A long-time admirer of Gene Autry, singing cowboys and Wild West culture in general, Keith began combining his illustrations with recycled packaging to fashion monster cowboys who exacted justice using a variety of unusual weapons, including fire-blowing lobster buoys.
From there, and with his return to the Cape, Keith’s work began to take on a more coastal theme. The buoys stopped emitting fire and became standalone images, homages to the myriad and colorful lobster buoys that had been a part of his landscape since childhood.
Collected by beachcombers after they’ve become untethered due to rudders, weather and age, the buoys wind up on shore, thus becoming a familiar site around the Cape. Keith often drags a few buoys home after his frequent meditative walks along the beach, with his dog (named Buoy, of course) and they can be found around and inside his Wellfleet home.
Still, Keith says his buoy-themed artwork “happened as an accident.”
“I fought the idea of making art that would be ‘Cape Cod art.’ I didn’t want to be that artist that just painted lighthouses and dories for tourists in the summer.”
The buoys are quintessentially Cape Cod without being predicable “tourist art,” and like the monster cowboys, they are a mix of media, relying heavily on recycled materials with aspects of printmaking and illustration. Keith wants the pieces to convey a message, particularly to his students at Lesley: art doesn’t have to be made with expensive, hard-to-find materials.
“Utilizing materials that would otherwise go into a landfill or are cluttering up our beaches and are endangering our marine life, I feel like I’m being a good steward of my area,” he says.
Plus, the pieces are a lot of fun, for customers and the artist.
“When I go down to the studio, it honestly feels like I’m doing donuts in the parking lot,” he says. “If it’s not fun then, next.”