"Artists are sure lucky. I can take a vacation and deduct it from my income tax!'' While that may be so, Mississippi-born professional artist Terry Elkins has no plans to truly "vacation'' during his month-long stay here.

Unlike most visitors who are content to put their minds on hold for a while and laze in the sun, he has come armed with all the necessary materials to paint, paint, paint. And to ensure that he does, a friend made for him "a really neat'' sketch book.

"It is canvas-bound, and on its leather spine it says `Bermuda' at the top, and `Elkins' at the bottom,'' the artist says. "So I am going to explore and paint. I guess you could call it a working vacation.'' Yet that is only one half of the story. Mr. Elkins is also opening his first one-man show at the Burnaby Gallery this evening. Perfectly timed to coincide with the Tall Ships' visit, his works reflect an abiding fascination with marine and nautical subjects.

"I have always been interested in the sea, and I particularly like the ocean and the beach,'' he explains. "I grew up surfing and travelling to a lot of places each summer to look for that perfect wave. I have really adopted that landscape/seascape into my work.'' A long-time resident of eastern Long Island, Mr. Elkins' home is a mere mile from the shore, which gives him easy access to a fascinating collection of ocean bays, coves, waterways, beaches and grasslands.

Added to this is what he calls the area's "peninsula light''.

"One of the reasons artists have always been drawn to eastern Long Island is because of the light, and the wonderful colour of the light -- how it changes from day to day and dawn to dusk,'' he says.

While the area is rich in inspiration, it is by no means the artist's sole source. He also refers to pre-existing images of old vessels, including tall ships, often combining them with nautical charts to create what he calls a collage.

If a subject particularly pleases him, he will use it again and again, though always with a different interpretation. Thus, it is possible to see a tall ship sailing in thick mist in one oil painting, and then discover the same vessel against the backdrop of a nautical chart.

Though not the first artist to use such charts as his "canvas'', Mr. Elkins acknowledges that, because of the wealth of detail they contain, any image superimposed upon them could result in mass confusion, both to the artist and viewer. Clearly, however, he overcomes the possibility with exquisite ease.

"It takes concentration,'' he admits. "You are struggling to look past what is already there. I don't want to sound boastful, but they are very well drawn. I spend a lot of time and take great pains to discover all the details that I can include in the work. After drawing on hundreds of charts, there are a lot of little things I have picked up on. If you look at something long enough, you really begin to see it. In fact, I know a lot about charts that maybe your average sailor wouldn't realise.'' Indeed, Mr. Elkins says observation is an important component of his study of art.

"The first time you look at something you glance at it. You tend to think you know what it is, but if you turn away you probably couldn't remember it very well until you look at it again and again,'' he explains. "It's like playing a violin. After you have played the music ten times it becomes more free-flowing and you can ad lib.

"That is probably why I return to the same images again and again, and of course there are certain images that I return to because they are like favourite tunes.'' Sea shells are another example of this philosophy, and several studies are included in his show. Like the story of how he ended up in Long Island instead of New York City -- "I took the wrong turn when I got off the Verrazano Narrows Bridge'' -- his interest in this subject was accidental.

"I was having dinner at Sag Harbour with my friend Blake, and typically he offered me the last oyster on his plate. I ate it and spat out a pearl as big as my little fingernail. Afterwards, I saw the owner of the hotel and showed it to her. She claimed it was hers and told me to give it to her, but I said it was mine. Instead, I gave her a painting of it, and that's how I got started.'' Getting started as a professional artist, however, stretches back to his childhood when, from the age of six, his mother regularly challenged him to draw various objects as a way of keeping her son occupied. The love of art never left him, and today he holds both Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees.

"In getting my MFA at the University of Houston I met a lot of great artists, including Willem de Koonie, Malcolm Morley and David Brooke,'' Mr. Elkins recalls. "They made me aware that there was a big world out there, and caused me to want to go to New York, travel and explore.'' Which is what he has been doing ever since.

"While I thought at first about eastern Long Island for my work, as I travelled I realised that the ocean covers the whole world, so I thought `Wouldn't it be fantastic to travel the world and make art like Homer?' I am kind of doing that right now.'' In addition to being a well-established artist whose works sell so well that one avid collector, who owns some 30 pieces, might fly in for his show, Mr.

Elkins teaches at the Art Barge in summer -- a seasonal art school in Long Island originally established for members of New York's Museum of Modern Art -- an assignment which allows him to combine his fondness for painting en plein air with capturing the many changes wrought by nature as days pass in one location.

In a community which does not accept "outsiders'' readily -- the death of one resident who spent 100 of his 101 years in the area was recorded by the daily as a `Brooklyn man' -- Mr. Elkins is proud to note that he has not only been accepted as an artist, but also as a friend.

Again through happenstance, he became a highly experienced emergency medical technician with the Bridgehampton Volunteer Fire Department.

"It is a great way to give back to the community, and meet its members,'' he says. "I have really enjoyed it, and after three years I think I have come across almost every type of accident and trauma except delivering a baby.'' But art remains Mr. Elkins' raison d'e otre, and he paints in mixed media between eight and ten hours a day.

"I am fairly disciplined, and I am a little bit possessed,'' he confesses.

"I wake up in the morning and I am ready to go. I am always looking and thinking, and I love my work.'' Terry Elkins' exhibition, entitled Nautical Works, opens at the Burnaby Gallery in the LOM Building at the corner of Burnaby and Reid Streets today, and continues through June 20. Gallery hours are: Tuesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.