Gallery of the Sea

After reading the Sea Wolf from Jack London at the age of sixteen Jacobina longed to go to sea and experience the world in its most rough and uninhibited way, to experience grit and challenge within her own boundaries. The School of Seamanship however, was out of the question and she decided to go to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts instead. Nevertheless, Jack London had planted the seed and she found herself at sea, first as a photographer on a two mast classic yacht, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, later on a windjammer the “Belem” as crew sailing from France via England to Amsterdam in the Tall ships race. Many sail races followed. Ocean racing became her passion. In 1990 she competed in a J-24 with princess Anne on the Solent, England.

Her last boat was a Catalina Capri while living in Miami where hurricane Wilma destroyed the last of the dream. To relive her adventures and bring a new dream closer she started painting again and was using the most beautiful designed yacht ever as her subject; the J-class. An old friend of hers Andre Hoek became a designer of the class and was instrumental in reviving the fleet.

The symbolism of life’s challenges, the dangers, the testing  of personal strengths and weaknesses all come together in the romance of sailing.

A feeling of prolonged longing, the stories told afterwards, the life on board experienced in close proximity to nature is all part of the paintings Jacobina has in her gallery. Most of the works are for sale. Some of them you can purchase directly from her by going to cart, some of them are on Saatchi.com. Some are framed in a golden or black frame, some she will send to you rolled up in a tube which means you have to go to your local frame store and ask if they can make it ready to hang on your wall. The price reflects it. A commission of your own boat in a nature setting of your choice is possible and Jacobina loves to nurture your dream with a beautiful piece of art.

One of my most favorite writers of the Sea is Joseph Conrad, a sailor himself with a broad imagination. I read Lord Jim and many more stories in which the love for the sea and his spirit of a true artist was always undeniable.

Jospeh Conrad; The taking of a modern steamship about the world, by contrast, has not the same quality of intimacy with nature. It has no great moments of self-confidence, or moments not less great of doubt and heart-searching.” It lacks “the artistic quality of a single-handed struggle with something much greater than yourself.”

I learned that to stay on course at the helm you have to watch the horizon more than the compass. I learned that sails balance a ship, so much so that oceangoing steamships carried rigs for stability long after they used them for auxiliary power. I learned how to steady myself by swinging like the gimbaled tables in the saloon, which seesawed wildly with the ship’s roll while plates and glasses didn’t budge. The ocean also shows the failures of progress. It is where thousands of refugees drown trying to reach prosperity. It is where slavery and piracy flourish in the face of modern law. It is where industrial chemicals and plastics pollute and destroy ecosystems.

And it is where, with rising sea levels, the planet pays us back even beyond Conrad’s imagination for our embracing fossil fuels over the enduring benefits of sail. I love the sea.