To create these seascapes, I would escape the city as often as I could to go and watch the water. My studio, located in downtown Brooklyn, one of the most active retail trade centers of the world, is of a piece with the pristine Long Island beaches that stretch one hundred and twenty miles to the east. The Atlantic Avenue train station is a doorway to heaven, closing on traffic-clogged streets and opening onto the littoral, the blue sky and waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

I frequently carried a portable easel and my oil paints, working in the “plein air” style of 19th century landscape painters. Inspired by a love of nature, my desire was to see it preserved in an unspoiled state. My larger paintings were made in the studio using sketches and photographs, but my true guide is nature itself, etched in my mind from hours spent observing the interactions of the elements. Watching water is a wonderful way to experience the power and subtleties of nature, and to truly see.

Painting the force and beauty of raw nature in my studio--in the midst of urban noise and chaos--was a profound experience. I appreciate the literal, physical connection of Brooklyn to the beach; the fact that the great outwash plain under my studio eventually ends facing the ocean. And I like to think that feeling comes through in the paintings.

Frank Lind