Tag Archives: Susan Tobey White
Painter Susan Tobey White captures a ‘day in the life’ of female lobstermen
First, it’s important to get it straight. She’s not called a ‘lobsterwoman’ if the person lobster fishing is female; the correct term, no matter what the gender is lobsterman. Susan Tobey White’s latest series, “Lobstering Women of Maine” is all about the women who haul traps, bait bags, stern and lobster fish off their own boats. The exhibit is currently hanging at Penobscot Marine Museum until October 2019. At least 300 people showed for her artist’s reception on July 14 and among those in the crowd were several of the women she did the portraits of. “I think most of the people who showed up at the reception were in awe. They had no idea that women even did this line of work,” said White. >click to read< 10:32
Painting the ‘Lobstering Women of Maine’
“It started with Suzanna, that one right there,” White said in late March, pointing to a large painting in her Church Street studio, just around the corner from Belfast Historical Society Museum. In November 2017, White said she watched the painting’s subject unloading lobster traps at Belfast Harbor. A sternman on her husband’s boat, the woman was clearly in charge of her territory. White said she watched in awe. “She unloaded every one of them and, hey, there’s no way! My husband fishes; there’s no way I’d be doing that,” White said. The experience that snow-dusted day got White thinking. She’d painted many lobster fishermen over the years — but never a woman. That was going to change. “I get these ideas, you know? But I don’t think I’ve ever been so obsessed about >click to read<
