DESTINATION PORTLAND & SOUTHERN ME
PORTLAND PORTLAND & & S. S. MAINE MAINE
DESTINATION PORTLAND & SOUTHERN ME
Lucky Catch, waterfront, Portland, ME. Photo: Corey Templeton. Courtesy of the Greater Portland Convention + Visitors Bureau.
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or centuries, the geography of Southern Maine has inspired artists and art lovers. Creative communities dot the coastline from the Piscataqua River to the Androscoggin and provide classes, galleries, museums, lectures and events for residents and visitors. Many of these walkable towns boast open studio and gallery opportunities including “First Friday” celebrations. In the southern coastal town of York, Maine you’ll find antique quilts and textiles in abundance. At Rocky Mountain Quilts, Betsey Telford-Goodwin has been tending a quilt gallery for 30 years. “Textiles and art are in my family background,” she says citing her great-grandfather’s running of New England textile mills from Connecticut to Massachusetts. Her vetted antique shop specializes in original unused condition quilts from 1780 to 1950. Telford-Goodwin has over 500 quilts that range from doll- to king-
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sized and represent many cultures including African-American, Amish, Early New England, Folk Art and even Hawaiian. The Rocky Mountain Quilts New York-caliber showroom is open year round and most of the quilts can be found on her website. In addition to her quilt gallery, Telford-Goodwin restores quilts with same date or older fabrics; hand washes antique quilts in her bathtub and appraises. “I’m a fabric junkie,” she says and is well known in the antique quilt world from Japan to Europe. Her quilt and fabric collections and her knowledge of antique textile care have been featured in various magazines. Betsey Telford-Goodwin helps antique quilt lovers find and care for authentic, colorful and graphic quilts. She’d love to meet with you. While in York, follow the York River to the George Marshall Store Gallery. What’s inside the antique 1867 building is truly contemporary. The inspired space and curator Mary Harding’s
carefully designed exhibits have drawn thousands of visitors to the gallery each year since 1996. “It was never my intention to be—now 20 years later—running a gallery. But here we are.” Openings are often community events and a trip to the gallery may result in meeting Harding herself. If she has time for a chat, you’re bound to learn more about the exhibits and history of the one-time general store now owned, and maintained by, the Museums of Old York. Some of the exhibits at the George Marshall Store connect to the Museum thematically. “I try to balance my exhibitions so there is lots of variety, and I like to introduce new artists and work.” This summer you’ll see contemporary artists from New England including Courtney Sandborn, Phyllis Ewen, Wendy Prellwitz, David Ernster, Donald Saaf and Julia Zanes. Artist Susan Amons is another regular exhibiter at the George Marshall Store. Her large-scale
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PORTLAND PORTLAND & & S. S. MAINE MAINE monoprints celebrate the natural world—egrets wing their way across salt marshes; herons fish on sandbars and caribou and salmon migrate toward an unknown destination. These animals, as well as bear, snowy owls, octopi and others, inhabit Monoprints 2017 an observational-based series that begins with Amons’ loose sketches. Next she layers printed animals over saturated fields of color. “[Her prints] take on an almost mythic feel as she applies a keen eye and hand to conjure what she regards as totem animals…” wrote Edgar Allen Beem in Downeast Magazine. This summer, Amons’ artwork can be seen at Mast Cove Galleries in Kennebunkport, Hurlbutt Designs in Kennebunk, the George Marshall Store and the Courthouse Gallery in Ellsworth. Susan Amons’ prints and paintings can be found
in the Portland Museum of Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum, Colby, Bates and Bowdoin College permanent collections. Just north of York is Ogunquit—which means “beautiful place by the sea,” in Abenaki language—home to the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (OMAA)—a low-roofed building that hugs the shoreline and blends the lines between art and nature with large windows that look out onto the sea. Surrounded by an everchanging garden full of sculpture, it’s the only museum in the state of Maine devoted exclusively to the exhibition and collection of American Art. The collection includes paintings, photography and graphics from both Maine and national artists. This summer, the early works of beloved Maine artist Dahlov Ipcar will appear in Dahlov
Ipcar: Creative Growth (through June 30). Ipcar, whose modern animals spring across murals in schools and libraries around Maine, lived and painted in Georgetown, ME and passed away this winter at the age of 99. “What better way to celebrate the life and career of this extraordinary woman than by revisiting her premiere exhibition, which will bring much deserved attention to her achievements in painting and sculpture,” says Michael Mansfield, executive director and chief curator of OMAA. The museum is open daily from May 1 through October 31. Travel inland from ocean’s edge towards the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. The marshes in this natural biological filter appear and disappear with the tide and are home to a diverse collection of flora and fauna. At the
DAHLOV IpcAr: creAtIVe GrOwtH May 1 - June 30
Dahlov Ipcar, Celeste in Kitchen (detail), 1930, poster paint, 241⁄2 x 38”
ogunquitmuseum.org
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PORTLAND PORTLAND & & S. S. MAINE MAINE
GALLERIES AT MEC PLAN YOUR VISIT THIS SUMMER!
