Beach House, Spring 2024

Beach houses where 

the sun and wind 

inform the design page 5 

SPRING 2024

2 | Provincetown Independent | BEACH / HOUSE | Spring 2024 

Spring arrives slowly out here. Some year-round houses wake up bit by 

bit, nudging their owners outdoors with the promise of gardening. Other 

houses are yanked into life as they’re opened for the summer season 

after a long winter shutdown. This, our first-ever home and garden 

supplement, celebrates both with a distinct combination of modern and 

traditional design that makes the Outer Cape such a special place to live. 

We hope you enjoy it. 

Guest editor: Stephen Orr 

Contributors: Hannah Oakland, Teresa Parker, 

Kai Potter, Abraham Storer, Agata Storer 

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Provincetown Independent | BEACH / HOUSE | Spring 2024 | 3 

ON THE LANDSCAPE 

The Bee and the Beach Plum 

By Kai Potter 

The dunes of the Province Lands were in full 

bloom. It was May, and the tops of the sandy 

hills were crested pink with Rosa rugosa. 

Beach plum, covered in fluffy white blooms, settled 

in the dips and lowlands like snowdrifts left in the 

melting days after a blizzard. The air was buzzing 

with bees gathering nectar and pollen with absolute 

devotion in the warm, bountiful days of late 

spring. 

They weren’t all honeybees. Each morning of 

my week- long stay in Zara’s shack — one of the 

dune shacks cared for by the Peaked Hill Trust — I 

woke to the sounds of the carpenter bees emerging 

from the round holes they had drilled in the shack’s 

cedar trim. The sun would rise and warm the siding, 

telling the bees the day had begun, 

and they would go out into the 

world to be bees. I took my coffee out 

and sat in the cool sand by a large, 

dense grove of beach plums to watch 

the bees and to be human. 

Every spur of the purple stems 

of the beach plum closest to the 

house was crowned with delicate 

white and pink- tinged flowers. The 

bees — those living in the shack and 

others from the fields and woods of 

the dunes — swarmed the blossoms 

so that each branch was a vibrating, 

living thing of flower and bee. 

I watched one plump bee crawl 

through the branches. She moved 

efficiently, stopping at each flower 

to gather the sugar and protein 

it offered, thousands of years of 

experience in her legs. She paused 

for a moment to sip nectar and collect pollen, amassing it in gold nuggets on her 

body and hind legs. Once full, she flew away, her pollen- dusted body carried on 

mica and lace wings. 

When the bee does its work, it moves from flower to 

flower, gathering food for itself and, as it does, also collecting 

and spreading the genetic material of the beach 

plum in a wider range than wind alone might do. 

The flower wants the bee to visit as many other flowers 

as it can, so in each flower is just a tiny sip of nectar 

and a dash of pollen. The bee must visit many blooms — 

and often. For the bee, that’s all that matters today; 

meanwhile, the flower’s purpose is to spread its pollen 

through the dunes. Each is completely dedicated to its 

own pursuit. And each is appealing to the needs of the 

other to fulfill its own objective. What a funny trick they 

play on one another, I thought. 

As the bee flew off, my eye was drawn to the dunes 

beyond. I saw them filled with the flowers of the 

beach plums. So many for the bees to visit, and 

so many bees to visit them. Seeing this, my idea 

of the individual softened and a broader mutualistic 

system became clear. Both these organisms, 

the bee and the beach plum, are expressions of 

the same thing: a profound, balanced system of 

life. 

In the late summer, pollinated flowers will 

turn into sugar-filled plums, and this mutualistic 

balance will express itself again. Through its 

roots, the beach plum will draw water to fill the 

plums to ripeness. A bird, unrooted, will land on 

a purple stem and pluck a plum. It will eat, and it 

will fly; sugar given in exchange for wings. The 

seeds, those little embers of life, will pass though 

the bird and, somewhere along its flight, a nitrogen-rich 

deposit will be dropped, carrying the 

seeds to new dunes. 

Another beach plum will grow. It will flower. 

The bees will come in the spring with their vibrating 

wings and fuzzy bodies. They will gather 

and spread pollen. More plums will grow and 

again be carried by wings. And life will expand. 

Clockwise from top right: Dense stands of beach plum 

(Prunus maritima) in bloom on the dune below Zara’s 

shack. Rafts of beach plums cover the dunes in May. 

A Heliopsis or false sunflower. Wild asters. Some beach 

plum flowers are tinged pink rather than white. The 

stamens hold the pollen out from the blossom for the 

bee to brush against as it reaches the nectar. A bee 

nestled in a Rosa rugosa flower. (Beach plum photos 

by Kai Potter)


Five Perennials for Your Outer Cape 

Pollinator Garden 

Bee Balm 

Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) 

offers rounded clusters of small 

bright orange flowers that honeybees 

feast on in August. It is an important 

host plant for monarch butterflies. 

Unlike most milkweeds, its leaves 

are alternate, and it lacks the plant’s 

typical milky sap. Butterfly weed 

is rugged and will grow in 

dry, sandy soil. There 

are many types of 

milkweed but this 

one is not invasive 

like the common 

variety Asclepias 

syriaca. 

Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) 

has flower spikes that look like 

fuzzy upright caterpillars the color 

of lavender. It blooms at intervals 

throughout the summer. This is a 

member of the mint family, though 

it seems to be easier to contain 

than common culinary mints. It has 

square stems and licorice- scented 

foliage — something rabbits 

and deer don’t love. It 

thrives in heat and is 

tolerant of drought 

and poor soils. 

Anise 

Hyssop 

Bee Balm 

comes in many 

colors, but the 

shorter pink 

bradburiana or 

Eastern version is a 

boon for bees because 

it blooms earlier in summer. 

It’s also a clumping species so 

won’t send runners to fill a whole 

border the way the later- blooming 

scarlet ones (Monarda didyma) will. 

Once established, these don’t need 

much attention, but they’re not as 

drought- tolerant as other plants 

on this list. Give them space and 

morning sun because they’re also 

susceptible to powdery mildew. The 

bonus: they attract hummingbirds. 

Sweet 

Pepperbush 

Butterfly 

Weed 

Seaside Goldenrod 

Goldenrod sends up its luscious, 

deep yellow, arching clusters of 

flowers in late summer; it is a 

good supplier of pollen for bees 

provisioning their nests and nectar 

for butterflies preparing for their fall 

migrations. It’s adapted to drought 

and poor soils and is deer resistant. 

And contrary to popular belief, it 

do not cause hay fever: the culprit 

is common ragweed, Ambrosia 

artemisiifolia, which often grows 

near goldenrod. Clumping forms 

include Showy goldenrod (Solidago 

speciosa) and Seaside goldenrod 

(Solidago sempervirens). 

Sweet Pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia) 

is a suckering shrub you’ll come 

across in partly shaded wetlands 

here. Look on the wooded edges of 

ponds for swaths of their white spire 

blooms starting in mid- July to early 

August. If you have the right spot, 

they’ll reward you with their spicysweet 

perfume. They’ll reward your 

neighborhood’s honeybees, too. 

When their nectar flows, Wellfleet 

beekeeper John Portnoy says his 

apiary becomes a “honey factory.” 

His sweet pepperbush honey is 

harvested after the bees have feasted 

and put up sufficient fall supplies. 

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The Nature of 

the Beach House 

The impromptu quality of the modernists’ seaside getaways may be 

a thing of the past, but three architects say a connection with nature 

is still their primary pursuit 

Angles at the Round House in 

Wellfleet, architect Joy Cuming’s 

reinterpretation of a house 

designed in the 1970s by Charlie 

Zehnder. (Photo by Roe Osborn, 

courtesy Aline Architecture) 

By Teresa Parker 

Beach houses have evolved since 

the modernists built their getaways 

on Outer Cape Cod starting 

in the late 1930s. But their work 

is still present in the minds of today’s 

designers. We asked three architects 

working here — Paul Krueger, Joy 

Cuming, and Mark Hammer — to tell 

us what the words “beach house” 

mean to them. 

Krueger designed his first Outer 

Cape house in 1966 soon after he 

served, fresh out of school, as project 

manager on Harvard’s Carpenter 

Center — on which Le Corbusier 

teamed with Josep Lluis Sert. They 

were looking for someone “without 

preconceived notions of how things 

are done,” according to Peter Mc- 

Mahon and Christine Cipriani’s book 

Cape Cod Modern. Krueger’s Mark 

house in Truro is a reimagining of 

Provincetown’s fishermen’s shacks 

crossed with Le Corbusierian sculpturalism. 

Only 12 feet wide, floating 

above a moor on pilings, it is at once a 

rustic cabin and edgy artwork. 

Cuming has been designing and 

building houses on the Outer Cape 

for 30 years, starting out with the late 

Alan Dodge, who had worked with 

the self- taught midcentury modern 

builder Charlie Zehnder. Now she has 

her own firm, Aline Architects Studio 

in Orleans. “I don’t think so much 

about style as I do about what I’m 

relating to, what the site suggests,” 

says Cuming. “Modernism allows 

quite a lot of freedom to explore materials 

and the relationship of a building 

to its environment.” 

In his 20 years working here, 

Hammer says he has always felt a 

connection between contemporary 

design and the modernist experiments 

that dot our woods. “Our 

work is very much informed by 

our forebears who built the modern 

houses here,” he says of his 

Cambridge- based Hammer Architects. 

“We are connected by the desire 

to build a house that feels like it 

fits in, and where the sun and wind 

inform the design.” 

Q: Tell us about your own ideal 

“beach house.” 

The Mark House, built in Truro in 1966, was architect Paul Krueger’s first on the Outer Cape. 

Referencing both Provincetown fishermen’s shacks and Le Corbusier, it is only 12 feet wide. 

(Photo by Steve Rosenthal, courtesy Krueger Associates) 

“I would have to say my ideal is a 

tent,” says Paul Krueger from the 

Cambridge office of Krueger Associates. 

On trips to Wellfleet with his 

young family in the 1960s, “we always 

camped at the Audubon sanctuary. It 

was only gradually that we started to 

talk about wanting something a little 

sturdier than those canvas walls.” 

For him, what’s fundamental is that 

a beach house provides immediacy 

with nature. 

