sailing
To Willard, painting and sailing were inseparable. "I'm a sailor and I've always been an abstract painter. I guess I'm blessed with a gift that brings it all together." From a 1998 interview in Off Shore Magazine, "First Around, Marine Artist Willard Bond," by Mickey Clement.
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Although he grew up in Pullman, Washington and Lewiston, Idaho, far away from the sea, Willard spent a lot of time on beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho, where his maternal grandparents, Dr. John and Beulah Gilleland, had a family houseboat affectionately called "Doc's Dock." Being on the water and handling boats became second nature.
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He enlisted in the US navy on his 18th birthday, June 7, 1944, at the height of WWII, and became a Naval Musician Third Class, assigned to the 12th Cruiser Division, shipping out to the Pacific on the USS Montpelier, as the drummer in the flagship band. Upon the end of the Pacific war, his ship was one of the earliest to land in Japan, at Wakanoura Bay, September 11, 1945. Three days later, he was in a party of eight sailors to be granted shore leave. They took a ride on a landing boat right up into Hiroshima harbor, where he witnessed first-hand the devastation from the atomic bomb. He rarely spoke about the impact of this experience until his later years, but the shattering effect was clear in the expressive and abstract artwork he made throughout his life.
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Willard found joy and freedom in sailing and being on the open water, and sought opportunities to sail with friends whenever possible. Back in 1963, he and his second wife, Susannah bought an 18-foot wooden sloop named Skoshi, which they sailed around Long Island Sound.
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in 1975, on his return to New York after living in Jamaica for four years, Willard got a job as the Night Pier Master at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan during the 1976 US Bicentennial celebrations. With access to the Tall Ships docked there for Operation Sail and the Bicentennial, he rediscovered his love of sailing ships and started developing his signature watercolor style. He then discovered the action of the 12 Meter racing yachts in Newport, RI and found his lifelong muse. This was the beginning of his career as a marine artist. He began to get gallery recognition, and in 1978, became a charter member of The American Society of Marine Artists.
In 1978, he and his third wife, Lois bought an historic 33-foot Chesapeake Bay skipjack, The Young American, which they sailed for many adventurous years out of East Hampton, Long Island. The wooden skipjack was rich with history and character, allowing him the great pleasures of sailing and being part of a sailing community.
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One of the highlights of Willard's sailing life was whenever he was invited to come aboard some of the America's Cup 12 Meter racing yachts during practice heats, including Dennis Connor's Freedom, which he found thrilling. His respect and love of the crews handling the action of those amazing machines was immense.
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As he became known and trusted in the America's Cup yacht racing community, the racing sport photographers took him under their collective wing and shared many images, from which he pulled and rearranged details for his compositions. Although his paintings were expressionistic and action-packed, each boat within them was authentic, with its proper rigging, insignia and crews. He had found the balance point between abstraction and representation, and the racing sailors would tell him, "You really paint it the way it is out there."
Although he became a master of both watercolor and oil painting, he always claimed to be an amateur sailor.
"About half my sailing experience is being terrorized by the sea. I love it, but it scares me. The tension is extreme, and continuous. It's always life and death. A lot of it is trying to overcome my fear and going ahead and doing it, then coming back to a safe indoor environment where I seek trauma therapy by painting out the fears." From a 1996 interview in The Times Herald-Record – Sunday Magazine, "The Artist and the Sea… Seascapes," by Debra Conway.
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Calling his painting and sailing inseparable, Willard said, "My life is my painting. Making a painting is just a symbol of oneself. So, it's all intertwined." From a 1987 interview in The Baltimore Sun Magazine, "Painting the Ships that Go Down to the Sea," by Karen Jensen.
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