Ewa Liput
Ewa (pronounced Eva) emigrated from Poland to attend art school in the United States. She went fishing to pay her college tuition and got “hooked.” She fished for 24 years, eventually becoming the first female captain of an offshore scallop vessel. She also got a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University. Much of her artwork relates to her experiences fishing.
“I get my first job on the Michigan. It just happens because the owner of Michigan knew that I could do okay on water on a boat. But honestly, he just refused. He said it’s not very popular for a woman to go on a fishing industry. When I started fishing, the fishing wasn’t booming. The fishing had the good years and had the bad years. It was a very bad time for fishing and the trips was relatively small. So I was lucky that the fishing wasn’t that good and the boat was short with the crew. I said ‘What about now you don’t have all guys?’ and he said ‘Oh I don’t care.’ So, actually I get the job.”
“Well, it’s anytime when I was out on the ocean, I was guilty that I don’t do artwork and anytime I was home doing artwork, I feel just disappointed that I am not out. So this is you know, duality of the life you always think that you should do something else.”
“Well, the challenging things about fishing it’s that you have to interpolate between government regulations and how to effectively use the days for fishing because it’s very regulated industry and only allows so much time.”
“So at some point, I was a deckhand and I also was a cook, because the women are nice, they never refuse, you don’t refuse that you work longer hours, you learn more too but it’s how it is it’s how it is, you know the men aren’t afraid to ask a woman for extra work.”
“Yeah, it’s affected because now when I become older, I really try to enjoy every day, I start to enjoy people very much. You know, it’s like before you couldn’t just convince me to do any interview. But right now, I just enjoy to meet the people.”
