William Pettit | the sea between
Jane Deering Gallery 4-6pm July 10, 2025
From the gallery:
“This is an exhibit about the sea.
The horizon is the destination.
Where the sea and the sky meet, there is no reference to land.
Hope and longing are between here and there.
A storm might be approaching or subsiding, it’s not clear in the stillness.
There are questions of geomorphology, but distance is measured in the heart, not in miles.
These are paintings about painting.
They are an homage to Fitz Henry Lane, whose stillness of brush reflecting safe harbor contrasts and balances the perils of voyage and of distance.
They are an homage to Captain Harvey MacKay, whose home was the Jane Deering Gallery at 19 Pleasant Street in 1842. His ship “Boston” was struck by lightning and lost on May, 26, 1830.
They are an homage to poet Charles Olson, who saw Gloucester in mythical terms and in actual terms, a place made up of people.
In his poetry of space, Gloucester moves Outward—to the sea.
These paintings speak of the sea as a distance measured in the heart, not in miles.
They work in the space between geology and poetry, a mythical expanse of loss and hope. They are about moving forward and about what is left behind.
In the eternal space between here and there, there is the finite stillness of the present, measured by the heart. Solitude is the intimate and immediate present of being here, in a brushstroke or a drip, among the winds and the currents.
- William Albert Pettit
About the Artist
William Albert Pettit III is a Professor of Studio Art at Temple University Rome and at Iowa State Rome Program, Italy. He specializes in historical materials and techniques related to Italian art. He currently teaches Fresco Painting, Medieval Materials, and Darkroom Photography. He is a painter and published poet and works with photography, sculpture, music, video, and installation. His recent shows at NBWM and at The Vincent House, MVY, are about working with museum collections and records to revalorize and reinhabit stories of our past. Pettit has exhibited extensively in the United States and Italy. He is the 2024-2025 recipient of the Dean’s Research Grant and 2019 recipient of the OVPR Arts and Humanities Grant from Temple University Rome. His research on pigments has been supported by residences and shared at conferences. The artist lives in Tarano, Italy, where he maintains a small vineyard, olive grove, and garden.
This exhibition was supported by a Temple University Rome Dean’s Research Grant.
UPCOMING AT JANE DEERING GALLERY
DOWNTOWN AND ANNISQUAM SUMMER 2025
Good Morning Gloucester 