creek boats 2006 Big is Beautiful


Intro by Ian MerrInger photos by scott Macgregor


By the time Flemish Renaissance painter Peter Paul Rubens died in 1640 he was the most renowned artist on the northern European scene and had made a name for himself as a fun guy to have around a royal court. His portrait models boasted


wide hips, plump cheeks, full lips, and a generally healthy profile of round curves and significant size. It’s from his body of work we get the term Rubenesque. We’ll let the art historians slug


it out with the fashion indus- try as to whether this shape is more attractive than that shared by the army of waifs marching down today’s runways of high fashion. All we know is Rubens would have made a killer creek boat designer. The physical attributes of gener-


ous volume and soft curves are as beautiful on a surging, rock-filled, steep creek in flood as they are on Rubens’ cracking canvasses. Our curators collected seven


modern creeking masterpieces. Like Rubens’ models, some boats are shorter, some are wider; some have sharper features and others are more bulbous. Here’s what the critics thought.


38


RAPID


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52