Quiet Cannon

Friends –

This particular scene is one that is well known to aficionados of the northwest coast. Although I have not been to Cannon Beach in particular, I have had enough experience with the Oregon Coast to know just how this place must feel. For this painting, I used a photograph taken by Xochitl and Maria during their visit there last month.

They say that the beach was named for a cannon that washed ashore from a sunken battleship. No longer will anyone hear that war machine blast deadly cannon balls, as it has become useless. The only booming that one will hear at this beach will come from the high tide waves as they pound the shoreline.

Perhaps, though, this cannon is now finally more useful than ever before, as it provided a name for a lovely beach and a curiosity in everyone's mind about just how a heavy cannon could ever be light enough to wash ashore.

Quiet and useless, yet useful. That is a good fate for any war machine.

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