A collection of Roland’s fascinating still lifes featuring fish caught fresh from the sea

Something’s Fishy

 An auto-biographical essay by Sir Roland Richardson to nourish your soul.

“One fish, Two fish,
Red fish, Blue fish,
Black fish, Blue fish,
Old fish, New fish.”

Excerpt by Dr. Seuss, 1970

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Sir Roland Richardson:

“My love for fish started with their beautiful colors!  

Fish were the most constant source of food for us growing up in the 1950’s in Grand Case, French St. Martin.  We had meat only on Sundays.  The rest of the time, it was vegetables and fruit according to their season.  But fish, in all their varieties were there for us, four to five days of the week. 

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Caught with line and hook, or by nets, or in fish pots, we always seemed to have fish.  They were different sizes and types.  They were always colorful, exotic, though in those days I didn’t know that word.  They were “other worldly”.  They were from the mysterious Sea.  

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The variety seemed endless to my childhood imagination.  It seemed as if they had been decorated by some imagined artist, out of sight, deep under the water.  I also did not know of camouflage in those days, but rather I saw beautiful colors, myriad patterns, stripes, dots, dark and light.  

“They are deep, dark browns, green of many shades, yellow, gold, and depthless blues, startling reds, oranges, and some only reflected the light in their silver paleness. “ 

“And their features, so personal to their types,
Old Wife and Grunts, Blare Eye, Covaly, Whipsters, Butterfish, Angelfish, Parrot Fish...so many distinct types.”

 “My most intense moment was when the fish pot broke surface.   My favorite moment of encounter was when the fishpot appeared.  At a certain moment, when the fish pot is being pulled up, you can discern, you can see as you wish, that there were fish  in the pot, but you could not know WHAT - maybe I should say WHO was slowly rising up to you.”

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 “That is when the love of their color sparkled best and touched me…like with a twinkle.  Wet with brilliant colors, shown and seen in sunlight for the first time.”

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“The day’s catch was always parceled out from the boat on the bayside. The fish were strung together, always mixed, so that everyone got a variety.  Some preferred Doctor Fish or Old Wife, or Butter Fish, but all got a mixture.”

“The skinning, scaling, cleaning, seasoning and cooking, whether boiled, stewed, fried or roasted, was according to the size and type.  This was when color gave way to smell, and smell to taste.  It seemed we were always grateful for our bounty from the sea.”

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