Joy Cuming also thinks of the 

seasons she spent living close to 

the elements — including on a boat 

in Provincetown Harbor. She has no 

single mental image of what a beach 

house should look like; it might be 

one in a row of little cottages or a 

freeform space under a curved roof 

that follows the undulations of the 

dunes. “Its forms and shapes emerge 

from the contours of the place,” she 

says. Whatever its shape, though, 

“a beach house should be a place 

where the materials feel at home on 

the site. The house needs to feel like 

it’s meant to be there. A house that 

touches down lightly would be my 

ideal.” 

“I think ‘beach house’ is kind 

of an odd term for the Outer Cape, 

since not many houses are right on 

the beach here,” says Mark Hammer: 

“ ‘Seaside’ is a better term.” His own 

house in Truro overlooks a valley, not 

the water, which, he says, is “everywhere 

close enough.” Although the 

houses he builds often include expanses 

of glass, he says he’s not always 

trying to capture views: “The 

ideal is about a connection to nature, 

and especially about being able to enjoy 

natural light.” 

Q. You’ve all been designing 

houses on the Outer Cape for 

many years. How have beach 

houses evolved? 

“There is a real change in the kinds 

of materials people are looking for,” 

says Cuming. “They are more aware 

of the scarcity of materials we once 

thought were in abundant supply.” 

The use of heat- treated wood, electric 

radiant heat, and all the technical 

details affect the way you build a 

house, she says. 

Kreuger has watched beach 

houses grow larger and in some ways 

more serious — the cost of materials 

is part of what has driven a desire for 

permanence, he says. 

Hammer agrees. “Twenty years 

ago we were able to build more 

continued on page 6


The Nature of 

the Beach House 

continued from page 5 

economically, and many projects 

were simpler,” he says. “But as the 

cost of construction grew, people 

began to view building as a bigger 

project; houses are more solid now.” 

People expect to be more comfortable, 

even though that can be at odds 

with the beach house ideal, for instance 

when air conditioning replaces 

designs that catch prevailing breezes. 

Q: It sounds as if you all agree 

beach houses owe more to nature 

than to trends. But is there something 

emerging in beach house 

design that you especially like? 

“In some ways, people have a stronger 

sense of design than they did 

when I first started working,” says 

Cuming. “They often try to describe 

the way they want to feel in 

their beach house rather than starting 

with a list of room names” — a 

trend she finds both challenging and 

liberating. 

Kreuger sees an interest in 

groups of smaller structures, each 

one satisfying a different need. Instead 

of designing one big house, he’s 

found himself building collections of 

cottages that offer spaces for privacy 

and for gathering, for an artist’s 

studio, room for guests, a play house 

for children — “all while keeping to a 

humanistic scale.” 

Cuming says that the tiny-house 

movement has shaped that interest. 

“Everyone is fascinated by the 

tiny house, though most people 

don’t want to live in them exactly,” 

she says. 

“You think more now about 

Architect Mark Hammer designed the family room of his addition at the Pamet Bend House in Truro as a “Miesian box” — inspired by 

Mies van der Rohe — to place those in it directly amid nature. (Photo by Peter Vanderwarker, courtesy Hammer Architects) 

how you’re going to address environmental 

concerns,” says Hammer. 

He likes the design challenge 

of placing windows to maximizes 

light in winter combined with brise 

soleil systems. You’ll see in his recent 

work big, broad overhanging 

roofs that keep the sun off the glass 

in summer. 

Q: Is there an element of the ideal 

that should never be lost? 

“Natural light is the most important 

thing,” says Hammer. And a beach 

house “must be allowed to expand 

and contract with the seasons, with 

different orientations through the 

seasons and the light at different 

times of day.” 

Cuming takes a similar tack: “The 

wind and the dunes are so austere and 

also ever- changing here. It’s important 

that a beach house respond to 

that,” she says. “You can’t just orient 

the entire experience of a house 

straight out to the ocean. You need to 

find a good feeling in every direction 

and in the changing light and mood of 

the day.” 

Kreuger says for him a beach 

house should always be made of natural 

materials like weathered wood 

and cedar shingles. And alongside 

the modernist- inspired pursuit of 

openness and natural light, a beach 

house that’s right for Outer Cape Cod 

will also draw on historical forms like 

those of simple fish shacks that connect 

new designs with tradition. 

Cuming offers one more essential 

bit of advice rooted in tradition: 

“There have to be cozy spots and 

spaces where you can feel sheltered 

and protected from the vastness and 

elements.” 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY : DAN CUTRONA 

NICHOLAEFF ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN • 508-420-5298 • www.nicholaeff.com


Interior Landscapes in Dialogue 

With Light 

For observational artists, the idea of turning one’s attention 

to the indoors might seem counterintuitive in a place like 

Cape Cod. But for a few, domestic landscapes still inspire. 

