The Art Colony

In this episode of the Art Colony podcast, we talk about the art school that started it all, the one that put the Provincetown Art Colony on the map. Host Gaston Lacombe welcomes Rob Longley, artist, instructor, and board member of the Cape School of Art. Together they discuss the history and impact of the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, founded by Charles Hawthorne in 1899, and its successor, the Cape School of Art, headed by Henry Hensche. Rob Longley shares his Provincetown story, starting in 1971, when he began working under the tutelage of Henry Hensche, the legendary art instructor and former assistant to Hawthorne. Longley reflects on the evolution of the oldest art school in Provincetown, the distinction between the Cape Cod School of Art and the Cape School of Art, and the artistic legacy of Henry Hensche, particularly his unique focus on light and color. The conversation also introduces some of the characters who punctuated the school's history, its evolution and re-invention over the last century, and the school's future plans. This episode is an in-depth look at Provincetown's vibrant art community and the ongoing efforts to preserve the artistic techniques and heritage of Hawthorne and Hensche.

Creators and Guests

Host
Gaston Lacombe
Gaston LaCombe is a Canadian-American artist, historian, and the owner of Studio Lacombe in Provincetown, MA. With a background in photojournalism and a deep love for bold, expressive fine art, Gaston’s work has been exhibited on six continents—including at the Smithsonian Institution and the Provincetown Art Museum. He brings his passion for history, storytelling, and creative community to The Art Colony podcast, where he explores the people, past, and present of America’s oldest art colony.

What is The Art Colony?

From its roots in the 1800s to its thriving present, Provincetown has always been a magnet for artists. The Art Colony podcast, hosted by Gaston Lacombe, uncovers the people, places, and stories that make this seaside village one of the world’s most enduring creative communities.

Gaston:

Welcome to The Art Colony, a podcast about art and art history in Provincetown. My name is Gaston Lacombe. Every story has a starting point. And when we talk or write about the beginning of the art colony in Provincetown, the first sentence is always, in 1899, Charles Hawthorne founded the first art school in Provincetown, the Cape Cod School of Art. There seems to be no dispute about this fact.

Gaston:

So today, we will talk about the school of art that started it all. And this is an institute that is still very much alive, active, thriving, and is still writing the history of art here in Provincetown, a century and a quarter after its founding. And to do this, I have with me today Rob Longley, an artist, instructor, and board member of the Cape School of Art. So welcome, Rob.

Rob:

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to have you here.

Gaston:

So let's start by having you tell us who is Rob Longley.

Rob:

I started painting in seriously, in 1968 with two students of Henry Henchy's. They had an art school in Upstate New York, and I started as a high school student, but it was my first real serious series of art classes. I continued after that, went on, studied fine art in college. And at a certain point early in my studies, with the two students of Henry's, they said to me, you know, it's time for you to go to Provincetown. It's time for you to study with the master.

Rob:

So I did that, graduated from college, just started painting seriously from that point on, and I'm still at it. Before we proceed any further

Gaston:

Mhmm. I need to clarify something. Sure. We hear Cape Cod School Of Art and Cape School of Art.

Rob:

Yes.

Gaston:

Which one is the correct terminology?

Rob:

Hawthorne School was the Cape Cod School of Art. K. When Henry started his school, he called it the Cape School to differentiate it from Hawthorne School. And then when Hilda and I and the other people restarted the the school, we decided that it would be better to call it the Cape Cod School of Art rather than the Cape School Okay. Or the Cape School of Art.

Rob:

And, it was just to we didn't want the confusion of is this actually something that Henry himself sanctioned as a continuation of the school. We wanted to make sure that even though it was dedicated to his teachings, it was not the actual exact same as the former school. Justice Henry didn't want to have it be Hawthorne's school. It was his own school.

Gaston:

So even if there's been a continuation since 1899 Mhmm. There's been some reinventions.

Rob:

Yes. When Hawthorne died in 1930, he did not appoint a successor. Henry was an assistant in Hawthorne's class. But for three years after Hawthorne died, there was no school that I know of that was continuing Hawthorne's teachings. So Henry started his own school, calling it the Cape School in 1933.

Rob:

Now the story goes that one reason why Henry was not anointed as the, heir to Hawthorne's school was that missus Hawthorne didn't like Henry. Okay. And so she wouldn't allow him to take it on as a direct successor. But Henry's was pretty strong willed about things, and he just went ahead and said, okay. Well, I'm gonna be the Cape School then.

