The Last Fish

My illustration of “The Last Fish” is inspired by the movie “Polis Is This” by Henry Ferrini. “The Last Fish” has been made with considerable thought but it started with what Ferrini showed in his movie. The fishing industry in Gloucester, Massachusetts is being threatened by the local development in modernizing Gloucester, and the old traditions are fading away to be replaced with ordinary ones which only adds to Gloucester’s troubles as reported by Henry Ferrini and sources.

Gloucester, Massachusetts is a town based on its fishing industry but as technology improves it worsens the conditions of towns with its own identity. The invention of the automobile has allowed “people to spread out.” During Mr. Ferrini’s appearance he said this to explain how town’s are “progressing” but really they are going backwards. As technology has improved it allowed people to live further away from the big cities to a more quitter and suburban neighborhood. His town, Gloucester, is being destroyed by the construction of a “mall” and the easy accessible “highway” that are dropping off strangers to his small little fishermen’s town. The effect of this highway dumping allows people to visit Gloucester, and this in return gives the town an opportunity to make money from those visitors.

A town is a town but not those with something that set them apart which make’s them special. “Gloucester is a state of mind,” it is created by the buildings, the people, the traditions and etc. Charles Olsen fought to keep commercial companies from having building projects that would threaten his image of Gloucester. This town was special to him and it made him even more frustrated when a building is tore down from his memory. “All people have a sense of their childhood, it’s special to them.” It is childhood that shapes a person to who they are, and Olsen found something special in this town of his. The town has a special mass dedicated to mourning the sailors lost at sea. When the fishing industry ceases to exist the people of that town will forget about those hundreds of lost sailors and the mass that is held will no longer be there to morn for those sailors. The “Gloucester state of mind,” is starting to fade away and the old traditions will be lost to modernization if the people of Gloucester don’t realize this threat soon before everything is lost.

In the illustration “The Last Fish” represent the struggle of Gloucester. The hands are open holding a fish gasping for breath. The openness of the hands represents the openness of the town’s willingness to allow change. This change includes the mall, as mentioned before, that’s being built in this town, which the people are hoping will bring in the money. However the hands are holding on to its old ways as well. The fish in the hand is the representation of what the town is most famous for its fishing. As the fish is fighting for another gasp of air it’s bleeding out internally. The blood that is spilling out onto the hand shows how draining it is for the fish to keep on living. People, “move in the now, we don’t think of what came before us.” The old ways are slowly being replaced and its killing Gloucester’s individuality that sets it apart from all the other towns around it. The young people of that town don’t know how it was before and so they carry no concern of how it’ll end up. It is the people of before that remember what was but it’s replaced with malls and houses that have no significant to add to the rich history Gloucester has to offer.

In conclusion “The Last Fish” is drawn with considerable though that has been floating in my mind during the research into the town of Gloucester. The research and the movie has led my mind to draw what I feel is what’s happening to towns such as Gloucester and other small towns that are being threatened with the common threat of modernization.