They Also Faced the Sea- THE RETURN OF FRANCES!
Many of us who love artist Norma Holt's large format photo installation that greets visitors in Provincetown Harbor have noted that the fifth portrait of Frances Raymond has ben missing for quite some time, having blown down in a gale. Through the hospitality of pier owners Chuck and Ann Lagasse, I have been invited to reinstall her at last! Utility conduit was built into her framework a while back which will make reinstallation of the image a bit trickier, but my sign guy says he would do it for the same amount that we spent for Almeda Segura's portrait facing Long Point. That amount plus new hardware I have already purchased brings the installation amount to just under $1200. I have a few hundred in escrow from the last fundraiser which is still waiting to be used, either for this effort or to print information cards for the piers to hand out. I hope you will all consider donating to get our fifth matriarch back where she belongs! I have included the history below for those who are new to this significance behind this art installation and what it has come to mean to Provincetowners for over a decade now. Thank you for your support!
"Installed originally in 2003, the group of 5 oversize photos that comprise "They Also Faced the Sea" were only meant to stand for less than a year. Photographer Norma Holt had taken a series of black and white photo portraits of elder Portuguese women of Provincetown. Holt's interest had been to capture the matriarchal aspect of a fishing culture that traditionally celebrates the heroicism of the male and his encounter with the mighty sea. Friend and fellow artist Ewa Nogiec suggested Holt make massive prints of a select group and install them on the shingled warehouse at the end of Fisherman's Wharf. The result was an exhibition en plein air whose weathered substrate echoed the careworn lines in the women's faces, themselves etched from years of exposure and industry. As Ms. Nogiec has stated, these portraits are of our mothers. Their larger than life presence reminds us from whence we came and to whom we owe our humble beginnings.
Over a decade has passed under the watchful eyes of Almeda Segura, Eva Silva, Mary Jason, Bea Cabral and Frances Raymond. One photo is gone entirely. The visages of the others are pale, faded to a near memory, much as the Portuguese community itself from Provincetown. With the decimation of the fishing industry, many of the Portuguese families who once populated the town have moved away. Their mark on the town diminishes with every passing year. Norma Holt's photo installation has become an iconic landmark for Provincetown, a tribute to one part of the town's history that newcomers might easily overlook. These intrepid, frail faces greet the ferry as it rounds the bend of the breakwater; they face the sea as visitors depart. Stalwart guardians of our harbor, these women, these Portuguese women, must not fade from our consciousness, either figuratively or literally..."