stream is created by the outflow of Otter Creek at Esch Beach. It’s wondrous how the outflow changes all the time — sometimes it runs north, sometimes south, always parallel to the shore. It’s always exciting to come to Esch Beach to see how it has shifted.
Once, I met a retiree from Arizona at Otter Creek. He reminisced about how, growing up in Michigan, he loved playing in this very outflow into Lake Michigan.
From a different point of view: A gay friend who visited me here once stood watching big fish swimming in Otter Creek and wondered aloud, with a smile, whether there might be gay fish too.
When Beach Play was exhibited, it evoked a range of comments:
- “Sweet”
- “Looks like a cartoon”
- “Surrealistic”
- “It reminds me of Dalí’s floppy watches.”
Dalí’s iconic painting of melting watches, The Persistence of Memory (9.5 × 13 in), can be viewed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Thinking about this connection, I can say that just as many of Dalí’s paintings were inspired by his Catalonian landscapes, many of my own paintings are inspired by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan — a place where I first spent my vacations and which has now become my home.