ROCKLAND, Maine — Daniel Corey already was a struggling artist who recently had to sell his car to make a rent payment.
Then, two weeks ago, a fire struck the apartment complex where he lives and paints, filling his residence with smoke and soot.
Now, Corey is selling off many of his collections at a discounted price in a true fire sale.
There was no fire damage to his apartment, but he had to clean off the oil-based paintings that number approximately 500. He has spent the past two weeks cleaning his apartment and paintings, which has taken him away from his full-time profession.
Corey, 40, said he has painted all his life, a talent he said he inherited from his grandmother.
But until 2008, he always had a second job to help pay the bills. He was working as a dishwasher at Bintliff’s Ocean Grill in Edgecomb, working 50 hours per week, when his then-wife encouraged him to give up the restaurant job and exclusively devote his time to painting.
A year later, he was awarded the Monhegan Artists’ Residency, which, according to its website, “provides free comfortable living quarters, studio space, a stipend of $150 per week, and time for visual artists to reflect on, experiment, or develop their art while living in an artistically historic and beautiful location.”
Corey said he did pretty well selling paintings during his first year of full-time painting, despite the financial recession that struck. He has had his paintings exhibited in galleries that include Maine Art Paintings and Sculpture in Kennebunk and the Landing Gallery in Rockland. He also was a participant in the 2012 Door County Plein Air Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, which is billed as one of the largest plein air events in the country.
But times have been lean in recent years. He has lived in a top-floor apartment of a three-story complex on Rockland’s Main Street for the past three years. It has served as his home and studio. Three weeks ago, with money tight, he sold his 2003 Honda Element in order to pay rent.
Then two weeks ago, he was in his apartment preparing to update his blog about his art when the smoke alarm went off.
“Usually it is someone burning toast,” Corey said.
He went to the front hallway, where his neighbors generally go to alert the other residents when the alarm is set off by burnt toast or some other cooking mishap, but no one else was there.
Then Corey decided to check the two back apartments on the first floor when he saw what looked like smoke in one of them. He eventually broke in the door. Thick smoke poured out. He alerted a neighbor who called 911, and then he went upstairs knocking on each door before going back to his apartment to grab his cat Molly and get out of the building.
“I thought everything I had worked on was really in question of being destroyed,” he said.
He credited the firefighters with putting out the fire quickly and saving the building.
When he was able to get back to his apartment, however, soot was everywhere. He has cleaned the paintings, and there remains only a hint of the smoke smell after two weeks. He said it was fortunate they were oil paintings on linen and canvas instead of water-based paintings, which would have been ruined. He said he probably has another week of cleaning the apartment before he can get back to painting.
Within a few days after the fire, and because of his financial situation, he decided to offer some of his collections at significantly discounted prices. One of items in the fire sale, for instance, is titled “Lobster Boat,” which had been for sale for $850 to $900 but is now $500.
He said his philosophy on painting is to look for color harmony that people may not notice at first. Corey states on his website that his works are created from direct observation and memory and are “inspired by light quality, color harmony and abstract shapes.”
He also writes that he enjoys “the challenge of painting nontraditional views and subjects and the views that make Maine, Maine.”
Anyone who is interested in buying pieces can send him a Facebook message or visit his website at http://danielcorey.com.