By Abraham Storer 

Love Shack II by Karen Cappotto. (Photo courtesy Karen Cappotto) 

KAREN CAPPOTTO has found herself recently fascinated 

with the interiors of quintessential Provincetown structures, 

including the dune shacks and the Mary Heaton Vorse house. She 

made one of her first interior paintings nearly 10 years ago after 

helping a friend move out of a summer cottage on Creek Road. “It 

was one of those moments where I knew my experience in Provincetown 

would change,” she says. “I knew our bohemian lifestyle 

was forever gone.” She memorialized the experience in a 17-foot 

painting. In Bath Time, a more recent painting of one of the improvisational 

homes on Tasha Hill, she strikes a tone that is both elegiac 

and matter of fact in its bare-bones depiction of a bathroom 

with funky windows. “I’m focused on places that I feel are precariously 

close to not being around for very long,” Cappotto says. 

Bath Time by Karen Cappotto. (Photo courtesy Karen Cappotto) 

BOB HENRY paints all sorts of things but periodically 

he sets up his easel and paints the rooms 

he lives in. In these paintings, a few of which are 

currently on view at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, he 

explores the dialogue between an inner space and 

the outside. Often the landscape of Wellfleet’s Duck 

Creek peeks through the windows in his interior 

paintings. 

In Wellfleet, Third Floor he makes a painting of 

his sitting room, but the real subject here is light 

breaking through the stormy clouds outside the 

window and filtering through the room, illuminating 

ledges and table tops and bouncing across the 

walls. The burdensome and banal objects of daily 

life — a pile of papers, a shopping bag, old chairs — 

are heightened by the transformative experience of 

light and color. 

continued on page 9 

Wellfleet, Third Floor, oil on canvas by Bob Henry. (Photo by Abraham Storer)


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Interior Landscapes in Dialogue With Light 


Klee’s Child With Mine, mixed media on paper by Erika Wastrom. (Photo courtesy Erika Wastrom) 

Yesterday’s Dishes, mixed media on paper by Erika Wastrom. (Photo courtesy 

Erika Wastrom) 

ERIKA WASTROM, an artist who lives in Barnstable and shows in Provincetown’s Gaa Gallery, 

uses her paintings of interiors to impose order on a less-than-ordered domestic life. The mother 

of two boys, ages six and nine, she fantasizes about living in a perfectly curated home through her 

subscription to Homes & Gardens, the British decorating magazine. Her paintings are another form 

of escape. Mundane objects like a drying rack and more sentimental ones like a Paul Klee print purchased 

on her honeymoon are contained in controlled pictorial spaces defined by clean, flat planes of 

color and passages of expressive patterning. 

REBECCA BRUYN’S fascination with light comes 

through in a new body of work in which she photographs the 

interiors of old American houses and prints them on translucent 

vellum. “The light enhances the normal everyday things 

one might not look at when you’re in your home,” she says. 

In her photographs natural light animates overlooked details 

like architectural moldings, candle stubs, and curtains. 

A ghostly atmosphere infuses these pictures, alluding to the 

histories of the lives that once inhabited the rooms. 

Curtain by the Door, photograph on vellum by Rebecca Bruyn. 

Interior Light and Shadows, photograph on vellum by Rebecca Bruyn.


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At Home on Pochet Island 

Hidden in the folding shores of 

East Orleans’s Little Pleasant Bay is 

a true rarity — a privately owned 

but publicly accessible island within 

the boundaries of the Cape Cod 

National Seashore. 

By Stephen Orr 

Nancy Barrington can’t remember 

the first time she 

visited Pochet Island. “I’m 

sure Mom and Dad brought me 

when I was just a few weeks old,” 

she says, “and it’s been home ever 

since.” Barrington’s ancestor Gilbert 

Russell Payson Sr. purchased 

the 150-acre island, which is pronounced 

“poachy,” not “poachet,” 

in 1886. He also bought two other 

neighboring estuarine islands, Hog 

and Sampson, both uninhabited 

(the latter not to be confused with 

the Sampsons Island bird sanctuary 

near Cotuit). Wealthy from cotton 

mills he owned in New Hampshire, 

Payson wanted the islands as his 

private duck hunting grounds. 

That same year, Payson contracted 

a local shipbuilder to construct 

a large main house, the 

building materials brought over at 

low tide on horse-drawn buckboard 

from the outer beach at Nauset. It 

was called the New House, to distinguish 

it from an older structure, 

a full Cape now called the Old 

House, that was brought to the island 

in the early 1800s. These and 

three cottages built later are now 

used by his descendants. 

According to family lore, 

Payson was faced with tremendous 

debt after being swindled by a business 

partner and was forced to sell 

his properties in Watertown and 

Brookline. “But nobody wanted to 

buy three islands on Cape Cod at the 

time,” says Barrington, “so they 

stayed in the family.” After Payson 

died in 1891, ownership went to his 

children, whose descendants, now 

numbering in the hundreds, still 

manage the island as a trust. 

Barrington says the island’s 

name derives from a Wampa noag 

word that means “the dividing 

place” because it was an in-between 

meeting location for members of 

the Monomoyick and Nauset tribes. 

By the time her ancestor purchased 

the land, it was a sheep farm and 

barren of all trees and large shrubs. 

Later the family would plant hardwood 

trees and do controlled burns 

to keep the meadows intact. But after 

a fire nearly took out the New 

House, that practice was stopped in 

the early 20th century, and over the 

decades thick copses of pine, oak, 

holly, poison ivy, and bittersweet 

grew to cover much of the island. 

