I have been infatuated with the subject of The New Bedford Arctic Whaling Disaster of 1871 for well over 50 years. It all began when I saw lithographs of the event at the Charles S. Ashley Insurance office in my then-hometown of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

I returned to this subject shortly after returning to the socially conscious expressionism inspired by the Charity Ann: Gone! series after a long period of time as an abstract expressionist. The disaster involved a fleet of 33 American whaling ships.

This body of work focuses on the implications of surviving life-threatening calamities of fire and ice. A sudden change in the weather ice-locked the ships, twenty-two of which hailed from the Port of New Bedford, crushing them. Many more were abandoned, sunk, and burned by the Inuit people. 

Three of these paintings, NBAWD 1871 – STUDY 1, NBAWD 1871 – STUDY 2, and NBAWD 1871 – STUDY 3, were acquired by the New Bedford Whaling Museum for its collection.