Jack Balas, 2019; THE CONTAINER SHIP (#1838); watercolor and ink on paper, 2 panels, 30" x 45" overall.
TEXT:
I stand in the rain on a hillside above Prince Rupert, B.C., looking
down at the shipping container port, and fascinated how these
monster ships find their way from the ocean, through the islands
and fjords to these equally monster cranes to offload containers
from all over the world and onto railroad flatcars that will then
make their way further all over North America, taking boxes and
boxes of everything everywhere and from everywhere to here and
on to the world back again. And I realize looking down that all
the art I have ever done would not fill a single container. I
leave chastened, but challenged by the words on one of the drawings
here: "Every morning we face the blank page. It's up to us."