CHARLIE HEWITT
Jim Kempner Fine Art
It was a dark December night when Jocelyn Lee, the artist and director of Speedwell projects in Portland Maine, asked me if I would consider putting a sculpture on the roof of the Speedwell building. I said yes and the first thought that came to me was that this piece needed to be about light. Maine is a dark place in the winter and I felt compelled to illuminate that corner of our world. Just then I didn’t know how or with what.
The creative rumination began. I had been working with neon and enjoyed the color and romance of light but getting something up on that roof at the scale was hard to figure out. Then one day I walked into the Neo Kraft Signs fabrication shop. It was a revelation. I saw possibilities there that I didn’t know were available to me. It was the chance to vbc my images as retro marquee sculpture and on a huge scale. I had the concept, a bold statement with a message spelled out in bright colors and marquee lights. Now I needed a word, but what word? After weeks of thinking through all the possibilities I had an epiphany while in the midst of a political discussion with my art dealer and friend Jim Kempner. The word Hopeful popped up somewhere in our conversation and right then I knew that would be the message, it felt so right for the moment. As time goes by, this message continues to resonate. I asked David Wolfe at Wolfe Editions to help me create a font that would best carry this message. He brilliantly conceived of a retro automobile design, which I loved because it spoke to me of an earlier time when the highway was the frontier, when the car and the
road signs danced in harmony in a country excited by possibilities. Of a bright future, illuminated by roadside marquee signs. A creative littering of the highway, extolling the prospects of great meals, fine night stays and the prospect of adventure, it was the time of my youth and a time in America when we felt compelled to see our great country and taste and participate in all its promise.
Top: Installation at the Bates Mill, Lewiston, ME
Right: A proposal to install Hopeful in Asbury Park, NJ
Throughout the shut-down of New York City due to the global pandemic, people who lived in Chelsea started tagging Jim Kempner Fine Art on Instagram in photos of the 120” Hopeful sign installed in the window. On April 3rd, Tracy Memoli wrote, “HOPEFUL. ‘Hope is being able to se that there is light despite all the darkness’ – Desmond Tutu. This week was hard. Hope next week will be better. And hopeful each week will continue to get better as we move towards the light and move towards healing.”
Speedwell Projects, Portland, ME
Speedwell Projects, Portland, ME
Curtis Memorial Library
Brunswick, Maine
“Your sign in Portland has meant so much to me. When I’m feeling discouraged I go out of my way to see it. Thank you for building your wonderful light of hope.”
— Nancy, in Portland ME
Greenwich, Connecticut
Lewiston’s ‘Hopeful’ sign makes appearance at Joe Biden’s inauguration
sunjournal.com/2021/01/20/lewistons-hopeful-sign-makes-appearance-at-joe-bidens-inauguration/
By Steve Collins
January 21, 2021
Lewiston residents Barbara Alberda and her daughter Amanda, a senior at Boston College, high-five in front of the “Hopeful” sign displayed on the Main Street side of Bates Mill No. 5 in Lewiston. Their video was shown Wednesday evening during the nationally televised “Celebrating America” as part of the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
LEWISTON — Near the end of the 90-minute inauguration special Wednesday, a brief clip of two women in front of the the city’s “Hopeful” sign caught the attention of many in Maine.
Lewiston residents Barbara Alberda and her daughter Amanda, a senior at Boston College, were shown high-fiving each other while holding a hand-printed sign that said, “Together We Accomplish More.”
Behind them was artist Charlie Hewitt’s “Hopeful” sign on the side of Bates Mill No. 5 on Main Street.
“It’s really pretty cool” that the picture ended up in the video presentation, Barbara Alberda said late Wednesday
Related
Clockwise from top right: Jim Kempner Fine Art in New York, NY
Installation in Easton, MD Yarmouth, ME
Jersey City, New Jersey
Transcarpathian Academy of Art Uzhhorod Ukraine
“I love Charlie’s message that hope requires action. It’s a commitment. I believe the same. Mood follows action.”
—
Emily, in Portland ME
Bangor, Maine
Easton, Maryland
Screenprint with diamond dust, 28 x 44”
Edition 80
With Charlie Hewitt Woodcuts (hanging)
Both pages at Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
Hopeful, 2020
Hopeful, 2020
Screenprint with diamond dust, 28 x 44”
Jim Kempner Fine Art, Chelsea, NYC
“I would love to bring this amazing piece of artwork to our city. I truly believe this sign could make a very big impact in our community for so many reasons and for so many people.”
