John Nesta Art Gallery, Rocky Neck Art Colony
Gloucester, Massachusetts
A wrought iron fence shelters the front door of John Nesta’s gallery on narrow Rocky Neck Avenue running through the art colony. The ocean breeze’s sea scent blows in off the water just behind the gallery. Ivy, ferns, yellow geraniums, and pink petunias grow and hang everywhere out front. Picture windows jut out on both sides of the door like glass boxes holding displays of sand, shells, starfish, and colored sand glass. The brass bell above the door rings an announcement of my arrival.
Inside the studio oil paintings hang on walls, rest on easels, and stand lined up on the floor. Ornate gold frame hold some large works, and smaller ones are simply canvas stapled around wood frames. John Nesta talks with me about Rocky Neck and about his paintings with tenderness in his voice. The artist with graying curly hair and reading glasses has been painting Gloucester for 31 years. Oil colors under his fingernails portray his passion for painting. His paintings have embraced Gloucester - the sea, fishing boats, salt marsh, Gloucester neighborhoods, sea smoke, lighthouse, and a pink-orange light.
The wind and brine have weathered the dock tied behind the John Nesta Gallery overlooking Smith’s Cove. Rust speckles the chairs and benches, and the sun has bleached the once colorful child’s plastic climbing toy. A sailboat and a dory, moored and disintegrating alongside the dock, rest on the sand twice a day with the rhythm of the tides. An anchor and a rudder have retired here. But life decorates and encircles this heap of flotsam. Geraniums and petunias flourish in buckets. Birdfeeders dangle from riggings taken out of service, and songbirds and gulls drop by. Corn in a basin tied to the dock is dinner for a pair of swans who sails in to visit their benefactor. Around the cove riggings clang against masts which will pleasure sail tomorrow. A neighbor grills a steak and laughs with friends. Pink and orange blend in the sky above the cove and dazzle for a moment before nightfall.
