CATALOG NO. B124-2025
Cape Cod Bay Light and Water
Book cover showing reduction linocut image
Book in case with USB Thumb Drive
Book open to title page with front end paper
See below for book pages
While visiting Cape Cod in October, 2024, I decided to video the bay at four times during the day: early morning, noon, afternoon, and sunset. The steady wind produced wave motion that suggested the rhythm of the suite of music, called "Cape Cod Bay - Light and Water," that I composed soon after, followed by an artist book of the same name made by me and my wife, Mary Agnes Williams. My desire, with both the music and the illustrations in the book, was to create the motion of wind-driven water interacting with light at four different times of day.
Specifications - Edition of 13
Book - 13.5” x 8” x .75”
Cover - Inset reduction linocut illustration; book cloth over board
Book - 16 leaves, Arches mould made paper
Illustrations -
Reduction linocuts with oil-based pochoir and hand-painted accents
Etchings with hand-applied washes
Hand-drawn waves with fragments of original music score
Inks - Dry pigments in burnt plate oil, relief ink, etching ink
Printing - Linocuts, 12 pt. Janson Italic handset text, polymer plates
letterpress-printed on the Luminice Press
Thomas Parker Williams - Concept, design, illustrations, printing, binding, original music composition
Mary Agnes Williams - Concept, design, original text and haiku, handset text
The music can be classified as minimalist with four sections: Early Morning, in D minor and D major;
Noon, in E major and F major; Afternoon, in G major and A major; and Setting Sun, in C major, D major, and A major.
The time signature is 9/8 with a tempo of 200 eighth notes per minute.
The composition for violins, viola, cello, double bass, piano, marimba and vibraphone is constructed with
repeating phrases and lines that intersect to form patterns and harmonies. None of the instruments play chords.
"Cape Cod Bay - Light and Water" was performed on keyboards by me and serves as a demo for the piece and may be heard
in the video above or on Soundcloud at the link below. The complete score and parts in PDF form may be downloaded below.
The book contains a USB thumb drive that contains the 16 minute video with audio, a high resolution FLAC audio file of the recording,
a standard MP3 audio file and, in PDF format, the completed written score and parts of the composition.
Cape Cod Bay - Light and Water © 2025 by Thomas Parker Williams is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
SOUNDCLOUD - Complete Composition
Score and Parts- Part 1 - Early Morning - PDF
Score and Parts- Part 2 - Noon - PDF
Score and Parts- Part 3 - Afternoon - PDF
Score and Parts- Part 4 - Setting Sun - PDF
Book pages
Ice Age Origins
20,000 years ago, the Laurentide Ice Sheet encompassed all of Canada,
the Great Lakes, and New England. As the climate warmed, starting two thousand years later,
the ice sheet retreated, in its wake depositing sand, silt, clay and rock which slowly formed
the distinctive arm-shaped landmass of Cape Cod encircling Cape Cod Bay.
As the last glacial period ended about 12,000 years ago, Cape Cod Bay is believed to have
been a large freshwater lake. Now, at 604 square miles with a maximum depth of 206 feet, the Bay is salt water.
Generally, currents in the Bay move counter-clockwise, south from Boston to Plymouth, then east and north to Provincetown.
Strong tides from the Atlantic Ocean bring water into the Bay, cleansing the system with nutrient-rich
sea water, maintaining a well-mixed and healthy marine environment.
Melting, dripping ice
adds a new rhythm to the
universal hum
Western skies take on
the glow of the rising sun
Surprising color
Early Morning
Ancient Aquatic Life
Cape Cod Bay's salt water is home to many species of shellfish and finfish including oysters,
quahogs, cherrystone clams, striped bass, flounder, bluefish, and of course, cod.
Horseshoe crabs are the most unusual aquatic animals living in the Bay. Neither fish nor shellfish,
they are closely related to spiders and scorpions. They first appeared 440 million years ago and
have survived all five mass extinction events.
Every spring horseshoe crabs swarm beaches during full and new moons.
Females dig nests in the sand and bury a cluster of 4,000 tiny, delicate eggs.
Only a few will hatch.
Surprisingly, biomedical companies harvest the blood of horseshoe crabs for its unique enzyme
used to detect toxins in medical devices and implants. Although crabs are returned to the wild,
concerns exist. Scientists are now developing synthetic alternatives which will help ensure the
future of horseshoe crabs.
For millennia
feeling high noon on my back
Time to flip over
The Bay kicks up waves
wind and water trading fours
Jazz improvisers
Noon
Birds of the Bay
Cape Cod Bay is a stop on the Atlantic Flyway, the primary migration route for hundreds of species of birds
traveling between breeding and wintering habitats. In the spring, red knots feed on horseshoe crab eggs
before the final leg of their 9,300-mile journey back to the Arctic from the tip of South America.
The small piping plover, a threatened species, returns to Cape Cod every year to breed and raise its young.
After courtship rituals, a pair establishes its nesting territory and forms a depression in the sand for four eggs which
hatch after 25 days. The piping plover's sandy coloring is an excellent camouflage to safeguard the nest.
But if a predator does come close, the young squat motionless and the parents divert attention away from them,
often by feigning a broken wing. Soon the chicks can follow their parents as they forage for crustaceans, marine worms,
and insects they pluck from the sand.
The playful tune of
birds flying in formation
An arpeggio
Stars in the water
brilliance at my fingertips
A glorious sight!
Afternoon
Always Changing
For tens of thousands of years, wind and water have moved sand along Cape Cod Bay shorelines,
tearing down one place and building up another. But climate driven sea level rise and human development
have greatly accelerated the rate of erosion: bluffs over Wellfleet Harbor have receded 54 feet since 2014.
A luxury home built there in 2010 was in danger of collapsing into the Bay until it was demolished in early 2025.
Water changes, too. In 1868, the inlet from the Bay to East Harbor was filled in to help support
a new railroad. Lack of tidal flushing deprived the Harbor of oxygen-rich salt water, causing numerous ecological
issues such as fish kills and overgrowth of non-native plants. Partial tidal restoration began in 2002,
and as the water became more oxygenated, salt marsh vegetation took hold and saltwater species tentatively returned.
Now, aquatic life like horseshoe crabs and soft-shell clams are thriving in East Harbor.
Whistling an old song
the wind whips up the water
shifting sand again
Sunset on the Bay
We need heart-stopping beauty
now and tomorrow
Setting Sun
Though we've lost our way
we do not fear the darkness
Light on the water
Long Point Light
Long Point Light has guided mariners navigating from Cape Cod Bay into Provincetown Harbor since 1827.
The current square brick structure was built in 1875 after substantial erosion threatened the older light. Long Point Light
is on the National Register of Historic Places.
At thirty-eight feet tall, the light station has a range of eight nautical miles. The green light occults every
four seconds, and when there is low visibility, the fog horn sounds a single blast for two seconds, repeating every fifteen seconds.
Although visitors can take a shuttle boat to the remote lighthouse, intrepid travelers can hike
1.5 miles over a rocky, slippery jetty, a trek that can take an hour one way. The isolated location offers views of Provincetown,
the opportunity to see wildlife such as seals, and vistas of the Cape Cod shoreline across the water.
Long Point Light