Gaston:

Okay. We have been hearing the name Henry Henchy a lot. Mhmm. And I have to admit that as someone who I just discovered Provincetown about a decade ago.

Rob:

Uh-huh.

Gaston:

It's not a name that's familiar to me that I can just throw out in conversation. Mhmm. So I will need more of a background. I've been learning a lot more, but I I need to know more about Henry Henchy. He comes up a lot.

Gaston:

He seems to be a very important figure in art here in Provincetown. So let's talk about Henry Henchy. And

Rob:

I just to start, I would consider Henry to be, in some ways, more important than Hawthorne. Okay. But that's my personal take and revering Henry as I did. I it's probably not surprising. But Henry was born in Germany.

Rob:

The year that he was born is a little bit in dispute because he may have wanted to lie about his age when the draft was going on in World War one. But he went to the Art Institute of Chicago and was studying painting there. And some of Hawthorne's students were students at the Art Institute, came back to Chicago and said, this is what we're doing with this guy, Charles Hawthorne. And Henry got excited about it. The story that I've heard is that he borrowed $300, made his way to Provincetown, and basically did not leave.

Rob:

He did go and study in New York at times. He wasn't here year round all the time, but he dedicated himself to Hawthorne's teachings and eventually became one of Hawthorne's assistants and monitors. From there, when Hawthorne died, Henry continued painting in Provincetown and really took Hawthorne's teachings, expanded on them, developed them, and brought into being a program of studying painting, especially and this is important. It's just not painting. It's studying the effects of light and color.

Rob:

And, ultimately, how do you express color relationships, light, and atmosphere with paint? And that's really the the most succinct way of putting what Henry was teaching. But he continued to paint, painted beautifully, and went on, again, in my opinion, well beyond what Hawthorne had taught and developed a method of teaching, seeing, and teaching color that I think is really unique. And he was around for a very long time. Yeah.

Rob:

Yeah. He, well, he was born in 1899 or 1900. And when I first studied with him in 1971, he was in his early seventies. He was continuing to paint all through his seventies and painting really strongly. He developed some cataracts.

Rob:

He had some problems with that later on and some of the just general infirmities of age, but he was painting very well almost up until when he died. So you

Gaston:

would say that today, the Cape School of Art that exists is very much a legacy of his teachings and his views on how to represent light atmosphere color.

Rob:

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And, when I have taught, that's really what I've tried to emphasize is I'm not teaching you how to make a painting of a landscape or a still life. I'm not teaching you anything particularly about even the aesthetics of a painting that you might wanna create.

Rob:

I am trying to focus on here is the way to see and understand color relationships so that you can use paint to create effects of light and atmosphere.

Gaston:

So how was he as a teacher? What was the experience like being with Henry Henchy in a teaching environment?

Rob:

Intense. Intense. Henry was not one to be gentle with his students. Many times would say, well, you're ignorant. You're this, that, and the other thing.

Rob:

I saw more people literally running out of his last studio in tears. There were some people who really couldn't stand the way that he taught and left, which was too bad. But he he wanted everybody to have the clear understanding of what he was trying to impart. So he often would spend long periods of time dissecting paintings as far as the color relationships and saying, here's what you have to do here. Here's what you have to do there.

Rob:

And it could be, an almost devastating experience. For myself, I was kind of a cocky young guy, and I had come from this other art school. And I thought, well, I pretty much know as much as I know, and I'm go gonna go in there and show everybody what I know. And on the first day of class, I just got knocked down and realized, boy, you don't know nothing. Okay.

Rob:

And, and and many people went through that same experience. But the people who stuck it out, and it took something physically to stick it out, really accomplished something. And I say that because the studio the class studio on Pearl Street, by the time that I got there, was mostly a big sandbox behind the barn. And people would go out and stand in the sandbox, set up in the full sunlight, and work on painting studies, mostly block studies for hours and hours at a time. And it could be an experience where you would really crave water and shade by the end of the day and be exhausted.

Rob:

But, no, you had also learned something important. The other day, I was on Pearl Street. Uh-huh. And as I've

Gaston:

been learning all this new stuff about Provincetown art history, I guess I'm more I'm paying more attention to what I'm seeing. And I met a friend on Pearl Street, and we started talking, and I noticed behind him a house with a blue circle on it. It said Henshi Barn. Right. Look at that.

