(Image: Painting by Jill Caldwell)

CLEARING: A Solo Show Featuring Abstract Landscapes by Maine Artist Jill Caldwell will be on display until Monday, October 18th.

(Belfast, ME) One can hardly imagine a more vivid landscape than rural Maine in the fall. With its fiery reds, ochre yellows and crisp blue skies, Maine's autumns have inspired many an artist. Perhaps even more than the colors it is that particular clarity - the invisible clearing of air and mind that happens as the cacophony of summer recedes and winter announces itself in the distance - that calls to be captured on canvas.

(Image: Painting by Jill Caldwell)

Maine Farmland Trust Gallery's first fall show, “Clearing,” celebrates the art of Jill Caldwell, an artist from Rockland, whose abstract landscapes manage to capture the essence of a panorama. Openness, clear lines, richness of color and texture and a sense of transcendence beyond space and time are some qualities that characterize Caldwell's work.

Clearing opens on Friday, September 3rd, with a public reception from 5:00 to 8:00 pm at Maine Farmland Trust Gallery, located at 97 Main Street in Belfast.

In tandem with Belfast's Poetry Festival (www.belfastpoetry.com), Lincolnville poet Vincent Abaldo has written a number of poems in response to Caldwell's paintings, which will be exhibited as part of the art show.

(Image: "A Short History of Warnings" by Robert Shetterly)

(Belfast, ME) Aarhus Gallery is proud to announce their guest artist for September, the distinguished and seriously prolific Robert Shetterly. The show will run August 31 through September 26, 2010. An opening reception will be held on Friday September 3rd, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm, and the public is most warmly invited.

Robert Shetterly was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1946 and although he graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English Literature, the drawing courses he had taken at the time changed the direction of his creative life from written word to image. Moving to Maine in 1970, Robert began a career as an illustrator, drawing for the Maine Times newspaper, Audubon Adventures children’s newspaper and on to illustrating over thirty books as well as having shown work in art galleries around Maine and elsewhere. His prints and paintings are housed in collections across the U.S. and Europe. It may be true however, that Robert Shetterly is most widely known for his evocative series of painted portraits called “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” which has toured the country for over seven years and is scheduled to continue over the next two. In 2006, a book of the portraits by the same name won the top award of the International Reading Association for Intermediate non-fiction. Since 1990, Robert has been the President of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA), and producer of the UMVA’s Maine Masters Project, an on-going series of video documentaries about Maine artists.

(Image: "The Silence Between Old Friends" by Robert Shetterly)

The work that Aarhus gallery will be highlighting for this show is Robert’s more personal work: “These paintings come from two very distinct periods in my life—from when I believed my obligation as an artist was to be as honestly ambiguous as I could be about the baffling mysteries of life, to revel in the blindalley narratives that must be solved by each person imaginatively and idiosyncratically. And many of them come from a more recent time when I have been dedicated to doing didactic work because the earth is in such a precarious situation, because governments have failed to care for nature and people have failed to require that of their governments. These recent paintings are not didactic but they do reflect that mood. What's curious to me is how similar they are to the earlier paintings. Art allows itself to be used for teaching as well as exploring. One can go back & forth and remain the same. We paint not to express ourselves but to find out what it is we want to express”.

The works of Åarhusians, Ingrid Ellison, Annadeene Fowler, Kevin Johnson, Mark Kelly, Richard Mann, Abbie Read, Wesley Reddick and Willy Reddick will also be on display. Aarhus Gallery is located at 50 Main Street in Belfast, and open daily from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. For more information, please call 338-0001. To see a slide show of the current exhibit, please visit www.aarhusgallery.com.

(Image: Fabric Banner #9 by Karen Gelardi)

(Belfast, ME) On Thursday, August 26th, Perimeter Gallery opens "Banners," a new exhibition of “botanical propaganda,” by South Portland artist Karen Gelardi with an opening reception to meet the artist from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. Colorful hand-sewn fabric drawings, photocopied posters, and publications depicting urban and suburban plant life comprise Gelardi’s latest work in which she examines resiliency, adaptation, and a re-invented nature in the territories shared by man-made architecture and plants.

“I explore, through my work, the notion of city blocks being transformed into farmland, weeds pushing through concrete, and potted plants sitting on a front stoop—how these areas mix organic and architectural structures, and, in particular, the resulting emotional and psychological dialogue between the two,” explains the artist. Karen Gelardi studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and has been influenced by the design and manufacturing processes of her family’s plastics factory in Biddeford, Maine, as well as Asian brush painting. She has exhibited widely in New England, including a solo show at The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, and recently had her first show in New York City at Coleman Burke Gallery. Gelardi is a “Smocker” in Andrea Zittel’s internationally exhibited Smockshop, and a “panelist” in Zittel’s newest artist enterprise, “Group Formerly Known as Smockshop,” which will launch as a one-day event at the Portland Museum of Art on September 11th.

