Category: Maine

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Giving it away

Photo courtesy of the Gunnings.
George and Donna Gunning and Burt Truman have made 2,474 eagle canes and given them free of charge to any Maine veteran who wants one.
About eight years ago, the Gunnings heard about the Eagle Cane Project, an Oklahoma-based organization that makes canes for disabled post-9/11 veterans. George Gunning is a Navy vet and Donna grew up in a Navy family. The idea moved them. They were joined by Burt Truman, who spent two decades in the Navy, Army Reserve, and Air National Guard.
Their version offers a personalized presentation cane to any Maine veteran who has served anywhere, in any conflict. Each cane has a carved and painted eagle’s head, the recipient’s name, and medals indicating their branch of service and honors.
Photo courtesy of the Gunnings.
The canes are funded solely through donations.
The trio were recently honored in the Senate by Maine’s junior senator (and former governor) Angus King. “Earlier in March, I was meeting with members of the Maine Veterans of Foreign Wars, and one of the gentlemen had with him a beautifully carved cane that caught my eye. Thinking it was the only of its kind I asked him where he found something so unique. Needless to say, I was shocked and impressed to hear that, although it was personalized, it was one of thousands made in the same Windsor workshop,” he wrote.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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This blog is on a two-hour snow delay

Shadow on Frankfort Barren, 1982, Neil Welliver

Last week was historically the coldest week of the year. That should be a relief, but we’ve got at least another week of subzero weather on the forecast. The whole northeast has struggled with snow and extreme cold this winter. Anyone who watches the weather recognizes this as a reprise of last year, and wonders if we’re entering an extreme cold cycle.
Unyarded Deer, Neil Welliver.
Nevertheless I generally like winter, and I particularly like the paintings of Neil Welliver.
Welliver studied at Yale with abstract painters Burgoyne Diller and Josef Albers. He went on to teach at Cooper Union, Yale, and Penn.
Cold Claudia, 1969, Neil Welliver. Too often the figures in his mid-period paintings look like empty spaces around which the landscape crowds. To me that’s an unconscious attempt to get past the academic idea that the figure is the highest representation of painting.
While teaching at Yale, Welliver dropped abstraction in favor of realistic landscape painting. In the early 1960s he began vacationing in Maine, where he began integrating figure in the landscape. In 1970 he moved permanently to Lincolnville, ME. Shortly thereafter, his mature style was born.
Welliver based his huge finished works on plein air sketches done in the wood and coastline near his home.
Study for Allagash Ice Flow, 1997, Neil Welliver.
“Painting outside in winter is not a macho thing to do. It’s more difficult than that. To paint outside in the winter is painful. It hurts your hands, it hurts your feet, it hurts your ears. Painting is difficult. The paint is rigid, it’s stiff, it doesn’t move easily. But sometimes there are things you want and that’s the only way you get them,” he said.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here. 
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Gone shopping

A good studio-center location should have rocks and sea and sunsets…
Yesterday I wrote about my property search this week in Maine. What does this mean for my painting and my students?
I’ve worked with some fine properties over the years. Unfortunately, some have gone out of business and some have changed their business structure. Furthermore, it’s unfair to expect hotels to welcome paint and turps slopped on their meeting-room carpeting. A studio is a godsend in inclement weather and for critique or instruction. That is easy enough in Rochester, but has been difficult in Maine.
It should have lighthouses, like this one painted by Nancy Woogen at Marshall’s Point in 2013.
I’m not interested in running my own inn, so there has to be ample housing at all price points. It must be a short drive to great painting sites, because nobody wants to spend all day in the car. And the studio needs to be light, bright, and large enough to accommodate 12-14 students.
It should have quiet, wooded places.
Whether I’ve found that property remains to be seen. In the meantime, I’m having surgery on my eyes today, so all real estate transactions are on temporary hiatus.
And it should have boats in all states. These are by me.
An aside: my 18-year-old son toured properties with me, patiently analyzing and considering them. On the way home I attempted to stop at LL Bean’s outlet in Freeport, but five minutes in a clothing store and he was done. Men!
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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What drew them to Maine?

It’s all about the light…
In the mid-19th century working in natural settings and capturing natural light became particularly important to painters. The popularity of plein air painting increased with the introduction of pre-mixed paints in tubes and the rapid development of new, color-fast pigments.
And the granite outcroppings…
This movement arose more or less simultaneously around the world, including the Barbizon and Impressionist schools in France, the Newlyn painters in England, the Group of Seven painters in Canada, the Heidelberg School in Australia, and the Hudson River School in New York.
And the untouched wilderness…
A national awareness of Maine’s striking landscape was raised in large part by the Hudson River School artists. Thomas Cole, Frederic Church and Thomas Doughty were among the first nationally-known painters to capture Maine’s natural beauty.
At the time, New York was the unrivaled center of art in America, and the Hudson River painters were celebrities. Their paintings were travelogues for a nation hungry to learn about the vast, untamed wildernesses in their own country. It is no coincidence that they painted concurrently with our westward expansion and the first movements toward a national park system.
And the ocean breezes…
They established a tradition of urban artists finding inspiration in Maine. Born in Boston, trained and established in New York, Winslow Homer reached his artistic maturity in Maine. Many other painters have followed his lead, including George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, and Rackstraw Downes.
And the power and motion of the sea.

