EXPLORING AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP: Artfully Cruising the Rivers and Canals of North America

About James:
Ever since I was a little boy I wanted a boat and have adventures on the water. Though my family had no nautical history and very little money to invest in anything as frivolous as a boat, the dream persisted. In adulthood I read everything I could about small boat voyaging. I read many ‘how to’ manuals explaining the physics of sailing. I became fluent in the arcane technical language of sailors. Yet my life remained land bound and I began to doubt if I ever would sail over that mysterious horizon. We lived in the Florida Keys for eight years. One year I bought a 12-foot aluminum fishing boat with a 5-horse outboard for two hundred dollars. It was a boat that was made for small inland lakes and was absolutely unsuitable for the open water of the Keys. After scaring myself and putting my young family in jeopardy I traded the boat to a local fisherman for some lobster tails.
In the early nineties after being sideswiped by Hurricane Andrew, we moved north to Milwaukee and our financial situation improved. In 1998 I bought a small sailboat offered by a business acquaintance. Jill and I took sailing courses at the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center and our sailing life began. Retirement allowed us to expand our sailing horizons; sailing with friends in the Caribbean and spending months at a time sailing the Great Lakes. I am by nature a rather introverted, cerebral guy and while not a man of faith, my connection to the natural world is as close to a religious experience as I will ever have. For me traveling on the water is the most real interaction I can have with nature including its peacefulness, sublime beauty and sometimes its terror.

About Jill:
My family’s summers were spent operating a remote fly-in Canadian fish camp, where we made our own fun by the water. Having no electricity or media, we rose with the sun and took our cues from the earth. Befriending toads, climbing rocks, swimming, and creative play gave me the background experiences that make me who I am today.
Creativity and art have always been central to my life. My grandmother Margaret was a watercolorist and puppeteer who shared her talents with me. I would go on to study art in college but would lose the pleasures of being a simple maker when life demanded other things from me. Motherhood was important and fulfilling, but being a full time worker and parent left little time for art.
The question of what to do with my life after our sons matured and work life ended was an interesting one. My first few years of retirement were focused on completing tasks in several community volunteer positions.
When we began considering doing the Great Loop I realized that letting go of all the distractions of life on land could mirror my childhood years at camp and I could make time for daily creativity. I see the world with different eyes when I am making art regularly. I would go on to use the simple tools in my art drawer and my needles and embroidery floss to reflect on the interesting world I saw from the windows of MV Alvin James and the results would often surprise me.