After 44 days at sea Pete arrived, on his boat the ‘Molly B’, at the Aran Islands.
From there he rang his Dad (from a telephone box) who rushed over from Dublin to see him and buy him a decent meal. This was welcomed as Pete’s food perished quickly onboard during his voyage and he relied primarily on onions, oranges and and the old Irish reliable potatoes for nutrition. It is these small personal details, as well as his expansive nautical knowledge which help the reader to visualise Pete Hogan’s seafaring adventures in his book ‘The Log of the Molly B’. This intriguing travelogue was written and illustrated by the Sandymount based artist and author and published by Liffey Press.He financed his sailing exploits by painting boat portraits for other sailors and crafting marine paintings to sell to the maritime community. Pete started his art career at the Trinity Drawing Workshop on Westland Row, continued his artist studies at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada where he concentrated his practice on wooden sculptures.
Pete has a love of boats which he inherited from his father, a keen sailor in Dublin. He built a Tahitian Ketch, a 30 foot long boat and named her the ‘Molly B’, influenced by his Dublin roots and after Joyce’s Molly Bloom from ‘Ulysses’, the adulterous wife of Leopold Bloom. He sailed her from Canada down the Pacific Ocean and passed to the Atlantic Ocean via the Panama Canal, all with the aid of a compass, some maps and a sextant. From there he continued on in the engineless ‘Molly B’ across the Atlantic to Ireland.
For about the next ten years, between trips, Pete docked the ‘Molly B’ either on the River Liffey or in the Grand Canal Dock area where a flourishing maritime community existed. While there, Pete upgraded the ‘Molly B’ with electrical equipment such as a GPS system and planned his next trip – this time around the world. After his global expedition, it was the singsongs in the pubs of Ringsend that inspired Pete’s next voyage. The lines “I’d like to get you on a slow boat to China all for my very own alone” led to his plans for a trip there, but with an unforeseen ending to the venture.
Nowadays Pete concentrates on Dublin scenes in his artwork. He used to paint, but now predominantly draws. Images are created in his studio, on the Strand Road in Sandymount with its exceptional views across Dublin Bay. The public are invited to his studio for open days, so keep an eye on his website for upcoming dates. Many of his works are commissioned, but he also sells his artwork in Merrion Square at the Open Air Art Gallery, which is on every weekend, both Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 6.30pm. Pete’s paintings and illustrations are on display in homes and boats all around the globe, not just in Dublin.
Pete Hogan http://www.phogan.com/
Merrion Square Open Air Art Gallery http://www.merrionsquareart.com/
by Tracy O’Brien