“Karen Gelardi: Banners” will be on view through October 3rd. Perimeter Gallery is located in Chase’s Daily at 96 Main Street in Belfast. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday 7:00 am to 5:00 pm, and Sunday, 8:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Opening and Artist Reception on Friday, September 10th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm.

(Kittery, ME) Drift Contemporary Art Gallery will be opening the exhibition Tangles & Snarls on Friday, September 10th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm. Jane Hesser, adjunct faculty at Rhode Island School of Design, will show her body of work entitled Tangles & Snarls, which had a full review and was featured on the cover of Artscope magazine in 2009. Tyson Jacques, a recent MFA graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, will show paintings from The Imperative Series based on a collaborative handwriting experiment.

(Image: "Roots XVI" by Jane Hesser)

(Image: "Clyde and Myrtle" by Jeanne Dawson)

(Belfast, ME) Jeanne Dawson joins Susan Tobey White, Sheep Jones and Julie Cyr at High Street Studio & Gallery from August 20th through September 15th. There will be an opening reception Friday, August 20th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm.

Dawson's career in art began as a fiber artist. She created sculptural two and three dimensional pieces, using materials she dyed herself. She enjoyed numerous awards for her fiber art through the eight years she worked in the arena. Like so many others, Dawson left one arena and entered another. She carried with her her love of texture, color and layering. Each of these are strong elements in her painting. For the past five years, Jeanne has worked in acrylic and is excited with the opportunities it lends her.

High Street Studio & Gallery is located at 149 High Street in Belfast. Hours are 11:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday and Saturday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. For more information, please visit www.highstreetgallery.com.

Friday, August 20th.

(Belfast, ME) Jeanne Dawson joins Susan Tobey White, Sheep Jones and Julie Cyr at High Street Studio & Gallery from August 20th through September 15th. There will be an opening reception Friday, August 20th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm.

Dawson's career in art began as a fiber artist. She created sculptural two and three dimensional pieces, using materials she dyed herself. She enjoyed numerous awards for her fiber art through the eight years she worked in the arena.

(Image: "Clyde and Myrtle" by Jeanne Dawson)

(Hallowell, ME) So what is a monotype anyway? If you are curious, the six printers from the show entitled “One of a Kind—Monotype the Unique Print” will present an Art Talk at the Harlow Gallery on Thursday, September 16th at 7:00 pm. They will discuss printmaking in general, the differences between a monotype and a monoprint, and their specific printing processes. There will also be a demonstration of one of the ways to make a monotype print and time for questions from the audience. The show runs September 2nd through September 26th with an opening reception on Thursday, September 2nd from 5:00 to 8:00 pm.

The participating artists in the show are Claudia Brahms of Hallowell, Robin Brooks of Topsham, Corliss Chastain of Portland (formerly Hallowell), Christine J. Higgins of Readfield, Marguerite Ogden of Hallowell, and Kris Sader of Orono. The artists bring a variety of interests and perspectives to their work which should make the conversation lively and entertaining.

The public is invited to both the reception on September 2 as well as the Art Talk on September 16. Harlow Gallery is located at 160 Water Street in Hallowell. Gallery hours are Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 12:00 – 4:00 pm, and Friday and Saturday from 12:00 – 6:00 pm.

(Image: "Mixed Heights" by Yvonne Jacquette. Courtesy of the CMCA Website)

August 5th through September 25th.

(Rockport, ME) Yvonne Jacquette’s “AERIALS: Paintings, Prints, Pastels” emphasizes the theme for which she is renowned: elevated views of cities and landscapes begun most commonly as watercolors, drawn sketches or photographs taken from skyscrapers (including the World Trade Center, the Conde,Nast Building in Times Square and rented hotel rooms), or airplanes and helicopters (often rented) to expand upon in her studios in New York City and Searsmont, Maine.

(Image: "Big Grey" by Will Barnet. Courtesy of the CMCA Website)

Will Barnet--Master Printmaker: Selected Prints from Five Decades combines 14 widely known representational prints of family and personal memories with a series of very rare, less well-known abstract prints from the 1950s and '60s that appeared at the Lieber Museum on Long Island, New York, in 2009.

(Image: "16:00" by Dozier Bell. Courtesy of the CMCA Website)

Dozier Bell, a Maine native and Waldoboro resident, presents Momenta, a combination of large, beautiful, brooding paintings and drawings accomplished over the past decade. This work marks a shift for Bell, from a long-standing interest in reflecting an inner spiritual and psychological life to reflections upon her experiences in eastern Germany a few year ago coupled with more specifically recognizable images from that experience.

For more information, please visit the Center for Maine Contemporary Art website.

Two Gallery Locations Feature New Shows

(Rockport and Rockland, ME) Rockport exhibits Jon Kolkin “Equilibrium: Finding the Balance” and “Rhapsody in Hue” continues at the Rockland location.

A solo show of photographer Jon Kolkin, winner of Color Magazine's Spotlight award in 2009 will be exhibited in Rockport. Kolkin's work is intended to inspire others to challenge their own perceptions of "truth" about their surroundings—to look beyond their experiences of understanding reality. Featured are photographs depicting the delicate balance between the 3 realms of nature: land, water and air. Before Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, putting forth the concept of multiple dimensions invisible to the naked eye, Cubist Georges Braque utilized simultaneous perspectives to also suggest something beyond three dimensions.

