Beach Portraits

Some backstory first.

Last summer, Michigan artist and Instagram friend Katherine Corden invited me to collaborate with her. The fun idea was that I would get a private pre-launch peek at her newest collection, Beach Portraits, and I’d write a short story for a handful of the paintings.

What I love about Katherine's art is that she takes everyday beach moments that someone might not think much of and turns them into wistful summer escapes and cherished family heirlooms. As I sat and pondered each painting, the characters instantly came alive - I could hear the seagulls and feel the sun, and the stories nearly wrote themselves.

Here are 3 of my favorites - fun little bite-sized moments to get you excited for summer. I hope you enjoy.

Megan

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Sandy looked over her shoulder with a smile stretched wide across her face and hollered back to Julie, “We are almost to the beach - you’re going to love it!” This summer trip had been a dream of Sandy’s for over a decade, planning, saving, emailing dates over and over, and finally the three sisters were all together on this glorious Tuesday.

With sun-kissed knees and her swinging beach bag, they pedaled down the road, past the old Manning house with crooked shutters and arrived at a quiet hidden cove. The three stepped off their bikes carefully leaning them against a lone Beech tree, took in a deep breath of air, and without missing a beat, looked at each other and started laughing just like they were little girls sharing the upstairs bedroom all those years ago.

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Luckily the walk down the trail was just a short jaunt since she was precariously loaded down with all the necessary supplies and some unnecessary adds by her very insistent toddler. With Jack running and weaving and jumping ahead of her, she thought back to all those years she and Bryan had waited for this exact moment, never thinking parenthood would arrive. But eventually, it did with the greatest joy, fanfare, balloons, and happy tears that streaked down beaming smiles. They were now a family.

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The house rental touted that it had “amazing water views with nothing but serenity,” and Rex hit the Book It button without reading anything else in the description. All he wanted was quiet. Quiet from work, quiet from the emails-news-noise of life. He just needed to get back to a place where he could think quietly and remember who he used to be.

Every morning Rex woke with the sun and swam to the channel marker and back; he read a book cover to cover that had been waiting on his nightstand for over two years, and every afternoon he walked to the local market and grabbed a few items to make himself a simple dinner.

With his breath calm again and his bag on the backseat of his idling car, he pulled the curled notepad out of the junk drawer and wrote the homeowner a simple thank you signing his name. He paused, and almost as if the pen was writing on its own, the tip of the pen reached back down to the paper and added, “p.s. please let me know if you ever wish to sell your beautiful home; I would like to live here forever.”

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If you’d like more of these beautiful paintings, Katherine puts out a lovely email once a month that you can find HERE.