Disaster at Five Finger

While getting my second covid shot, a member of Alaska's Five Finger Lighthouse Society asked me to create a piece of artwork to be auctioned off in an online auction.  The auction will fund needed maintenance projects at the lighthouse.  What could I say?  No, I was not the only artist they asked.  I had just missed seeing two previous email requests sent to a number of artists.

Possible subjects swirreled around in my brain until I settled on the idea of another gnome painting figuring it would be something different from what other artists would produce.  Of course it needed a story to go with it.  As I painted my idea expanded and my level of fun in creating the piece and story increased. 

             Disaster at Five Finger    12 x 16 inches     Alkyd on canvas

                                      Excerpt from Whackopedia

During the early years, a colony of seafaring gnomes inhabited the site of the later years Five Finger Lighthouse.  Technologically advanced, they invented a powerful light consisting of a candle flame magnified with the lenses of the eyes of five giant squid and one bald eagle.  For thousands of years, they argued they didn't need sophisticated technology, that their manual "lighthouse" used the best available science. 

Thus, generations of "keepers of the "light" positioned themselves on a rock outcropping to warn passing ships of the danger posed by the islands -- until that fateful night.  Ole, the current keeper of the light, had an addiction.  Sadly, the demon, lutefisk, wrapped him firmly within its clutches.  It also kept resident gnomes from checking on how well he performed his duties.  They only connected the heavy scent of lutefisk on his breath and clothes with the same scent along the shoreline surrounding the "lighthouse" and the pile of noseeums laying on the ground gasping for breath each morning.

That night, after succumbing more than usual to his addiction, Ole snoozed during his shift.  Some say he passed out as did the first rescuers who inhaled the lutefisk fumes upon discovering the disaster.  Either way, a grizzly scene greeted the remaining rescuers left standing.

A passing gnome transport vessel, the captain lounging in the galley refilling her plate with, you almost guessed it, leftse, failed to notice a large land mass looming dead ahead.  Ole, unable to perform his duties, did not signal the ship with the light, nor with his back-up warning method, a stern three blows from his nose followed by a trebled burp.

Fortunately all aboard survived the ensuing shipwreck, but responsible area residents decided time for a more reliable solution had come.  There would be no more drama of this sort.

And thus, Ole had to file for temporary unemployment compensation as the colony moved to a quieter, still undisclosed location while construction of the first iteration of the present day structure began.  Some say they moved east.  Others, west.  Still others, north and small contingent, even further north.  However, on foggy nights a tiny speck of light on a neighboring island suggests they are still present warning passing vessels of dangers hidden in the gloom.  However, now as backup, the odor of lutefisk in the air alerts ship captains to the dangers that lie nautical miles ahead.