destination: midcoast maine

J u l y / A u g u s t 2 0 1 5 Art New eNglANd 49

MIDCOAST MAINEMIDCOAST MAINE

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Maine has always exerted a gravi-tational force on serious artists. From historical greats like Frederic

Church, Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley and Fairfield Porter to contemporary masters like Richard Estes, Richard Tuttle, Robert Indiana, Lois Dodd, and even the greatest living glassblower—the Italian maestro Lino Tagliapietra—artists come to Maine to work. Because it is a place of beauty where culture has not come to dominate nature, the hard-working coast is a commonsensical antidote to the culturally urbane urban megalopolis anchored by New York and the catty machina-tions of the artworld.

The appeal is real: Maine has more artists per capita than any other state.

After many years in the gallery world both in New York and on the West Coast, what struck me on my return home was the open attitude of artists and venues in Maine. Here, the art scene is more about community than territory. The fences are not as high and everyone can more easily flow in a less striated world. The galleries, museums, kunsthalles, co-ops, studios, institutions of higher educa-tion, various art groups and artists are more at ease with each other. Consequently, while it is one of the leading art centers in America, Maine’s art scene doesn’t look or feel like other places—and that is a very good thing for everyone. Clusters of museums and phalanxes of galleries make it easier for consumers to sys-tematically cover their quarry, but here the arts

are more naturally blended into the working coastline, the weather-wizened shores and the bold landscape. It’s a scenic context, but it is anything but slick. Maine’s beauty and appeal are free from affect: It is a tough, honest and unpolished place.

So it should come as no surprise that Midcoast is the quiet but professional epicenter of Maine art.

If you are one of the people (like me) who prefers to start at the top of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim and work your way down the spiral, then you might want to con-sider similarly shaping your visit to Maine. Working your way back down the coast even over a weekend can be an idyllic art adventure.

Located just off I-95 less than two hours

DESTINATION MIDCOAST MAINEDESTINATION MIDCOAST MAINE

A pair of Maine Windjammers pass the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse in Rockland, Maine. Photo courtesy of the Maine Office of Tourism.

50 Art New eNglANd J u l y / A u g u s t 2 0 1 5 S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N


into Maine is Maine’s largest and most inter-nationally notable museum: the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville. While it features many major contemporary work by notables such as Sol LeWitt, Duane Hanson, Joan Mitchell, Alex Katz, Chuck Close and Claes Oldenburg, it boasts one of the leading col-lections anywhere of historic American art, including works by Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, James McNeil Whistler, David Smith, Mary Cassatt, Alexander Calder, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe and Robert Henri among so many others.

The drive from Waterville to the notable art town of Belfast on Route 137 is a pleasantly scenic hour. While there are few galleries on the way, many artists live and work there—including some who open their studios to the

public. There so many artist “open-studio” signs around Maine, however, that if you have limited time, it pays to do a bit of research and checking in advance.

Just before Belfast, for example, is J.T. Gibson’s studio in the town of Morrill. Gibson is primarily a bronze sculptor, but he moves and works in several compelling modes. Gibson has done architectural-scaled works for, among others, Maya Lin. And he leads a high-end metal tile firm—Metaphor Bronze Tileworks—in addition to making intimate-scaled sculptural vessels. Gibson’s sculptural work can be seen not only at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art or Corey Daniels Gallery in Wells, but in New York, Santa Fe and in exhibitions around the country.

A few miles from Gibson’s work space is

Petrea Noyes’ coastal studio in Lincolnville. (You can go through Belfast but I prefer the quicker Route 173 through Camden Hills State Park where Edna St. Vincent Millay penned the seminal poem Renascence.) Garnering many awards along the way, Noyes has followed a decades-long painterly path away from oils to digital printmaking. Her exceedingly unusual road through abstraction and figuration has led her to achieve an unusually refined level of digital painting.

Down on the ocean side tip of Deer Isle is the famously charming fishing village of Stonington—one of Maine’s most storied spots for painting. (It takes an hour and a half in summer though the drive alone is worth the trip: Follow Route 1 north and take a right on Route 15 at Five Corners towards Blue Hill.)

