(Image: "Pool: June" by Kristin Malin)

In the Atrium Gallery, April 23rd Through June 30th.

(Lewiston, ME) The Atrium Art Gallery at the University of Southern Maine's Lewiston-Auburn campus will be presenting "Vernal Pools," an all-media visual exploration inspired by the ecology of vernal pools. The exhibit will include paintings, prints, drawings, and work in stone, ceramic, mixed media, audio, and poetry by 16 artists from around New England.

The Atrium Art Gallery is partnering with Stanton Bird Club in Lewiston who will help with educational aspects of the project, including field trips to vernal pools and exhibit tours for school groups. The Junior Naturalists of Stanton Bird Club will be participating in the exhibit with an installation of an imagined vernal pool with sculptural fairy shrimp, created by the students ages 9-11.

Vernal pools, also called spring pools, are typically small shallow wetlands that contain water for a few months in the spring and early summer. Because they usually dry up by the end of summer, they are free of fish. In March, these pools burst into life with an amazing variety of creatures: frogs, salamanders, snakes, turtles, aquatic beetles, dragonflies, mayflies, fairy shrimp, larval forms of insects such as caddisflies, and micro-invertebrates such as daphnia and planaria.

In New England, most vernal pools are part of the forested landscape and home to a rich array of plants and animals that thrive in the wet/dry cycle of the vernal pool environment. Vernal pools are now recognized for their ecological importance and as habitat for many endangered species.

The Atrium Art Gallery, open to the public free of charge, is located at 51 Westminster Street in Lewiston, Maine. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm; Friday, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm, and Saturdays April 24, May 1, and May 8, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm. For more information on the exhibit and vernal pools on-line, please visit www.usm.maine.edu/lac/art.

Artists in the exhibition include:
Holly Berry, Waldoboro, Maine
Thomas Berger, Kittery, Maine
Robin Brickman, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Robert D. Bryson, Steuben, Maine Patricia Cassady, Middleboro, Massachusetts
Tim Christensen, Rollingsford, New Hampshire
J. Ann Eldridge, Bradford, New Hampshire
Maggie Foskett, Camden, Maine
Rebecca Goodale, Portland, Maine
Kristin Malin, Georgetown, Maine
Gina Mikel, Kirkwood, Missouri
Barbara Putnam, Southborough, Massachusetts
Adelaide Tyrol, Plainfield, Vermont
Joy Wulke, Stony Creek, Connecticut

In addition, poets participating in Vernal Pools are Robert Chute and Elizabeth Tibbetts.

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