—
Bath ME
Pictured above: New Canaan, Connecticut
Michelle, in
Left Image: Newark, NJ
“I really love what you created with the Hopeful sign. The word just gives everyone a glimpse of what the future could be.”
— Adam, in Harpswell ME
Pictured above: Palermo Maine
KFS students inspired by Charlie Hewitt’s Hopeful
Easton, Maryland
“Hopeful is not a passive work – it’s a challenge and a responsibility. It’s a silent prayer, it’s a leap of faith you take that it’s going to be better. To be hopeful requires action, it requires commitment, it requires opening your eyes, it requires being part of something. It requires being passionately in love with your country, passionately in love with your family, and passionately in love with everyone in your community. That passion and that love I want back. I want a resurgence in my soul for that kind of life.”
- Charlie Hewitt
Ellsworth, Maine
Bronx, New York
Lincolin Tunnel,
Photo by OUTFRONT Media photographer Damien Donck
Click here to watch Charlie Hewitt’s feature on Pix11
Speedwell Projects, Portland, ME
Augusta, Maine
“This morning I read the article about Charlie Hewitt’s Hopeful in The NY Times. Shortly thereafter, as I began my work getting ready for the Spring Semester as a Professor and Program Coordinator in Educational Leadership, I could not stop thinking about Charlie’s message. I have been truly hopeful all day — sometimes for the somewhat mundane (but not necessarily unimportant), but mostly because Charlie’s Hopeful is going to become the focal point for my work with students this Spring.
The pandemic has wreaked havoc on so much — including schools. It is hard to instill excitement and positivity at this time, especially when they are studying to become school leaders, a hard job that has become even harder. As I begin the new semester, I plan to share with them Charlie’s message and help them to be Hopeful just as his message helped me to be Hopeful as well.”
— Claudia, in Portland ME
Charlie & Kate Hewitt
Bangor, Maine
170th St Station Bronx, NY
Lexington Park, MA
BORN
1946 Lewiston, ME
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Silk Roads, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
Left of the Turnpike, Cove Street Arts, Portland, ME
Abstract Paintings and Electric Dreams, Courthouse Gallery, Ellsworth, ME
2018 ELECTRIC DREAMS: Recent Paintings & Neon, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
Icon Contemporary, New Brunswick, ME
2016 New Paintings, Sculpture & Ceramics, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
2014 White Light, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
2012 Woodcuts, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT
Greenwich Art Council, Greenwich, CT
2010 Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
Icon Gallery, Portland, ME
2008 Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
2007 Hot Off The Press, New York, NY
Whitney Art Works, Portland, ME
2006 Farnsworth Musaeum, Rockland, ME
Bates College Museum, Lewiston, ME
2005 Jim Kempner Fine Art, NYC
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS
1999 Group Show, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
Lasting Impressions, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
1998 Woodcuts, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
1997 Vinalhaven Press, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
1996 Dead Space Gallery, Portland, ME
Fletcher Priest Gallery, Worchester, MA
The Art Exchange, New York, NY
PERMANENT SCULPTURE INSTALLATIONS
2019 Hopeful, Speedwell Projects, Portland, ME
2015 Portland Rattle, 511 Congress Street, Portland ME
L/A Rattle, L/A Arts, Lewiston, ME
2013 Brooklyn Swing: Primera Companies, Dallas, TX
Urban Rattle: Equity Builders for Ten23 Apartments (Highline Park), New York, NY
GRANTS AND AWARDS
1998 New York Foundation for the Arts, Painting
1997 New York Foundation for the Arts, Drawings, Prints
1974 New York State Council of the Arts, CAPS Grant
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2010 Charlie Hewitt: Sculpture
Charlie Hewitt: Drawings for Illuminations
2009 Charlie Hewitt: Woodcuts
2007 Cut, Scrape, Gouge, Cut: The Graphic Work of Charlie Hewitt, Essay by David Becker, Bates College
Charlie Hewitt at Work, Essay by E.A. Beem, Farnsworth Museum
2001 Art on Paper, “Working Proof,” page 73.
2000 Lasting Impressions, Portland Museum, catalogue by Bruce Brown
1997
Vinalhaven Press, Portland Museum, catalogue by April Galant
SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
New York Public Library, New York, NY
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY
Prudential Insurance, New York, NY
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
State University of New York, Binghamton, NY
MIT, List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
The Fogg Museum, Boston, MA
Farnsworth Museum of Art, Rockland, ME
Colby College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME
