Janet Wolahan – Coast to Cósta

August 12 – September 24, 2023

In New England there is always a sense of the nearness of the sea. Even inland, when she was a child growing up in Malden, Janet Wolahan always felt the sea’s vital presence, miles away from her, an attractive force as strong as a magnet. A day at the beach, a Sunday spent in Rockport, a drive up or down the coast was for her family the best kind of outing, all seven of them piled into the family car for their ocean adventures.

She still feels that attraction. Since moving to Rockport seven years ago her fascination with all that’s inherent in the edges of the sea only grows: the heaps and yards of lobster traps, the lovely, messy harbor of Gloucester with it’s beautiful old fishing boats (draggers), ramshackle sheds and buildings, all the paraphernalia of the struggling fishing industry, giving these places on the seacoast a special identity.

While traveling recently to the western coast of Ireland, Janet saw evidence of the same coastal activities, with a tumult of varied greens and surprising, extreme rock formations (“skelligs”) off shore, giving Ireland’s coast (“costa”) its own dramatic flavor.