BOB CREWE GALLERY
nearby Corey Daniels Gallery you’ll find space for aesthetic diversity. Antiques are displayed besides installations, paintings and drawings, as well as utilitarian and found objects. This habitat of the sublime, contemporary and compelling is housed in a re-purposed early 19th century Colonial and connected barn. High ceilings allow for monumental paintings and industrial salvage. Like the marvelous estuary only miles away, each piece works in concert with the whole. All of the assembled items of mid-career and emerging artists in the collection play with patina, texture and form. “Our 2017 season promises an eclectic and provocative line-up that includes emerging out-of-state artists and highly respected, established Maine artists,” says Sarah Bouchard, co-director of the gallery. The Colonial Revival building on Main Street in Saco, the gateway to Maine’s south coast, houses the third oldest museum in Maine. Founded in March of 1866 as the York Institute, the Dyer Library/Saco Museum showcases a collection that includes decorative and household objects, furniture, textiles and costumes. It has the finest and largest collection of portraits by the renowned deaf artist John Brewster, Jr. The Saco Museum’s merger with the Dyer Library in the 1970s provides today’s visitors with access to thousands of books and documents relating to the exhibits, the permanent collection and Maine history. This summer, the Saco Museum partners with the University of New Hampshire Museum of Art to present Embellishments in Victorian Fashion (May 13 through August 27). Curated by textile historian
Astrida Schaeffer, the exhibit features 47 garments and focuses on how 19th century aesthetics influenced women’s clothing and design. Construction elements in the exhibit include ruching, pleating, ribbon work and asymmetry. If the exhibits in the Saco Museum are carefully curated and contained you need drive only 10 minutes to find a different aesthetic. The sign at 98 Hearn Road, Saco for the Two Diamond Artfarm announces “Free Range Sculpture.” Indeed, art is planted all around the four acres. It sprouts in horse stalls, on the grounds and around the barn. The “farmer” is artist and poet Patrick Pierce, an Oregonian native who found the perfect Maine landscape four years ago for his wood, metal and found-material sculptures and installations. He sees every piece as a voyage of discovery, “visible jazz,” that allows him to replace the cerebral with the physical. “There’s nothing like an ax in the hand shaping a cherry tree to get you in touch with your inner rhythms,” he says. The large, red horse barn on the farm serves as both a workspace and studio for Pierce whose pieces can stand alone for outdoor display or be hung on walls. Both sophisticated and “brutish,” the materials are hammered, carved and bent. Pierce calls Two Diamond ArtFarm the most reposeful four acres around, yet he can’t take credit for the geography of this special place. He does, however, invite others to experience it. From fields filled with contemporary sculpture, travel to Ocean House Gallery & Frame a cozy, seaside cottage in Cape Elizabeth—home of the Portland Head Light, a historic light-
May 27 - July 9, 2017
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Located in the heart of Downtown Portland’s thriving arts district. 800.639.4808 | 522 Congress Street, Portland, Maine 04101 | meca.edu/galleries
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Paintings by Brian Chu Anna Dibble Kate Emlen Ceramics by Paul Heroux
K. Emlen, Detail, Not One Not Two
Tuesday - Saturday 10-5 Sunday 1-5
140 Lindsay Road, York, Maine georgemarshallstoregallery.com