26SplitRockcoveA R t i S tR e t R e At

South thomaSton, mEoverlooking mussel Ridge Cove

Workshops, Live/Work Space for artists and

Writers, Studio Rentals

Summer workshops include: Japanese Stab Bindings for the bookmaker,

Painting Clouds and Skies, Water and Wax: an Encaustic Retreat and more

26splitrockcove.com




Stonington’s lively art scene features galler-ies as well as artists’ studios that are open to the public. Jill Hoy, the widow of the late Jon Imber, is a particularly notable artist who opens her studio to the public. Hoy’s work is bright, light and colorful, and refuses to sit still both because of Hoy’s energetic vision and her indefatigable quirkiness. Hoy’s individual eye leads to work that is simultaneously comfort-ably welcoming and boldly joyous.

Back up Route 15 on Deer Isle is Turtle Gallery which has a historic relationship to the nearby internationally-renowed Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. So, not surprisingly, the gallery is one of the best venues in the Northeast for fine craft. Yet from the 100 art-ists and artisans represented by the gallery also emerges a particularly strong body of works on

paper—another specialty of the historic gallery based in an impressively handsome 140 year-old barn.

One of Maine’s brightest new venues is the Cynthia Winings Gallery now in its third sea-son in Blue Hill. Winings took over the Leighton Gallery and infused the broad roster with a crisp contemporary attitude. The gallery ranges from modernism-minded painterly landscapes by Brita Holmquist, Tom Curry and Richard Keen to contemporary works with a savvy and well-crafted edge by Anne Buckwalter, Daniel Anselmi and Tim Christensen.

With acclaimed restaurants such as Francine Bistro, Camden (25 minutes south of Belfast on Route 1) is a particularly pleasant and pictur-esque place to visit. With the impressive ascen-dency of photography in Maine, it’s no longer

odd to see Tillman Crane Photography as one of the leading galleries in a town with such a deep art tradition. Crane is a large format photographer whose platinum prints reveal not only his eye for composition but his masterful touch as a printer.

Rockland, 20 minutes down Route 1 from Camden, is the solid commercial headquarters for Maine art with more than twenty galleries. With its new Toshiko Mori-designed building going up, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art may help redefine Rockland as the clear center for art—including contemporary art—in Maine. The CMCA has moved out of its his-torical Rockport home and will operate in a temporary space in the Bicknell Building at 11 Lime Street in Rockland. This season’s exhibi-tions include a close eye on the groundswell of

338 Main StreetRockland, ME 04841(207) 594-7745carverhillgallery.com

America Martin, Who Holds Peace, 70" × 67", oil and acrylic on canvas.

JILL HOY GALLERY

PLEIN AIR LANDSCAPES

Open Late June–Mid OctoberMonday–Sunday

11–5 & by appointment

80 Main StreetStonington, Maine

207.367.2368207.367.2777

[email protected]

www.jillhoy.com



contemporary photography and “FLOAT,” a nautically-flavored look at the region’s edgiest movement: concept-generated art with an eye to structures, systems and process.

One of the myriad notable galleries sur-rounding Rockland’s renowned Farnsworth Art Museum is CRAFT—an intimate carriage house space featuring ambitiously sophisti-cated fine craft. It’s a particularly excellent venue for artists such as Lissa Hunter and Dudley Zopp who work in both fine art and craft modes.

Yvette Torres Fine Art was one of the gal-lery spaces displaced by the CMCA’s new building in Rockland, but this is likely to be a very good thing for Torres. The gallery, after all, specializes in big brand contemporary art along with Maine modernists such as William

Keinbusch, Charles Duback, Joseph Fiore, Philip Guston and John Heliker among others.

Carver Hill Gallery has emerged as one of the most exciting painting galleries in the state. Maine artists such as Robin Reynolds, Jaap Eduard Elder, Diane Bowie Zaitlin and David Estey remind us that there is plenty of energy not just in landscape but in contempo-rary painting as well. While they are joined by a strong suite of international artists, the roster makes the case that painting will long have a front seat space in Maine.

While Rockland is anchored by the Wyeth-strong Farnsworth and an entire community of commercial galleries, it is also home to differ-ent types of venues and art opportunities. One of these is the Coastal Maine Art Workshops which offers classes for all levels that are held

colby.edu/museum 207.859.5600

Colby College Museum of Ar t, Waterville, Maine

Open: Memorial Day weekend through Columbus Day

Hours:

Monday–Saturday 10am–5:30pm,

Sunday 2–6pm,

winter by appointment

PO Box 219 61 North Deer Isle Road,

Rt 15 Deer Isle, ME 04627

THE TURTLE GALLERY

FINE ART & CONTEMPORARY CRAFTSINCE 1982

theTurtleGallery.com

207 . 348 . 9977




throughout the region. After all, putting a brush in your hand and working en plein air is one of the best ways to learn about painting. And there are reasons why so many folks have been inspired to paint in Maine.