Gaston:

I had to stop right here. So that's the place you're

Rob:

talking about. That is the place that I'm talking about. So do you

Gaston:

remember the number? It

Rob:

was 48 Pearl Street

Gaston:

48.

Rob:

When I was there. I think they

Gaston:

Right on the curb at the end of Pearl Street.

Rob:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can walk straight up Pearl Street and see it. And there is a another barn attached to the left and with a very small house that actually used to be a barbershop down on Commercial Street.

Rob:

And when I was there, that was Robert Douglas Hunter's studio. And Hunter studied with Henry for a while, and so Henry u allowed him to use the studio. But the what I called 48 Pearl Street, which is now a different number, was the class studio. And it had been Hawthorne's studio as well. And Henry used to tell me stories about getting down on his knees and having to scrub the floor until it was

Gaston:

absolutely polished. But there was the Hawthorne Barn on Miller Hill Yeah. But he had a different location?

Rob:

That's my understanding. Okay. At least from Henry. I am a little bit hazy on why he also had the the studio barn on Hawthorne Hill because it is a much more spacious and beautiful studio. But it's possible that he had the Pearl Street studio for a while and then built the the barn on on Miller Hill.

Rob:

Because I don't know exactly.

Gaston:

Marker on the house on Pearl Street also mentions Charles Hawthorne. Mhmm. Yeah. But he was there at some point. Yeah.

Gaston:

Now, Enchi was here between well, he was in charge of the school between the nineteen thirties and the nineteen eighties. So he was here right in the center of the twentieth century when all this modernism was coming out. Yeah. And we had this almost a conflict in Provincetown between the traditionalist and the modern Yeah. Creators coming in.

Gaston:

So what was his role in all of this? How did he approach all of that?

Rob:

Well, that was complicated.

Gaston:

Mhmm.

Rob:

Henry was a traditionalist in many ways. But as he developed, his paintings took on a look that some could consider modernist. It wasn't the necessarily dark portraits with highly modeled figures. The it was getting away from what Charles Hawthorne had done, for instance, and certain of the other more figurative painters, the the, you know, the the Frederick Wise, for instance. And so Henry, because of his color and his application of color, actually did show with the modernist.

Rob:

Oh, really? When they had that split. Mhmm. Knowing Henry, it probably drove him nuts. Okay.

Rob:

But he could be seen in that light because of the way that he often applied color. And starting out a painting, for instance, he would apply very large masses of very flat colors so he could study the color relationships. And that would sometimes carry over into the painting, into his finished paintings. I sort of think that it's difficult to place him. He certainly wasn't in the modernist tradition like some a teacher like Hans Hoffman Mhmm.

Rob:

For instance. And he didn't like Hoffman. He didn't like Hoffman's students. It was fraught a relationship, especially having them all around at the same time. Certainly, some of them actually studied with both Henry and Hoffman and took, in certain cases, the best from both of them, I'd say.

Rob:

Phil Malikowt studied with both Henry Hoff Hawthorne, and I'm pretty sure Hoffman

Gaston:

Mhmm.

Rob:

And others like that.

Gaston:

Many iterations of the Cape School of Art from 1899 to now. What's the secret to this longevity of this institution that's been going on for so long? And a lot of other teachers have come and gone, and these institutions have opened and closed, but you're still going.

Rob:

What's the secret to this longevity? It works. It works. There is something very special about the way that students of Henry's, and I'm hoping students of Henry's students like myself, like Hilda Neely, like, Glenna, for instance. Glenna Hartwell.

Rob:

Glenna Hartwell. I'm sorry. If you look at their color and their handling of color, you can see that they are using color and light in a very different way. It isn't based on a color theory. It's based on observation and learning how to use paints to express that observation.

Rob:

I look at other painters who good painters. I won't name any names, but their color can tend to be either formulaic or just, in my opinion, kinda dull. But Henry got people to see that every different time of day had a different color scheme, different kinds of days had different color schemes, even winter light versus summer light. There is almost an infinite amount of different kinds of light that once you see it, and it takes a lot of practice and a lot of studying to see it, you can really develop a huge variety of different light effects in in your paintings. And it's something that when people who are otherwise good painters see it, they frequently wanna say, I wanna get some of that in my own work.

Rob:

And that's what you're teaching? Yes.

Gaston:

Yeah.

