Peter Coes, SHE LIT A CANDLE AT TWILIGHT, acrylic on panel, 37 x 46 inches (including a frame made by the artist), $5,000
Like most of Cummaquid artist Peter Coes’ paintings, “She Lit a Candle at Twilight” suggests a story without really spelling it out. Although there’s no person in this autumn scene, we sense the house is occupied, lived in. There’s a bicycle (one of the artist’s trademark subjects) leaning casually against the house. There’s a garden hose coiled on the grass as if someone’s been watering the lawn. The downstairs windows are open, a further clue the day has been warm. And, as alluded to by the enigmatic title, there’s a single candle burning in the upstairs window. Like almost all his figures, this unseen protagonist is — in the artist’s mind — a woman. “I’m sure she hoped that someone would see the candle and be welcomed by it,” Peter says.
At far left, placid waves leave their eyelet pattern of foam on the sand. The setting is presumably Cape Cod, but the house is a transplant. Peter, who grew up in the small town of Longmeadow, Mass., used to pass the house on the way to his future wife’s parents’ home in nearby Springfield. “The house isn’t on Cape Cod, but it always looked to me like it should be by the ocean,” he says. “Where it was seemed totally out of place.” He took pictures of it. He sketched it. He mused about it, thinking the owner had a lot of confidence to build his dream house in a neighborhood of otherwise commonplace architecture. “It stood out like a jewel so I put it on Cape Cod in the twilight.”
Like the lovely house with scalloped shingles, Peter’s artistic approach stands out as unique. His distinct outlines and areas of flat color are somewhat akin to primitive painting. But there’s nothing primitive about his drawing: Peter is a superb draftsman with an exquisite sense of design and rare ability to create an evocative mood.
Peter painted this piece for the Cahoon Museum of American Art exhibition “Twilight and Starlight.” See more of Peter Coes work.