When the National Seashore 

proposed to take over the family’s 

land in 1961 to guard against future 

resort development, the descendants 

made the case that the 

islands are difficult to access and 

an awful lot of work to maintain. 

The officials agreed, and the land 

was put into a perpetual conservation 

easement owned by the family, 

who promised never to develop the 

islands and never to build another 

structure or even replace one if 

it burns or is destroyed in a storm. 

In return, the family maintains the 

paths and meadows against the 

rampant growth of invasive plants 

while welcoming the public to walk 

the trails. 

“Keeping Pochet going is still 

very much a Payson family project,” 

says Barrington. “There are 

four miles of trails to tend and some 

40 acres of meadows; each acre 

takes a day to mow by my brothers 

and cousins.” 

With hundreds of bird species 

on the island, Pochet is a favorite, if 

remote, destination for birdwatch-


ers. “It’s a fall hot spot for migrating birds,” says 

Mark Faherty, Mass Audubon’s science coordinator 

for Cape Cod. “But the mile-plus-long hike along the 

sand from Nauset Beach parking lot keeps less hardy 

birders from visiting.” 

Though family members can row their guests 

over from Barley Neck, public visitors must hike over 

from the southern part of Nauset Beach, or they can 

approach by water in kayaks or canoes. “We just ask 

that they not use our family dock because it’s small 

and rickety,” says Barrington. 

Hikers must pay careful attention to tide charts 

since the marsh paths and small bridge are usable 

only at low tide, with many of the trails becoming 

deeply mucky in wet weather. Barrington recounts 

how she was trapped for eight hours on the island 

recently when she lost track of time and couldn’t get 

back over the bridge due to unusually high tides. As 

the dunes succumb to storms and erosion, the marsh 

has become even more prone to flooding. 

Among the houses, which remain private, the 

three-story New House, which Barrington shares 

with her two brothers and their families, is the architectural 

centerpiece of the island. Constructed primarily 

with wooden pegs, it seems frozen in time in 

charming and idiosyncratic ways. Height marks on a 

kitchen wall date back over a century. A hand-painted 

mural of a sailboat and other artworks hang among 

heirloom furniture and photographs of ancestors and 

the island still in its barren state. 

Modern conveniences barely exist. There’s no 

indoor plumbing, only a two-seater outhouse and 

composting toilet. Until recently there was no electricity, 

though now a generator and solar panels power 

two outlets and heat water for one faucet. After the 

hand-cranked well pump gave out, the family put in a 

new electric model. “You can’t get a pump for a well 

that’s not electric anymore,” says 

Barrington. 

“We don’t consider ourselves 

the owners of this place,” she says. 

“We’re just the stewards.” Barrington, 

a former computer programmer, 

learned so much about 

restoring the original windows in 

her house that she started her own 

business, Window Restoration Cape 

Cod, in 2015. “There’s nothing I 

like more than just sitting on the 

porch and looking over the meadow 

to the beach,” she says. “I was 

always a type A personality. I was 

always busy. Now I’ve learned to 

stop, because every day is different. 

At night it’s really dark; it’s quiet. 

You can hear the ocean and not 

anything else — except for the coyotes, 

of course.” 

For more information search “Pochet Island” on 

alltrails.com. Several local walking clubs and the Orleans 

Conservation Trust lead guided walks in the summer. 

Opposite page, clockwise from top left: An imposing brick and stone fireplace 

decorated with over a century of family memorabilia anchors the New House built 

in 1886. Nancy Barrington, her daughter Carol Crewdson, and a friend walk Pochet 

Island’s salt marsh trails at low tide. The three-story staircase in the house was 

made by a shipbuilder with pegs instead of nails. “Makes sense because of rust 

problems from the salt air,” explains Barrington. A painting of Baba, Barrington’s 

great-grandmother. Antiques, historic photographs, and family artwork fill the rooms. 

Chase Crewdson, Barrington’s son, rows guests over from Barley Neck. 

This page, clockwise from top: The New House sits in a broad meadow maintained by 

the family to fend off the establishment of invasive plants and trees. An artsy corner 

of Barrington’s house features painting supplies and photographs of her ancestors. 

Nancy, Chase, and Airy, the German shepherd, relax on the front steps. Heirlooms 

like a taxidermy owl and various binoculars and telescopes (to take advantage of the 

island’s dark night skies) sit on top of the piano. (Photos by Stephen Orr)

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From the Earth We’re Standing On 

Three ceramicists find inspiration in places as diverse as Grandma’s popcorn bowl, 

stacks of patterned fabrics, and the clay cliffs of a Wellfleet beach. 

By Abraham Storer 

The Outer Cape has provided the bedrock of inspiration for ceramicists 

Michael Ceraldi, Paul Wisotzky, and Isabel Souza. Ceraldi takes creative 

nourishment from this place most literally, gathering clay from local 

beaches to create plates for his Wellfleet restaurant. As young ceramicists, 

Souza and Wisotzky both nurtured their craft at Castle Hill, where Ceraldi currently 

creates and fires his work. They share a commitment to making functional 

objects, but that’s about where the similarities end. These three artists 

have forged different styles, revealing the malleability of the art form. 