Rob:

Yes. And this would be heresy as far as Henry and some some people would go. But even in other kinds of painting, in nonobjective painting, the lessons learned in Henry's classes are actually applicable. And I've known several people who are doing much more contemporary type paintings, abstract paintings, and so forth who have incorporated in their own ways the lessons that they've learned from Henry. Henry wouldn't like that.

Rob:

He Okay. But he he for all that I loved him and respected and admired him, he had a very narrow focus as far as what constituted good painting and what constant did not constitute good painting. If I remember correctly, he passed away in '84?

Gaston:

No. No. I did not remember correctly.

Rob:

It was 1990 or 1991. Oh, much later.

Gaston:

Yeah. Stopped teaching before that.

Rob:

Right? He was teaching through the eighties Okay. As much as he was able to. I think he began to really slow down around '89 or '90, but, he he was teaching as much as he could. He lived to teach.

Rob:

Okay. And it was through dedication to his cause. So I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to teach on his death deathbed, you know.

Gaston:

So at what point was there a change in leadership at the school? At what point did you take over?

Rob:

Well, I I never took over

Gaston:

I mean, as the the the group of Yeah. Students who took over from him.

Rob:

In the mid eighties, there was a situation that involved even a little bit of scandal that is a little bit too complicated and not germane to the conversation. But bottom line is that Lois Grifle took on the school in the mid eighties. And Henry at first was working with her and then there was a rift. And he she had the actual Pearl Street buildings and was conducting her classes there. And Henry was conducting classes at his home on Conwell Street.

Rob:

Lois, unfortunately, wasn't able to keep the school running, and Henry died. So for about twenty years, there was a lot of talk of, well, we should start the school again. We should start the school again. And several of us taught individual classes, private classes. I taught private classes for a number of years, and I also taught at the art association.

Rob:

But finally, in 02/2010, Hilda Neely got in touch with me and said, look, Rob, it's time we got this going again. And I will give her credit. She is was really the the force and the energy behind doing it. And I kinda went along going. But she lined up a lawyer and an accountant and a group of the rest of us.

Rob:

And from there, we started meeting regularly and saying, what are we gonna do? How are we going to do it? What's our mission? And, basically, let's get this going again. So it it took a while, but we were gradually able to gather enough teachers together and put together a good course of study and get things going.

Rob:

And it's been going since then. That's great. It is. Yeah. And what did you define as your mission?

Rob:

I would have to see it to give you the exact language, but bottom line was we exist to perpetuate the memory of Henry Henchy and his techniques of painting and seeing colors. So that would really be the nutshell there. And where is the school located nowadays? The school has two locations now. We have a studio space on Shank Painter Road with a nice north light studio that has lots of space if people people have to paint out indoors.

Rob:

And then there's a fairly big yard space where people can paint outdoors. And that's one physical location. The other is we now have a studio at Whalers Wharf on the Second Floor, and that will be used for a certain number of classes. Glenna Hartwell will be teaching some portrait classes there, and it will be exhibition space for some students. It will also have other events.

Rob:

I'm gonna be doing a series of talks through the summer on selected Tuesday nights. Just talking about what we're talking about here, giving some history, showing some slides of Henry's work, of students' work, and talking about what Henry taught us. So we have both of those locations. And then a lot of the classes, because it's plein air painting, teachers take their students out all over town, all over in the national seashore, anywhere where they can find a place to stand where they're not blocking traffic. Mhmm.

Rob:

I've I've taken students when I was teaching really just about everywhere between Wellfleet and here. And there's endless sources for painting here. It's one of the wonderful things about painting in Provincetown.

Gaston:

Absolutely. Beautiful. Yeah. And I'm very happy to see your location in Wailers Wharf. Yeah.

Gaston:

As I've mentioned, my gallery is located in Wailers Wharf. Yes. And I'm always happy to see more and more art establishing itself in the wharf. Yeah. Not another mortgage office.

Gaston:

Yeah. An actual art institution coming in and attracting more people Yeah. That will also also come to my gallery.

Rob:

Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Gaston:

I I had a funny situation a couple years ago, maybe three years ago. I saw somebody walk into the wharf, stop in front of my gallery, look around at the three floors Mhmm. And she said, oh, I think this is where the art colony is.

Rob:

Well, okay.

Gaston:

Sure. We have a lot of artists here. Let's just say that here.

Rob:

No. I I I like it in Whalers Wharf. We had a paint off a couple of weeks ago that brought people into the studio. It brought people into Whaler's Wharf, and they were out painting out and back. And that, I think, really provides a lot of energy for not only our school, but also for the town in general.