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PORTLAND PORTLAND & & S. S. MAINE MAINE house—owned by artist Graham Wood. Wood, who attended the School of Visual Arts, has been crafting fine frames for over 18 years. The frames are fashioned from reclaimed and salvaged woods. “I reuse materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill,” he says. The results, with complex miters and contrasting wood tones, are often as artistic as the work inside. The frame shop is also a year-round gallery that represents an eclectic collection of contemporary Maine artists. The works include paintings and other fine works on paper. Ocean House will exhibit Diane Bowie Zaitlin (June 8 through July 15), whose works include cold wax, paint and encaustic techniques. “I’m most excited about the materials and abstract quality of the work that make Diane’s pieces so unique,” says Wood. Leave the residential community of Cape Elizabeth for the “big city” via the Casco Bay Bridge and into the heart of Portland’s art district, Congress Street. Artist Jeff Woodbury will have a two-month solo exhibition at the Vestibule594 gallery on Congress Street starting May 5. Woodbury has lived around the world from England to Hawaii, and his art reflects his life experiences. He calls his show an artistic wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities. Daniel Kany from the Portland Press Herald has called Woodbury’s work “an artistic trifecta: content, presentation, and technique.” Woodbury dissects maps, makes rubbings of bark beetle tracks in the woods, creates instruments out of beach stones, makes prints from toy guns and more. This solo show will allow people to see his range. His work is in several institutional collections includ-
ing the Portland Museum of Art, the University of New England and the Yale University Art Gallery. If you find yourself farther up the Maine coast, look for Woodbury’s Prints from Toy Guns series piece in the 25th Anniversary Peregrine Press exhibition at the Haystack Center for Community Programs gallery. Across the street and down the block, the Maine College of Art is located on Congress Street in the old Porteous Department Store building, and the faculty there educates the next generation of artists in all mediums. Here you’ll find the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), which features innovative exhibitions and public programs that showcase new perspectives and trends in contemporary art. The expansive galleries have housed collaborative printmaking exhibits, installations and video exhibits, and their most recent spring show, UNLOADED, that explored the historical and social issues around guns in our culture. This summer, the ICA will present American Genre: Contemporary Landscape, Portraiture and Still Life, and Painting. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with artist, writer and curator Michelle Grabner on our summer exhibition. Grabner is the Crown Family Professor in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” says Erin Hutton, director of exhibitions and special projects at the ICA. Exhibits at the ICA often include educational and participatory elements that encourage interaction with the themes and mediums explored in the exhibits. Located on Brown Street, a side street one
13 BROWN STREET PORTL AND, MAINE RABKINFOUNDATION.ORG
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block south of the Maine College of Art, is the Portland office and gallery of The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation. The light and airy gallery with tall ceilings is open by appointment. Leo Rabkin’s interest in abstract art was nurtured by a foundation in classical music and a life as a guidance counselor. Both music and psychoanalysis influenced his ability to think abstractly and increased his appreciation of abstract art. He served as president of the American Abstract Artists group from 1964 to 1978. Rabkin’s well-known cigar and antique box constructions and assemblages play with space and texture combining paper folding, stitching and wire in three dimensions. Shape, form and color morph on Rabkin’s watercolor and canvas pieces and remind the viewer of Rothko or a Rorschach test. Natural and manufactured materials are suspended in Plexiglas prompting questions about art being safely contained or imprisoned. The exhibit of over a thousand abstract works seems to go on and on, challenging the viewer at every turn. Behind a wrought iron fence, set back from busy Congress Street, is the Maine Jewish Museum. The museum, in the turn-of-the-century restored Etz Chaim Synagogue, provides a deeper look into the history of the Maine Jewish community, the historical sanctuary and renovation, and rotating exhibits of contemporary art by Jewish-connected, Maine-connected artists. Richard Brown Lethem’s acrylics on canvas will be on exhibit May 4 through July 9. His paintings feature indigenous feather and horse motifs, earth tones and themes of move-