Michael Ceraldi 

“I try to live from a creative, artistic place. That’s my home. I’ve always 

been working in food and making art. Rolling out clay with the 

slab roller and rolling out pasta with my pasta machine are pretty 

much the same thing. 

“When I started doing ceramics here, I heard about the clay deposits 

at the beach and I thought about how I could incorporate the 

actual earth we’re standing on into my work. I started harvesting 

about a half pound of clay at a time and turning that into a slip, 

which is like a thick, loose paint with which I’ll coat my plates. The 

local clay is a deep gray because of the iron it contains, but when it’s 

fired it turns an oxidized rusty color. 

“I like to keep the somewhat irregular characteristics of each 

piece I make, because that’s a good representation of the earth 

and where it comes from. I don’t want to take that away by trying 

to laboriously make every edge perfect. I’m inspired by Japanese 

ceramics that don’t try to hide what some people might consider 

mistakes.” 

“I was making a vase and tooling the bottom out and the bottom fell through,” says Michael 

Ceraldi. “I thought, ‘How can I utilize this cylinder? It’s kind of like the shape of a drum.’ So, from 

there, I started making drums.” (Photos by Agata Storer) 

Plates made by Michael Ceraldi with a blue salt glaze and clay from a Wellfleet beach. 

Paul Wisotzky 

“I started making pots when I was at Lexington High School. I had a 

great teacher. She was the first teacher who showed me that I could 

actually be good at something. My parents had a summer home in 

Truro, and I started taking classes at Castle Hill when I was a teenager. 

I did it in college a little bit, but I stopped, and I had another 

life for 20 or 25 years. 

“I always wanted to be a potter. I moved here in 2007. Now’s 

the time, I thought, and I did it. 

“I glaze my work in atmosphere kilns, which is where the atmosphere 

has an impact on the glaze surface and the clay surface. 

One of the things I love about atmospheric firing is that it gives the 

kiln the last say. I can’t control the atmosphere consistently, so it 

will impact the surface of the pot differently in each firing. Most of 

the time, it’s a good final say, but occasionally it’s not — that’s the 

beauty of it. 

“I have a specific decorating technique. I’m inspired by looking 

at patterns on fabric, in architecture, or in graphic design. I 

design sponge stamps on the computer and fabricate them with a 

laser cutter. I then use the sponge stamps to decorate my pottery 

through wax resist, kind of like batik.” 

Wisotzky decorates his ceramics with sponge stamps and a wax resistant technique. 

Paul Wisotzky in his Truro studio.


From the Earth 

We’re Standing On 


Isabel Souza 

“Ceramics was always a thing for me. 

I’ve never taken a break from it. I’ve 

always been determined to make this 

my full-time job. 

“I was in kindergarten when I 

took my first handbuilding clay class 

at Castle Hill, and then in fifth grade 

I took my first throwing class. I continued 

through high school and then 

college and now I’ve been selling my 

work for four years. 

“I have all these mugs that I’m 

working on for my shop that’s opening 

in Wellfleet in the spring. My 

goal is to make 1,500 mugs this year. 

I threw 80 mugs yesterday. When 

I’m making this many mugs it’s important 

for me to have a design that 

I know will turn out well. I have this 

blue-splatter design inspired by vintage 

enamelware. It’s a white opaque 

glaze with blue on top of it. My grandmother 

has a blue and white enamel 

bowl that we always used to eat 

popcorn out of, so it’s very nostalgic 

for me. 

“I’m inspired by Portuguese and 

Spanish pottery. I use a European 

technique called maiolica but apply it 

in a different style. The technique begins 

with a base glaze that’s a really 

opaque white, and then I paint pigments 

on top of it. If you’re just using 

normal glazes, it’s harder to get the 

same details. Maiolica lends itself to 

bright colors and imagery.” 

Souza in her studio in the runup to opening a shop in Wellfleet. “I threw 80 mugs yesterday,” she says. (Photos by Agata Storer) 

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Bringing Light 

to a Basement 

Makeover 

By Hannah Oakland 

Cozy seating makes the lightest corner of the studio a focal point. (Photos by Hannah Oakland) 

An expanse of white subway tile adds light to a windowless kitchenette. 

When it comes to home renovation projects, sprucing up a basement falls 

low on most people’s priority lists. To some degree this makes sense: 

what could be more satisfying than having a long open room designated 

for hucking boxes into? And on Cape Cod, basement mustiness can be hard to 

banish. But so is that steady stream of summer visitors. 

Those who are lucky enough to have a walk-out basement here might be 

surprised by how livable even a small basement studio space can be — not just 

for your aunt’s best friend’s cousin but for you and yours. Creating a relaxing 

space for guests to have autonomy and privacy away from the rest of your 

household will get everyone through their vacation peaceably. If you can include 

even a simple, small kitchen and bathroom, you might even start to look forward 

to the season. 

The name of the game in a basement space is light. With windows at one 

end, this 350-square-foot space held promise. To make that light seem to reach 

farther into the rooms, a whitewashed vinyl plank floor with gray hues suggesting 

driftwood replaced old industrial carpeting, and a dilapidated drop ceiling 

was swapped out for a clean expanse of drywall. 