If you want inspired endeavors to be part of your summer experience, just 10 minutes down Route 73 from Rockland is 26 Split Rock Cove artist retreat. While it is quietly situated well off the beaten track, the retreat offers both art and writing workshops. As well, it has a suite of studios and a rentable apartment with views of the ocean available to members of the creative public.

Located in the heart of Walderboro village (a half hour south of Rockland on Route 1), Philippe Guillerm Gallery special-izes in contemporary sculpture and painting.

Guillerm was born and trained in France and has an impressively long international résumé. Inspired by the biomorphic logic of nature and the sea, Guillerm’s sculptural work often incor-porates a surrealistic liveliness into the forms of traditional musical instruments.

Monhegan is one of Maine’s most famous places for art. The ferries to Monhegan leave from Port Clyde, New Harbor and Boothbay, another of Maine’s art town gems. (Check their locations and schedules against your own itinerary to see which makes the most sense for you; for someone traveling into and back out of Maine, Boothbay is the most likely choice.) Monhegan features a mix of museum, gallery and studio spaces. Most notable is the Monhegan Museum located at the historic lighthouse station built in 1824. Perched high

above the village with breathtaking views, the museum houses both an extensive historical collection and an art gallery. This year’s main exhibition is a survey of the work of Marin-esque modernist Lamar Dodd titled Half a Century of Monhegan Summers.

One Monhegan artist who opens her space (on Thursdays in August) to the public is Kate Cheney Chappell, a talented printmaker, book-artist and watercolorist. She’s represented locally by the Lupine Gallery where she is co-curating an August exhibition about Monhegan women artists. Carina House is the combined studios and home of Katherine and Steven Aimone. Until 2007, the building previously housed the prestigious Monhegan Artists’ Residency. Teachers as well as artists, the Aimones may be familiar to some visitors from

John Bowdren, Quiet Cove, 37" × 49", oil on canvas (call the gallery for price)

beautify with ease •

fine art and picture framing

720 Route 1Yarmouth, ME207-846-7777

YarmouthFrameAndGallery.com

YarmouthFrameGallery

&

John Bowdren, Quiet Cove, 37" × 49", oil on canvas (call the gallery for price)



their Thomaston art workshops as well as from their painting.

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art (45 minutes south of Boothbay on Route 1) anchors Brunswick, which houses many artist studios as well as a few leading galleries. The museum, originally designed by the storied American architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White was expanded recently by Machado and Silvetti of Boston. The museum houses a world-class collection not only of classical art headlined by Assyrian reliefs and Greek vases but American works by the likes of Winslow Homer, Martin Johnson Heade, Gilbert Stuart,

Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt and Rockwell Kent among many others. This summer’s lead exhibition is a brilliant show of nocturnes in American art ranging from 1860—1960.

Route 1 can easily be seen as Maine’s artis-tic backbone: All along the route are excellent venues both large and small. Many are obvious destinations but many others are more quietly situated in their communities. If you want to gain an intimate understanding of local color and local flavors, it’s often worth it to check in with the community galleries. Located 20 min-utes south of Brunswick (and 10 minutes north of Portland), Yarmouth Frame and Gallery is

one such example. It has an intimate space and features a wide range of work, including some impressively notable artists such as Catherine Breer, Mary Brooking and the watercolorist Michael Boardman.

Midcoast Maine is one of the most beautiful places in America. But the rugged landscape hardly makes for long, straight highways. Its semi-inaccessiblity combined with the vernacu-lar work ethic and distance from the exhausting big city artworld is precisely why Midcoast is a preferred place for serious artists. These same reasons also make it a great place to visit.

—Daniel Kany

Rockland, Belfast and aBRoad!

207.594.4813www.coastalmaineartworkshops.com

Plein Air Classes in Maine and Europe! WC, Oils & Pastel

Strolling the beach at Reid State Park in Georgetown. Photo courtesy of the Maine Office of Tourism.

destination: midcoast maine

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