Bill has been awarded the 2016 President’s Medal for his drawing The Second Mate
ASMA President, Robert Carter, wrote:
‘The Second Mate, as well as being a masterful portrait in a medium that always seems overshadowed by oils, watercolours and pastels, reveals a period in Bill’s own life when as a cadet he was directly answerable to the second mate – a person who could make or break him. Perhaps it is an unwitting self-portrait as this is the first qualification that Bill would have attained on his journey to becoming a Master Mariner. In this work I see the gaze of a toughened seafarer who has survived U Boat attack and dive bombing by Junker 88s; the gaze of a man looking towards the horizon to see if the landfall he has predicted, appears, according to his navigation calculations. I also see the gaze of a man thinking of a loved one, far away.’
