Provincetown is lit and Magic
Lights of Provincetown is a portfolio capturing the unique holiday and post holiday season in Provincetown. (Thanks to Dan McKean for great Holiday Market and Fireworks images… And to Chris Racine for shots of his work lighting Town Hall. The others are by Michael Goff)
Provincetown is literally and metaphorically well lit. From lighthouses to Artists chasing the legendary reflected light for their work, to spotlights on performers, and many more. It’s another way to look at the town we love and suggests new facets to explore and understand it’s pull and hold on many of us.
‘First Light’ , Provincetown’s New Year celebration kicks off next week. Consider being part of it or having a different kind of experience in January of February. This post is sponsored by Provincetown Tourism.
1. In early November each year there is a ceremonial lighting of the Monument to mark the first landing of the Pilgrims in Provincetown in 1620. That’s the start of the holiday lighting up of the town that runs through January.
2. As the days get colder and shorter on the Cape, residents and businesses creatively light the town, on and off Commercial Street, through until the end of January.
3. The lights set the tone for 4 cross-cultural holidays — each celebrating miracles of light in December. The Jews mark the miracle of lamp oil lasting eight days instead of one in a wrecked temple. Christians celebrate the old men who follow the light in the sky to witness the miracle of light born of a dark nasty manger. In December, of course we also mark the shortest day, the dark solstice but Provincetown hasn’t burned witches for years. (She always hosts the best Halloween parties, anyway.). Finally, rounding out the mystical quad is the local observance of Holly Folly an alternate spirituality that celebrates the sound of sunlight refracted through a giant Martini glass that miraculously didn’t empty day or night. All hail the patron saint of swizzle sticks, Trampolina.
3.5 Provincetown’s also got a massive light-up lobster-pot Christmas tree built each year with 60+ lobster traps ; And some of the town’s finest restaurants are open through the winter. On some nights, that experience is defined by the candle-light flickers you see walking by. The food is comfort cuisine, well prepared, and they’re waiting to serve up some comfort for you and whoever is lighting up your life at the moment.
4. Fast forward to modern day Provincetown, gay resort Mecca, and this tribe knows lighting from landscape to to get a just-right flattering bounced light, dimmers, and shadows that make stomachs look like abs.
5. Artists have sworn by the light in Provincetown, it’s said the specific properties of it are the result of reflecting off the water on three sides of the town. Bohemians and professionals have come seeking it for well over a century, making Provincetown America’s longest running artist colony. There are no reports of Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light, being here, but Charles Webster Hawthorne, who started the art colony in Provincetown, came to Cape Cod to teach painting en plein air. Galleries are open on Commercial and in the Whaler [Don’t miss the Members’ Open: Small Works Show at PAAM, the Art Museum]