A bright shared entryway provides a welcoming spot for guests to drop their 

bags and not feel in the way as they settle in. Don’t be afraid to have fun with it, 

adding splashes of color and pattern. Here, the blue and tan are an unconventional 

way to adopt coastal hues. 

In the windowless kitchenette, white subway tile running all the way to the 

ceiling reflects light, while black grout pulls the eye in different directions, widening 

the view. For the opposite wall, an earthy green connects the room to the 

outdoors. Natural wood countertops enhance that organic feel. 

When you’re working with a modest makeover budget, a few splurges on 

higher-quality small but frequently used items, like the Stagg teapot and the 

mini-induction range, go a long way to adding a feeling of luxury. 

Space for lounging is tricky in a small studio like this. But offering two different 

spots for sitting is a good trick — and make them comfy. A padded bench 

at the foot of the bed provides a practical perch. The cozy oversize accent chair 

invites guests to make the most appealing, light-filled corner in the space their 

own — at least for a little while. 

The entryway is the place to have fun with colors and patterns. 

Opposite the tile, an earthy green connects 

the space to the outdoors. 

The name of 

the game in a 

basement space 

is light.

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The Art of Blanche Lazzell’s Flowers 

One of Provincetown’s founding art colony painters fed both her spirit and her 

creativity in a tiny studio garden at the end of a rickety East End wharf 

By Stephen Orr 

“T 

he gaiety and brilliancy of the 

flowers surrounding the studio of 

Blanche Lazzell attract and hold 

our attention whether we glimpse it from 

the waterside or through its narrow approach 

down an unnamed alley. Gay as 

these surroundings are they find a rival 

in the fascinating interior of this former 

fish house, now one of the more attractive 

spots in Provincetown. It is here that 

more than a thousand visitors have this 

summer seen Miss Lazzell’s work: an 

exhibition of wood block prints, which 

would draw attention anywhere and in 

this town with its variety of production 

stands distinctive by reason of its honest 

strength and genuine character.” 

‘Care and proper soil make flowers almost talk. 

Mine have expression. They express God — if given the chance.’ 

— Lazzell in a letter to her sister, April 27, 1937 

Clockwise from top: Blanche Lazzell waters the container garden at 

her East End pier studio in a 1942 photograph. (Photo West Virginia 

and Regional History Center) 

Always a master of economy, Lazzell tends the fishing nets she used 

as trellises in a photo from 1951. (Photo West Virginia and Regional 

History Center) 

Cubist abstractions inside her studio. (Photo courtesy Archives of 

American Art, Smithsonian Institution.) 

The artist paints surrounded by petunias on her studio porch c. 1932 

and sports the swim attire of the day, c. 1920. (Photos West Virginia 

and Regional History Center) 

A Lazzell white-line print created for the WPA that features her studio 

pier, 1937. (Photo courtesy Library of Congress) 

So reported the Provincetown Advocate 

in 1940. For much of the artist 

Blanche Lazzell’s life, Provincetown 

was her happy place, and, tucked 

within it, an even happier spot, her 

bayside studio garden of boldly colored 

annuals. There, in a former storage 

shack that had housed fishing 

supplies, she was her most creative 

and productive. She began painting, 

printmaking, hooking rugs, and decorating 

porcelain pieces as soon as 

she arrived in town in 1915 to study 

with Charles Hawthorne. 

“The sea is wonderful to paint,” 

she wrote to her sister in that first 

year. “But don’t think or let anyone 

think I am here on a pleasure trip. I 

am getting pleasure out of very hard 

work. I am getting very encouraging 

criticisms. Mr. Hawthorne says, ‘go 

right on painting that way.’ ” 

Despite her somewhat conservative 

nature and upper-middle-class 

upbringing in the coal country of 

West Virginia where she was born in 

1878, Lazzell was very independent 

for the time, and as an early cubist, 

drawn to the new and novel in art. She 

studied with Fernand Léger and others 

at the Académie Moderne in Paris, 

making new American friends there 

who enticed her to settle afterwards 

in the new Cape Cod art colony. 

Frequent letters to her sisters reveal 

a woman who relished a sense of 

freedom she found on the Outer Cape. 

The other, near constant topic in her 

letters was her studio flower garden, 

especially her petunias, which she 

doted on as if they were beloved pets. 

“It is a beautiful day,” she reported to 

her sister in 1932. “We had a hard rain 

and storm last Friday. It melted every 

petunia blossom, but they are out 

again now…. It spoiled the marigolds. 

I still have snapdragons. The garden 

has been heavenly this summer. The 

petunias seem to be so human.” 

Lazzell was from a family of 

means but she had to live frugally on 

a small stipend most of her life. So, 

hers was a garden of economy: salvaged 

wooden containers, barrels, 

and lard tubs, all swathed in string 

fishing nets that hid her homespun 

construction techniques while providing 

maritime-themed trellising 

for morning glories and vining petunias, 

which she reported to her sister 

reached six feet tall. 

