#clipper at sea

[ltwilliammowett]

Untitled, by Marek Rużyk 2021

[letmeinimafairy]

Giving me a bag of sea pottery and glass was a bad idea. I'm OBSESSED. So here's a tea clipper on a teacup shard, will make it in a necklace. Now I'm thinking of stories in fragments, tales about ships on sea-rounded porcelain and glass

[daguerreotyping]

Carte de visite of a French navy officer sporting meticulously manicured muttonchops, c. 1870

[dronescapesvideos]

Boeing 314A 'Pacific Clipper', famous for having completed an unplanned nearly around-the-world flight in December 1941 and January 1942 as the California Clipper.

[nocternalrandomness]

Boeing B-314 over the San Francisco Bay, California, 1939

[clove-pinks]

Clipper Ships, New York Harbor (detail), by Thomas Birch c. 1830.

[20kmemesunderthesea]

💐Cute Date Ideas💐

Fighting a kraken.

Spelunking, discovering either a hidden biome or an underground city.

Exploring the ruins of Atlantis by the light of an underwater volcano.

Deciphering ancient runes.

Betting your life savings that you can circumnavigate the globe within a limited amount of time.

Scouring the globe for clues to the whereabouts of missing persons.

✨Revolution✨

Using a questionable mode of transportation to cross a large continent with limited supplies.

Getting kidnapped by airship pirates.

[aquatic-dusk]

i just attended a talk on europa’s ice shell dynamics and lemme tell you rn i am genuinely freaking out over how cool this shit is it need to be sedated

[wasp-jar]

I love you small table that I use as a night stand that I got for the pretty design and from the side of the rode and walked it home like 10 blocks but you can't see the pretty design because like all flat surfaces it became a dump ground for more than I planned it to have <3

[cookieater2009]

From a Facebook art challenge group done with alcohol markers and fineliner pens

[ltwilliammowett]

Dreimaster auf hoher See, by Alfred Jensen, 1929

[letmeinimafairy]

A porthole view on a teacup's bottom. Tea clipper on sea pottery, it will be a pendant for a driftwood and sea glass necklace

[faedatayartworks]

Something quite different, something completely out of my comfort zone, something unknown, something bizarrely connected to future projects. The sea kinda scares me, when I think of ancestors on boats such as these I can't even fathom how they coped with the uncertainty, fear, cramped accommodation, seemingly endless expanse of ocean. I get really seasick on short trips, I can handle sitting in kayaks or small boats on the sea but once I need to stand up it all goes Pete Tong from there. LoL! Anyone know any cure for seasickness? I wish I could manage some boat trips as I do love the sea air and marine creatures. #clipper #adelaide #pyrography #woodburned #woodtattoo #clipperart #commission #boat #boats #sea #seascape #marinemagic https://www.instagram.com/p/CjqNbRyIzeo/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[suguwu]

this is messy but—

flower shop au with dabi where he still has his scars but they're from when he tried to burn his father's office down and got caught in the flames. now he's released from prison but is having a hard time finding a job but takes refuge sometimes in this little flower shop around the corner from his rehabilitation center. the mist in the air feels good on his scars and cools him off and the scent of earth is grounding. brings him back into his own skin. he lingers but never buys anything but you—the owner—never seems to chase him out.

you smile at him and bob your head in greeting before returning back to the bouquet you're making. it's like you trust him. maybe you do.

one day, he's running a finger over a leaf of a flower, one that blushes like the dawn, sweet, soft pink. he's afraid to touch a silken petal; thinks it will rot beneath his clumsy fingers, considering the way it ripples like a wave in the barest breeze.

"ranunculus."

he glances over his shoulder at you. "bless you."

you laugh.

"the flower," you explain. "it's called a ranunculus."

"oh."

"here," you say, picking one out of the bucket it's tucked into. the water sloshes; it gleams on the long, thick stem of the flower. "hold that for a second."

he blinks as you shove the flower into his hands. then you're plucking more flowers from nearby buckets, your hands moving like fluttering little birds. you gather more and more, until he can barely see you behind the greenery and the blooms. he recognizes some: proud, leggy irises; fluffy ball peonies, as white as driven snow; crimson tulips so dark they're almost black.

"c'mon," you say, heading towards your worktable. he follows, feeling a little ridiculous carrying a single bloom versus your meadow-like armful. you lay your wares out on the table and beckon him closer. he holds out the ranunculus. you flick off the end of the stem with your knife. he hovers, unsure.

"well?" you say. "are you gonna sit?"

he eyes you. you meet his gaze steadily, a hint of a smile pulling at your lips.

"feel bad for me?" he sneers. "that why you're being so nice?"

you hum.

"is putting you to work nice?" you ask, already on to the next flower. he watches the way you hold the knife, how it shines silver in the sunlight, how easily it slides through the thick stem. those hands of yours move with careful surety. he wonders if you do origami; he could see you creasing a thick piece of ornamental paper perfectly.

"i wouldn't call this work."

"no? then you shouldn't mind doing it."

he shoves his hands into his pockets. the misters turn on over the flower buckets; some of the spray settles against his skin, as if he's by the sea.

"fine," he says. "show me."

at the end of the day, you insist on paying him, despite the fact that he's cut a few of the stems too short—one of your bouquets is a little lopsided, but you have it displayed with all the others—and ruined a few blooms. there are petals stuck to his fingertips.

he goes home smelling of wet loam and your faint perfume. rei blinks her big doe eyes at his sudden appearance at the family dinner table, but she makes space for him all the same.

he goes back to your shop the next day. you smile at him, soft and pretty and a little bit sharp with knowing, and he ducks further into his hoodie so you can't see his scars.

"show me more," he tells you.

you tilt your head.

"alright," you say. "let's go."

and just like that, he has a job.

he makes it three weeks before he thinks about kissing you.

it's your hands, he thinks. they're careful and quick and fearless, despite getting pierced by thorns and clippers alike. you touch everything with a certain type of care.

including him.

he never had a chance against you. he thinks about your hands, about your lips, about the way you're so careful with him. not like he's breakable. he'd have left if you touched him like that.

no, you touch him the same way you touch your flowers: like he means something.

it's too much.

he stops going to your shop.

but he watches you, sometimes. you move like a dream, floating between the aisles, petals caught on your fingertips. you laugh with your customers; you chat with them as you roll their bouquets up tight in paper, tied off with a perfect bow. you smile at a man, as bright as the sun, and his hands tighten into fists. it pulls the scars tight enough to hurt, but he doesn't care.

he barges into the shop, shouldering the man aside as he tries to exit. ignores the disgruntled call from behind him. by the time he makes it to the register, you're watching him coolly.

he realizes he doesn't know what to say.

you reach out. he lets you slide that careful hand into the hood of his hoodie; lets you cup his cheek. your eyes don't widen at the rough texture of his scars against your skin. you simply smile at him.

"welcome back," you say, and he realizes he doesn't need to say anything at all.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Ada Limón is Poet Laureate of the United States. This poem is to be engraved in Nasa’s spacecraft the Europa Clipper Ship to be launched in October to study Jupiter’s moon.

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.

Arching under the night sky inky with black expansiveness, we point to the planets we know, we pin quick wishes on stars. From earth, we read the sky as if it is an unerring book of the universe, expert and evident. Still, there are mysteries below our sky: the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree. We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow. And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of water, each drop of rain, each rivulet, each pulse, each vein. O second moon, we, too, are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas. We, too, are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, of a need to call out through the dark.

[clove-pinks]

Pride of Baltimore II, photographed by Norbert Stager.