Notecards of this image can be ordered here.

All prints are handmade by Peter Ralston on archival rag paper with an archival ink set.

Small Matted Prints - This collection is printed on 8.5 x 11 inch sheets, matted, ready to be framed.

New Work - This open edition is a collection of images created since January 2004. They are printed on 17 x 22 inch sheets.

The Master Prints - This limited edition (LE) print is limited to 50 prints of this image plus ten artist proofs (AP). They are printed on 24 x 36 inch sheets.

Custom sizes of this image are available by special request. 

The story behind The Couple

One night on Raven, we ended up off an island where a special friend has a lovely stout guest mooring, generally making for sounder sleep than anchoring.

Early the next morning I awoke and went up on deck to reconnoiter. I beheld my friend’s two sailboats on the neighboring moorings, and quickly made this image as the morning fog silently ghosted around us, the friend’s boat closest and her husband’s in the background.

I made a print for my friend and she understood it at once. “There’s me, in the foreground, clear and bow on. And there’s himself, beam to, slipping into the fog.”

Sadly, her husband was indeed in a slow drift off into his own increasingly foggy realm beyond all charts. And my dear friend is, ever, dazzlingly clear and bow on in life. Thus, a perfect portrait.

It’s one thing when these quasi-metaphors of mine reference the past; in this case, however, we behold the present, and, ineluctably, a looming future.