BOOTHBAY HARBOR – The season, the time of the day, sometimes just the weather will dictate which job Jen Casad will do today.

Casad, 33, lives in Boothbay and supports herself with her drawing and with her clamming. She’s a talented artist and a darn fine fisherman.

Lately, she’s also become a bit of a movie star. Casad is enjoying celebrity as the subject of the film “Double Tide” by artist Sharon Lockhart. The movie involves two real-time segments of Casad digging clams at Seal Cove in South Bristol. The only dialogue is Casad’s grunting as she wrests stubborn clams from the mud. The action is her labor, which is substantial. She drags her gear across the flats, and slogs knee-deep through the gurgling, sucking muck.

Lockhart, a Los Angeles-based artist with New England roots, shot one segment at sunrise, the other at sunset on the same day — an occurrence that fishermen call a double tide, because it allows them to hit the exposed flats twice in one day.

The film is getting screenings in theaters across the country, showing largely at museums that feature art films. And make no mistake, “Double Tide” is a piece of art. As much as anything, it is a study in light with the sounds of birds, lobster boats in the distance, the clammer walking in the mud.

It is a nature film, without dialogue or plot; nothing but time elapsing, and a lone figure plodding through the mud. Imagine you are a bird sitting on a rock, studying the scene. That is “Double Tide.”

The New York Times said of the movie, “Divided almost equally into two stunning, stationary shots of a woman yanking clams from a peaceful Maine beach, this 99-minute moving meditation is guaranteed to lower your blood pressure and recalibrate your mind.”

The first week of December, about two dozen of us recalibrated our minds together as we settled into our seats at the Harbor Theatre. Most of us lasted the duration. The only person who walked out was Casad’s mom, which we all found amusing.

Casad has been clamming for a decade. She makes decent money, and enjoys the labor and the camaraderie.

She’s been drawing as long as she can remember, and she’s very good. I first saw Casad’s drawings this summer at “Lunch Break,” an installation of Lockhart’s at the Colby College Museum of Art. Although it focused on the workers at Bath Iron Works, “Lunch Break” offered an overview of labor in Maine, and Lockhart included a few small drawings by Casad.

At first, I assumed the little graphite drawings were old photographs. They were rich in detail, and looked dated. But on closer examination, I realized they were the creation of the deft hand of Casad.

“My grandmother, my biological father, my younger brother, and my sisters are or were artists. Drawing has just been something I have always done,” she says.

KEEPING IT LOCAL

She favors local fishing docks as her subjects, and her view is historic. She sometimes paints from old photos of the docks down in South Bristol.

“There is something so beautiful about the old clothing and boats and that way of life. In these old-time drawings, I can still hear the same voices that I hear on the docks today, the same complaints about the weather, or the price on lobsters, or the outrageous price of bait,” she says. “To me, these aren’t just pretty places or a bunch of fisherman. This is part of my life.”

Casad has shown her drawings here and there in Maine, and she would like to show more. Certainly, she possesses the talent to justify a serious exhibition of her work. She also has her sights set on New York.

But Casad has no intention of trading her life on the flats for a life in the studio. She appreciates her double life, clamming when she can and drawing at other times.

“I would like to be able to continue focusing on my art during the winter months and fish during the summers. I’m on the waiting list for my lobster license. It has been a long wait and it probably will be a few more years ’til I get it,” she says.

“I think that the fishing and the art really feed off of each other. I hope that I can continue being a part-time artist and fisherman, and maybe someday my art work will eventually contribute equally to my income. But I don’t know if really I could do just one or the other. I try to dig hard enough and make enough money so that I don’t have to go clamming in the winter. Then I can focus on my art during the cold months. Sometimes this works out and sometimes it doesn’t. I go a little stir crazy sitting around all day pushing pencils, so I still go out on the flats to breathe some fresh air and get some exercise. In winter the clam price is usually half of what it is in the summer, but it still makes me feel good to get out there and work hard.”

Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at:

bkeyes@pressherald.com

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