Patrick Pierce
free range sculpture Saco, ME | PatrickPierce.com | #artfarm
May/June 2017
Art New England 64
PORTLAND PORTLAND & & S. S. MAINE MAINE ment and a sense of place. From July 13 through September 10, two eclectic artists will be in the exhibit spaces. Anne Ireland uses unexpected color in landscapes to add a bit of mystery and surprise to her otherwise observational work. “My work is informed by the feeling of magic and mystery that I still feel in this place—it always invites me in,” says Ireland. The second artist in the exhibit will be Anita Clearfield who presents both non-representational paintings that are vibrant with saturated hues, and installations that bring together paint, video and found materials. Leave the city and venture to the small towns north of Portland and you’ll be in Yarmouth within 30 minutes. Plan to visit the eclectic two- and three- dimensional work from
24 exhibiting artists at Yarmouth Frame and Gallery. Works include Maine artist Martin Kremer’s blown glass ladders and vessels, contemporary impressionistic landscapes from New Hampshire’s Jennifer Van Cor, John Bowdren’s realistic Maine seascapes and Catherine Breer’s landscapes that depict the vibrancy and everchanging light of Acadia National Park. Images of the work are available on their website. “Aesthetically, I give consideration to the transition of palette, subject, energy and style. The intimacy and nuances to detail have earned the gallery a loyal following,” says gallery curator Elizabeth Newman. This summer, enjoy David Little: The Art of Portland, which accompanies a book by the same title that the artist will publish with his brother writer and critic Carl Little. The
gallery will host a reception and book signing in late summer. Yarmouth Frame and Gallery also provides custom picture framing and restoration of art on paper or canvas. The plethora of galleries and museums of Southern Maine bring an art lover a lifetime of joy, aesthetic stimulation and repose. Each destination brings you not only closer to the artists who work in Southern Maine but to the communities in which they live. You’ll meet their neighbors and see their inspiration up close. Maybe you’ll even create a sketch or two. Whether your artistic interests are realistic or abstract, impressionist or contemporary, figurative or landscape, you’ll find a lot to love in the galleries and museums of Southern Maine. —Anna E. Jordan
Maine Jewish Museum 2017 Exhibitions
BETSEY TELFORDGOODWIN’S
ROCKY MOUNTAIN QUILTS
January 12- March 5 Neil Welliver
130 York St., York, ME
March 9 - April 30 Randy Fein Mirlea Saks
One hour north of Boston
May 4 - July 9 Richard Brown Lethem
FOR SALE 550 ANTIQUE QUILTS 1780 to 1950
July 13 - September 10 Anita Clearfield Anne Ireland
Quilt Restoration, Professional Washing & Appraisals
Open year round
September 14 - November 5 Linda Stein: Holocaust Heros: Fierce Women
SUSANAMONS.com
November 9 - January 7, 2018 Kathy Weinberg Jeffrey Ackerman
samons@maine.rr.com
rockymountainquilts.com 207-363-6800
Courthouse Gallery George Marshall Store
Mast Cove Gallery Hurlbutt Designs
Italy Workshop: fineartstudioitalia.com
Maine Jewish Museum 267 Congress Street, Portland Maine (207) 773-2339 Monday - Friday 10am-2pm, Sundays 1pm - 5pm or by appointment Nancy Davidson, Curator (207) 239-4774
720 Route 1, Yarmouth, ME 04096 | 207-846-7777 YarmouthFrameAndGallery.com
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