Rob:

Mhmm. I know that people love seeing people out on the streets painting. Oh, they absolutely do. And I I used to paint on the streets all the time. It was up at six in the morning, getting my paints out there, break for lunch, go back out.

Rob:

And other than people coming up to me and saying, where's the nearest bathroom? Where's Sal's place? Are you an artist? But, it it it was a lot of fun. And I met a lot of people and just being able to to show people that Provincetown is a very vital art community.

Gaston:

Yeah. Art is alive here. Yeah. And it's happening. And do you have no problems with people standing and watching you work?

Rob:

I rarely had a problem with people standing and watching me work. Some people are bothered by it more than others. I am. Yeah.

Gaston:

Very much. Yeah.

Rob:

I got used to it painting on the street, and people could come up and talk to me. And if I really needed to concentrate on something, I'd say, just give me a minute. For the most part, people were alight. I did one time hear somebody drive by. I was painting out on Route 6, and the horn was honking.

Rob:

The car drove by and the person said, hey, artist, paint this. And he was mooning me. But I sort of felt like you had to put up with that sort of thing in order to be painting outdoors. And and like I said, most people were were polite. And one of the things that I observed over the years was that a lot of people who come to Provincetown or anywhere, even though they may have a a little bit of an idea that Provincetown is an art colony, and I'm sure you have this experience, they'll say, I have never seen an artist at work before.

Rob:

Be accommodating to them. Show them that, you know, not all artists are are what a stereotypical artist is thought of. We're just regular people. Mhmm. And it says that some of us happen to have the the urge or compulsion to make some kind of imagery on canvas.

Rob:

That's No. It's absolutely true. Having a gallery, I deal with hundreds of people a day in The the

Gaston:

most common comment I get is people commenting on the fact that they did not realize how much art there was in Provincetown and how alive it is. Mhmm. And often, these are people who are very well traveled. Yeah. They say, well, I've been to Santa Fe, and I've been to Woodstock, New York, and I've been to this place and that place, but that does not compare.

Gaston:

Yeah. I have these conversations every day. And that's also one of the reasons I started this podcast is to really broadcast Yeah. Yeah. The fact that this is a very unusual place.

Gaston:

Yeah. And those of us who live here, we get used to it. We get used to having artists and galleries and art openings and art strolls every day. Yeah. Not every day, but almost.

Gaston:

And when you look at it through the eyes of the visitors Mhmm. Then you see that, yeah, we live in a very unusual and special place.

Rob:

We do. We do. Yeah. I I love it here. I I moved here full time five years ago, but I've been coming to Provincetown, like I said, summers since 1971.

Rob:

It brings me back. I my my wife has been coming here her entire life. She started coming here with her parents long enough ago, but they wouldn't even make reservations for a place to stay in town. They just show up and walk around and find a place. My older daughter lived here for years.

Rob:

She worked for the Center for Coastal Studies. My younger daughter works for the Provincetown Art Association. And so it it really becomes became something that was ingrained in the family. I will keep on coming here until well, I'm here. You are here.

Rob:

Yeah. And as long as I can climb climb the stairs up to my place, I'll stay.

Gaston:

And in discussing the, you know, the vitality of the art colony here, you've experienced it over fifty years. Have you seen some fluctuations, some changes, some things that are not the same or better or worse? The major fluctuation

Rob:

that I've seen is that there are fewer and fewer young artists who are able to live and work in town. When I first came, I camped at Coastal Lakers, which I'm sure some people can still do, and Dunes Edge. I I lived in Dunes Edge for several years. Those are the campgrounds

Gaston:

in the area. Yeah.

Rob:

When I first came, there were little sheds that maybe had a a a sink and a shower and a hot plate in them that people could live in. Oh, the the Heaton Vorce house, for instance, that now is hosting so many of that art events. That was kind of a boarding house for artists and anybody else who needed a cheap place to stay. And there were places like that all over town. There were, wives of fishermen who, made a little bit of extra income by renting out rooms during the summer.

Rob:

And those were all over town, so you could find places to to live. I had one friend who lived under the oil tank on Shank Painter Road, and it was a dry place. There were three or four other guys just pulling out their sleeping bags there every night. Wow. Eventually, the oil company caught on and put up barriers so nobody could get under there.