In 1927, she wrote to her niece, 

Frances Reed, “I am now waiting for 

Mr. Atkins the plumber to come to 

fix a water line & faucet in the garden 

— going to have it piped around 

the chimney. And when I get my 

next check, I’ll order a soft hose. My 

continued on page 22


The Art of Blanche Lazzell’s Flowers 


elbows are not strong enough to carry 

water another summer. I think that 

excuse is enough to have that convenience, 

don’t you?” 

To promote the sale of her artwork, 

Lazzell held classes and intimate 

teas at her studio where she 

served sponge cake, cream cheese and 

pimento sandwiches, and saltines with 

homemade beach plum jelly. “I have 

had four teas since the first of Sept.,” 

Lazzell wrote in a 1932 letter. “You 

see my teas cost very little. My flower 

seeds more than paid for them.” 

She harvested her seeds for sale 

as a side gig, especially her petunias 

with their almost cubist stripes, rays, 

veins, and splotches. “People everywhere 

are after my petunia seeds,” 

she wrote. “I am selling them for 35 

cents a package” — around $7 today. 

Hers were worth it, she explained: 

“Of course the package is not big but 

mine are bigger than the ones from 

the regular florists. And my seeds 

are more rare for they are my own 

culture.” 

Alongside these practical preoccupations, 

there was something 

almost mystical about the garden 

for Lazzell. “You feel, or what Mr. 

Hofmann says, ‘you experience’ the 

flowers, then your subconscious mind 

does the arrangement,” she wrote to 

her sister. “We must know and experience, 

feel to the depths of our soul, the 

flower, then we have this inner power 

to do things with it … That is art.” 

She knew of her value, and perhaps 

even her future importance as 

one of the earliest American abstract 

artists, especially as a woman. When 

needing to pay a tax bill in 1932, 

Lazzell urged her sister to sell some 

of her prints back in West Virginia. 

“This is a fine investment for anyone 

who has the money to spare. For 

these prints will be worth more than 

a hundred dollars before you know it 

and especially when I no longer make 

them,” she wrote. “And they are admired 

by the leading modern painters 

in this country and abroad.” 

“She’s definitely at the top of 

the pyramid now,” says Jim Bakker 

of Bakker Gallery in Provincetown. 

“It seems to me that she has eclipsed 

many of the male Provincetown artists 

who were more famous than she 

was during her lifetime, especially at 

auctions today. When you look at the 

other people working in the whiteline 

printing style, she had a big influence 

over many people who came 

after her.” 

Always as independent as she 

could possibly be, Blanche Lazzell 

lived in Provincetown until her death 

at 77 in 1956. In her later years, the 

garden declined, and her beloved 

wharf studio at 351C Commercial St., 

which tragically escaped the attention 

of local preservationists, was 

demolished during a renovation by 

the new owners in 2002. “People in 

town at the time felt like its destruction 

somehow slipped through and 

shouldn’t have happened,” Bakker 

remembers. 

Lazzell lived in Provincetown on 

her own terms. Even if it wasn’t always 

easy, it was worth it — a sentiment 

many residents today would 

echo. “The thing is to live as simply as 

possible and do our own work,” she 

wrote to her sister in 1932 at the age 

of 54. “That is what I have done all 

along & that is what hurts my knees. 

It felt so good when I came back to 

town. Two yachts are out there with 

tall sails. The water is always so beautiful, 

and my work goes on. I have my 

painting & I am well. That much to be 

thankful for. Love to all, Blanche.” 

Marigolds, 1938, a white-line wood block print on loan to the Provincetown 

Art Association and Museum. Lazzell’s homegrown flowers provided endless 

opportunities for her explorations in abstraction. (Photo courtesy PAAM) 

‘I bought a dozen lovely petunias last week and 

set them out, one in a keg instead of three as I 

used to. The woman in the shop started to give 

me directions & explain why they were cut back. 

In turn, I explained to her why they should not 

be cut back and let her know that I have had 25 

years’ experience with fluffy petunias.’ 

— Lazzell in a letter to her sister, June 25, 1945 

Lazzell wrote that she loved to share her petunias, both in bouquets for friends 

and to take to patients in the hospital. (Photo courtesy Archives of American Art, 

Smithsonian Institution) 

Looking from the end of Lazzell’s studio pier, now demolished, toward 351 Commercial St., 

which was formerly a fire house. (Photo courtesy Provincetown History Project) 

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compass.com 

Compass is a licensed real estate broker and Kinlin Grover Realty Group, LLC is a licensed real estate broker affiliated with Compass and each abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled 

from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. Photos may be virtually staged or digitally enhanced and may not reflect actual property conditions.

Together, we can help 

everyone on their 

path to home… 

Donate to the Wellfleet Housing Trust today. 

Support Local, 

Support Housing, 

Support the Community. 

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REALTOR ® 

kaitlogan@compass.com 

M: 845.532.3864 

Katy Day 

REALTOR ® 

katy.day@compass.com 

M: 313.478.0414 

2548 Route 6 

Wellfleet, MA 02667 

compass.com 

Compass is a licensed real estate broker and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Nothing herein shall be construed as legal, accounting or other 

professional advice outside the realm of real estate brokerage.

Beach House, Spring 2024

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