This article would be very helpful for someone who is interested in learning more about lobstering and the daily practices of a lobsterman. Acheson starts this article by describing the sizes of lobstering boats and why lobstermen would use a boat between 26 and 42 feet. He also describes the different technologies that can be found on a modern lobster boat, such as a hydraulic pot hauler, a radar, and depth finder, which all changed the efficiency of lobstering entirely. Acheson does a great job summarizing the process of lobstering, giving a detailed description of the types of traps, baits, buoys, and ropes used. The investments of lobstermen are also touched on, describing the debts, up to $200,000, that a lobsterman can incur. There are also two very descriptive labeled pictures of a lobster boat and a lobster trap that put a “face” to the lobstering equipment that Acheson talks about. He ends his article talking about the regulations on lobstering in Maine and why they were implemented. Overall, I would recommend this article to anyone who is looking to learn the basics about the daily practices of lobstermen and the history of lobstering in midcoast Maine.
Modernism and Changing Landscape
After reading the Mitchell article and talking about modernism last class I noticed there was a strong connection between modernism and changing landscape. Imperialism occurs because of the modernism mindset that we are always looking to improve. Imperialism causes almost instant cultural changes – similar to the Netherlands in the 17th century, changing from a rebellious colony to a maritime empire. These cultural changes caused by a “modernism” mindset affect how landscape is perceived. After the Netherlands transformed, a hybrid landscape occurred that was characterized as imperial/modern and anti colonial. Mitchell even states that “landscape is seen as a “dreamwork” of imperialism.” When there is a historical change or a significant shift in culture, there will be new developments for the articulation of landscape. Landscape is a form of art and the way it is depicted changes in the same way that art changes over history. The same way that the change to the romanticist period occurred as a reaction to the industrial revolution, which was a period of modernization. “Imperialism is an expansion of landscape understood as inevitable progressive development in history, an expansion of culture and civilization into natural space in a progress that itself is narrated as natural.” The natural progress described is modernization.
Landscape and Spacetime
When Daniels said “Every form of existence has its source in some peculiar way of seeing, some intellectual formulation and intuition of meaning.” I thought of spacetime and the field of flows. There have been many different ways of interpretations of landscape throughout history. Clifford Gertz, for example, said culture is a ‘text’ and ‘diagnosis’ that can tell us about the values and cultures of a society. Every interpretation comes from the field of flows, they use past experiences and knowledge to make a unique understanding of landscape. These unique interpretations help us learn more and can create new ways of thinking about a topic. However, Daniels also explains that today there are less of these interpretations going on because in many situations we are being told how we should interpret something. “…every object converted to an image with a specific label or signature. “(6) This way of thinking is becoming increasingly prominent in todays society similar to Daniel’s description of late 20th century art no longer being a unified/organic area but a “grab-bag of random raw materials and impulses.”(5) As cultures and societies advance, there seems to be more definite ways of thinking than individual interpretations using past experiences and knowledge.
Maps – Fact or Opinion?
Harley talks about how maps should not be accepted as true and how”scientific maps are a product of… norms and values of the order of social tradition.” Although I believe this is true in some sense (borders and boundaries, although set with set physical boundaries such as mountain ranges, or rivers, are man made and have a cultural history behind them), but I think it is hard to argue that maps using satellite images of the world and land are not true. Because I am enrolled in GIS this semester, I know there are many ways to portray maps and that flat maps are hardly ever perfectly accurate/proportional, but the advancement of technology has allowed maps to be more accurate than they ever have been before. I believe maps are accepted as true for this reason, which is the reason I was surprised when Harley stated that this acceptance “… has led to a tendency to look down on maps of the past, (and) regard maps of early cultures as inferior to European maps.” In my opinion, other maps that didn’t have access to the technology that we have today wont be as accurate. While reading this article, I found myself thinking back to google maps and how there are street view options for most of the world and wondering how a map could get more accurate or be considered as “more true” than that.
The Reach and Spacetime
Goat Island to Stella was life itself. Everything that she could have ever needed was on Goat Island and saw no reason to leave. But when Stella crossed over The Reach to go to the mainland, she also crossed into a type of spacetime. The Reach caused the past memories and friendships that were created from her life on Goat Island to reappear. She saw her dead friends and husband, and was even given a hat after her’s blew off by her husband’s ghost. The Reach acted as a sort of limbo between the real world and the afterlife. The friendships and memories that Stella made on Goat island, which were thought to be gone forever, resurfaced. When Stella left Goat Island, she left her life and crossed over into a space where time and space did not matter – spacetime. The space after spacetime, or mainland is the afterlife.
Hudson and Monhegan — Space or Place?
After reading “An Eye for the Coast” by Eric Hudson and discussing relational space last class, I couldn’t help but think about Hudson and his relationship to Monhegan Island. After traveling the world, Hudson first saw Monhegan from a couple of Marshall Johnson sketches. At this point in time Monhegan was just a space for Hudson, he had not emotional attachments to it and only knew it for its landscape. When he finally visited the island, he claimed “He had never seen a greater beauty than this island” (Hudson, 5). The combination of the island having a small population and being hard to access made Monhegan a special place to him. The island very quickly became a place for Hudson, building a house on it shortly after his visit (Hudson, 5). Hudson captured the beauty in things that nobody else would have thought to capture, such as the fishermen and the fishing industry. These works eventually turned Monhegan into a relational space because of his depictions of the processes that occurred on this island. These depictions caused people to associate Monhegan with the raw beauty that Hudson had captured, even after his death. He changed the ‘field of flows’ on Monhegan forever – exposing its unique beauty in ways never seen before. Although Monhegan has changed significantly since Hudson’s death, he still affects the thoughts and ideas that are associated with the island today. It was interesting to me to see the development of Monhegan as a space in Hudson’s life in “An Eye for the Coast” after discussing the different kinds of spaces/places in our last class.