Rob:

And I used to walk around in the dunes right by Shank Painter Road where they're where it's all developed now. And there were little campsites in there that people could camp in, and I don't think as long as they didn't bother anybody that they weren't gonna be bothered. So that that is one of the things that I've seen that is is really too bad because having so many young artists around town really gave a a vitality. And not just to Henry's school. We we really were a fairly tight knit group and pushing each other on and doing things together.

Rob:

But you'd see the same thing around town with other people. Just, okay. I'm here to to work as an artist. I'm working in a restaurant at night or the fish factory or whatever, but I'm I'm here to work. And we and we, as a school, have difficulty with that now.

Rob:

We we have a little bit more trouble attracting younger students because how many of them can come to Provincetown and afford to live here for a week or how many could afford to come as I did when I was in college? I get out of school May and stay until I had to go back to Boston to start going to classes.

Gaston:

So who are your typical students at the moment?

Rob:

It seems to be a mix. When I was teaching and I I haven't taught in a couple of years for a couple of reasons, but there are people who range from complete beginners who, in some cases, are just looking for a place to take art classes and they see an ad for the Cape School and they say, well, this looks interesting. And on up to working professionals who know that they will get something unique from the teachers who are there and everything in between. So I I had all skill levels. I and I had people who would return every year to study with either me or with any of the other students because for one thing, they'd also get a little bit of a different experience.

Rob:

Mary g Marino, for instance, has a different set of things that she's going to do in a class than Hilda will do. But there's all the underlying relationship of we are still working on perpetuating Henry Henchy's ideas.

Gaston:

So if a student was trying to find a place to learn to paint, what would be your sales pitch to that student? So they would go to the Cape School of Art.

Rob:

If you go to the Cape School of Art, you are going to learn something absolutely essential and important as far as seeing color and being able to express color and atmosphere with paints. That may not satisfy certain people. But if you catch the the right people who know that being able to use color and see color is important, they are the ones who are going to respond. There are certain people who are going to wanna go to an art school and learn to draw. When I was teaching, I would say or I would tell people, well, you know, you're a little bit about a drawing here.

Rob:

You're a little bit out here. Or if it was composition, I I might talk a little bit about composition or perspective or some of the other basic elements of traditional painting. But always the focus for me was we're going to get something very unique about how to use color in painting. And that's whether it's still life painting, landscape painting, portrait painting, or what have you. It it's going to be something that you're not gonna get anywhere else, save for one or two students who live in far flung places.

Rob:

If you come here to study, you will have an experience that you will not have anywhere else. It's gonna be exhausting. You're gonna get frustrated as hell, but you're going to get something important.

Gaston:

So we've talked about the past of the school, the present of the school. How do you see the future of

Rob:

the school? We are always looking to expand with more places where we can have students paint. We are constantly on the lookout for ways to have affordable housing, which everybody else is here, of course. I would say that the the future of the school really lies on, well, partly just keeping things going, but getting it so that we can have young people come from our schools. When I was here, we had college students who would hear about Henry, and just say, oh, well, I, you know, I I could go and spend a couple of weeks in Provincetown and learn something about this.

Rob:

Getting a little bit more of what we represent out there to people is always important because people hear about it. And back when I was in college, for instance, people would hear about Hawthorne on painting the the book. And they'd say, oh, well, there's somebody teaching this. I'd like to do that. And then they'd hear about Henry.

Rob:

So they'd come because of that. I'd like to see in the future more the the the people who are teaching and the people who have taken classes here out there saying, hey. You know, this is this is what I'm doing so that we can continue this very important work and, expand it. I'd I'd I'd really love to see, something like Hawthorne's classes where there'd be 50 students on the beat. Oh, that would great.

Rob:

Fabulous.

Gaston:

Right there at the end of Works. Right there

Rob:

at the end of Whaler's Works. Yeah. We we could do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob:

And then come in and get an ice cream cone and stop by your shop and Well, no. Know?

Gaston:

I always have this issue when people have small children with ice cream cones and they come in my gallery.

Rob:

Well, I understand that. I I I won't encourage that then.

Gaston:

Yeah. They're fine. They could come in. Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. I've learned a lot about the Cape School of Art today, and I hope our listeners have as well.

Rob:

I hope so

Gaston:

too. It's a very fascinating history. It's a very long history. Mhmm. And thank you very much for sharing us.

Rob:

And I didn't even give you any of the dirt.

Gaston:

We're keeping it clean. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

Rob:

I really enjoyed it.

Gaston:

And thank you everyone for joining us, and until next time.