Columbia River Bar Pilots risk their lives ensuring that ships enter and depart the channel safely. Their sturdy boats maneuver themselves alongside freighters and tankers, log and container ships, where the bar pilots clamber up a wood and rope ladder to safely navigate the ships into or out from inland ports. This is one of the most dangerous harbor entrances and the bar pilots do their job extremely well.
As I was putting this piece together, I liked the feeling of the sea that my texture photos and a photo of a tire tread created. I added some hand-painted elements that made me think of the rustic ladders these bar pilots climb, and how the pilot may fall and be swept away (as happened in 2006), perhaps to climb another ladder safely to the sky. ©Carol Leigh