What impulse drove them to Maine? In part it was a desire to escape market-driven and competitive New York. It was also a response to the clear bright light, the bracing breezes, the constant motion of the sea, the sighing winds and the bending pines.
A storm sky forming over Mt. Desert Narrows.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Elvers and Pickled Wrinkles

Lobster traps in Corea, ME. This little burg will be on our agenda. It’s very much a working fishery town.
North of Ellsworth, ME, the Atlantic coast veers away into a different world. Gone are the clamshacks, the art galleries, and the coffeeshops geared toward visitors from away. We’re now in working Maine.
Stunning rock outcroppings.
I passed a sign reading, “Elvers bought here.”  It turns out that an elver is not a juvenile elf but a juvenile eel. If I had a pickup truck full of them, I’d be a wealthy woman, even though the price has dropped from its 2012 high of $2600/lb. to a more rational $400-600/lb. Although I’ve never heard of the things, in 2012 the statewide harvest was valued at more than $38 million, making it the second-most lucrative catch in Maine’s fisheries industry.
Our home-away-from-home.
I couldn’t take photos of the insides of our accommodations—the water and power is off, and there’s antifreeze in the toilets. But they’re four-bedroom duplexes, originally designed as Navy barracks. There are kitchens and sufficient bathrooms, but there will be no 600-thread-count sheets at this workshop. For those of you who have visited Ghost Ranch at Abiquiu, NM, this is very much the northeastern equivalent. It’s all about the sky and the landscape.
Last summer, Schoodic Institute hosted a stone sculpture symposium. This is carved granite, in front of Morse Auditorium at the Institute.
Because we’re back of beyond, our workshop includes all meals. However, there is a good pub in Winter Harbor—the Pickled Wrinkle—that you should visit on your way home.
The Dining Hall is stripped for winter, but there’s a wonderful view.
Acadia seems to be everyone’s darling recently. See Good Morning America’s video, here, and USA Today’s reporting, here.  In anticipation of increased visitation, the Park Service is busy upgrading the fabric of the place, including newly-paved roads. In a few years, you’ll be able to look down your nose and tell people, “I was there before it was cool.”
Very much working Maine.
(One of my students asked me whether there’s a ferry from Schoodic to Bar Harbor. There is; it leaves from Winter Harbor.)

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Heading north in slow stages

Frozen paints…
…lead to a frozen sketch.
A week ago today, I drove up the Maine coast in slow stages. Maine is beautiful in winter, but it’s not the same kind of beauty as in August. Mid-coast Maine and Rochester have about the same winter temperatures. (As here, it gets colder the farther away from open water you go.) But there’s far more winter sun in Maine, and it creates the illusion of warmth.
Belfast tugs, last summer. That’s my student Brad Van Auken’s painting start.
I stopped in Belfast, ME for groceries, a gallery call, and a few moments of sketching at the harbor. Belfast often has tugs under repair in its boatyard, and it is a pretty place even in January. I pulled out my watercolor sketch kit and started a fast sketch of the pretty red boathouse. When my paints froze in the pan, it was a sign that I should move on.
North of Ellsworth, US 1 becomes a much quieter, more contemplative road.
After Ellsworth, ME (the turn-off to Bar Harbor), US 1 becomes a much quieter road, especially in winter. My goal was to arrive in Winter Harbor by dusk.  After a quick trip out to Schoodic Point to catch the winter sun setting over the ocean, I settled in for the night.
Sun setting over Schoodic Point.
Not wanting to head into Winter Harbor for a pub meal, I was forced to cook myself dinner. I reminded myself that wine goes with everything, and soldiered on.
Wine goes with everything.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochurehere.
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Blizzard

Whose woods these are I think I know.  
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here  
To watch his woods fill up with snow. 
I knew weather was coming, but I had no choice but to stay; yesterday I had appointments all day in mid-coast Maine. When I finished at dusk, there was little choice but to hunker down and ride it out.
I think of blizzards as time-out-of-time: they’re an extra Sunday in the week, unannounced holidays. Trouble is, I don’t want a holiday; I want to get home and continue on the groove I’ve made for myself.
I’m an old hand at blizzards, but this is my first experience with one off-the-grid. Like many Maine houses, this one has knee walls on the second floor. My little bed is tucked up under the rafters. We’re heating with wood, which makes my bed the warmest place in the house. My window is single-pane, and it’s allowing gouts of cold air to blow in. But it’s not on the west wall, and the wind is from the west. As I write this, it is increasing in ferocity. There are wind chimes somewhere outside , and their frantic atonal melodies rise in counterpoint to the clunk of the tie-downs on the wood pile and the whistle of the wind.
Thank you to my daughter for the texting gloves. They’re making this bearable. Later I’ll see if they work as watercoloring gloves.
Mainers are accustomed to bad weather and they seem inclined to keep deep pantries. There was none of that rush for bread, milk and eggs at the local Hannaford when I stopped. However, there was a line of trucks waiting for gas; seems like everyone has a generator here.
Since I took this photo, the far tree line has vanished in the snow.
My family has blown all over the map in this storm—some in Rochester, one in Washington, DC, some in Albany. The governor of New York has suggested that everyone stay home; one wag responded, “He’s probably not self-employed, then.” (Mr. Cuomo is left-footed on the subject of snow, which is no surprise seeing as he hails from Queens. But his advice is usually greeted with derision up in the Snow Belt.)
Blowing, drifting snow…
Six inches of snow in Rochester overnight so it’s business as usual. Doesn’t matter, though; the Mass Pike is closed, and the New York State Thruway is kinda-sorta closed. I’m stuck here for the duration.
The wood pile.
We have water, we have firewood, we have food. There’s no chance of the power being knocked out, because there isn’t power anyway. So my Prius slumbers by the side of a dirt road that won’t be plowed for hours if at all. I think I will curl up and spend the day reading.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep.
(from Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

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Those crazy circadian rhythms

Night falls much earlier in the winter.
Once again I’m living off the grid in mid-coast Maine, and once again my friend is laughing at my peculiar habits. As P. points out, my eyelids start to droop exactly three hours after the sun sets, and I’m awake with the gloaming. This is apparently our pre-industrial pattern, and she delights in me validating it.
The sun knocks me out of bed in the morning, just as it seems to send me to bed early in the evening.
I like being up with the sun and down with the sun, which today in Maine means sunrise at 7:06 AM and sunset at 4:34 PM. That might seem like a short day, but if you are outside for a good part of the day (which I am) you are exhausted from the cold.
In my normal life, I’m a shallow sleeper who rises several times a night. Without electric lights, I seem to fall into a stupefied slumber and not wake until the sun comes up. It’s wonderfully restful. Having spent several weeks living like this—at all different times of the year—I can say that it is unique to this place.
Off the grid doesn’t mean out of this world. Handwarmers, texting gloves, a spare battery-pack, and an electric toothbrush are wonderful accoutrements for a cabin in the woods. 
This doesn’t mean I want to adopt off-grid living, but it does give credence to the theory that our electronic tethers have the potential to make us irritable and anxious. Who knows what the combined thrum of a thousand little fans does to our ability to be calm?
Sunrise streaming in my window, which faces east.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Maine Photo Project

The Haven, Bertrand H. Wentworth, undated, Monhegan Museum
Most of us go to Maine and come back with hundreds—thousands—of photographs. Within a year of the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839 there were people taking pictures here, according to the Maine Historical Society.
Katahdin Canoe, Leland Whipple, before 1900, hand-tinted lantern slide, Bangor Public Library
The Maine Photo Project is a year-long series of exhibitions and public programs exploring this fascination. It’s interactive in the sense that we’re all invited to participate, using the hashtag #mephotoproject on Instagram. I’ll definitely be playing.
Untitled (East Machias Post Office), Berenice Abbott, undated, gelatin silver print, Farnsworth Art Museum
This statewide collaboration runs through 2015 and includes displays and contributions by museums, art galleries, historical societies, artists, collectors, and arts organizations across the state, with oversight by the Maine Historical Society.

Unidentified Group of Men, Albion Moody, c. 1880-1904, glass plate negative, Brick Store Museum

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

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Beautiful, artistic Maine

Camden and Mt. Battie, by Carol L. Douglas
Tomorrow morning, I’m going to the Belfast Creative Coalition’s annual meeting. I’m going because I’m interested in a Land Trust proposal, but mostly to satisfy my curiosity.
Belfast is a city of 6,800 people, located in a county of about 38,000 people. Yet Belfast has enough art galleries to have a Fourth Friday gallery walk, and the Coalition could put together a Columbus Day Farm and Art tour with more than a hundred venues.
Visit Castine, population 1300, and you’ll be given this map of attractions.
Belfast is just one of many art cities on the Maine Coast. There are Rockport and Rockland, which is now home to the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and the Farnsworth. Camden, and Damariscotta are also chock full of galleries, teaching spaces, and studios.
The list of painters with feet in both Maine and New York is extensive and includes Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Childe Hassam, Rockwell Kent, George Bellows, Frederic Church, and Thomas Cole. For them—like me—the draw isn’t primarily the art community, but the land and sea themselves: the ceaseless rise and fall of the tide, the granite outcroppings, and the dark pines.
Damariscotta, by Carol L. Douglas
Later this week I’m heading up to Schoodic to scope out painting sites for next year’s workshop. The class is about half full now, so I recommend that if you’re interested, you get in touch with me soon.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.