(Image: Photograph by Jon Kolkin)

The Exhibit Runs August 3 - 31, 2010.

(Kittery, ME) Drift Contemporary Art Gallery will be opening the exhibition “Where We Live” with a reception on Thursday, August 5th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm. This exhibit explores several artists' perspectives on what a house can be, and features the “Dream Trees” paintings of Caroline Rufo, and the intriguing “house” sculptures of Frank Poor. Rufo, both alumni of the Rhode Island School Design.

(Image: “Emerson Neighborhood” by Caroline Rufo)

(Image: Ceramic Work by Jonathan Mess)

(Belfast, ME) Åarhus Gallery digs deep to bring you the unusual, provocative and stratagraphical ceramic works of guest artist Jonathan Mess, from August 3rd through August 29th, 2010. Please join the Åarhusians for an opening reception Friday August 6th, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm.

Was it Carl Sagan who said, ”Nothing brings us back down to earth like a gorgeous eighty pound slab of geologic strata rendered in cast ceramic and voluptuous dripping glazes like so many billions of squashed petit fours.”? Maybe it wasn’t Carl, but someone should have....Jonathan Mess puts it this way: Clay is an important material because I can literally use the earth’s crust as my medium. My recent work has involved several series that visually and metaphorically reference land, maps, strata, geology and geography... I have engineered and incorporated a low-waste system of making by using recycled clays, slop clay and cast-aside glazes, once-fired, unused, forgotten, discarded, cut-up, and broken work, found cardboard, and even mixing clay that falls to the floor back into my system. I am interested in the physicality and reality of land, the evidence of time and age in the layers of earth, in contrast with contemporary human relationships with land through usage, manipulation, ownership, and division. I am concerned with our responsibility as humans living with the land—collectively and individually.

(Image: Detail from "Landfill" by Jonathan Mess)

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Jonathan Mess studied art at the University of Toledo and received a BFA in studio art at the University of Montana. In 1999, Jonathan moved to the western foothills of Maine, where he taught art at Leavitt Area High School. In 2004, he was commissioned to create a major installation at the Bates Mill Complex for the Governor's Conference on the Creative Economy. Looking for a new challenge, Jonathan left Maine in 2006 to pursue an MFA at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He completed his degree in May of 2008 and returned to Maine, this time to explore the MidCoast region while keeping a studio at the Fort Andross Mill in Brunswick. Jonathan currently teaches art at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle.

Also on display, betwixt and between, will be the worldly works of Åarhusians, Ingrid Ellison, Annadeene Fowler, Kevin Johnson, Mark Kelly, Richard Mann, Abbie Read, Wesley Reddick and Willy Reddick.

Aarhus Gallery is located at 50 Main Street in Belfast. The gallery is open daily from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and in July and August on Fridays until 8:00 pm as part of Belfast’s Friday Night Art Walk. For more information and a slideshow of the current exhibit, please visit www.aarhusgallery.com or call 338-0001.

(Image: "The Broom" by Bo Bartlett)

July 2nd through July 31st.

(Rockland, ME) Bo Bartlett has had an interest and talent in painting since his teen-age years. His American narrative painting pieces reflect everyday life, and are inspired by many facets of his own life including his religious faith, family, interest in baseball and football, Hitchcock films, and friendship with Andrew and Betsy Wyeth.

(Source: Art in America, March 1995)

For more information, please visit the Dowling Walsh Gallery website.

(Image: Pastel by Carolyn Caldwell)

(Belfast, ME) The show runs from July 2nd through July 31st. There will be a reception for the artist on Friday, July 9th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm. The Belfast Framer will be exhibiting the work of artist Carolyn Caldwell from Deer Isle. Caldwell studied photography and art and then received a degree in Architecture from Boston Architectural Center. She lived and designed houses in the Caribbean for 16 years before resuming her interest in pastels and paint.

Carolyn focuses her pastels and paintings on the way the changing light can transform a landscape into abstraction and architecture into geometric compositions.

She is a member of both the Pastel Painters of Maine and Cape Cod, and a member of the Deer Isle Artists Association. She gives pastel workshops and private lessons in her Deer Isle studio.

Betts Gallery is located at 96 Main Street in Belfast. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Saturday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. For more information, please call 338-6465 or visit www.thebelfastframer.com.

From July 2nd through July 31st.

(Belfast, ME) Betts Gallery at The Belfast Framer will be exhibiting the work of artist Carolyn Caldwell from Deer Isle. Caldwell studied photography and art and then received a degree in Architecture from Boston Architectural Center. She lived and designed houses in the Caribbean for 16 years before resuming her interest in pastels and paint.

Carolyn focuses her pastels and paintings on the way the changing light can transform a landscape into abstraction and architecture into geometric compositions.

(Image: Pastel by Carolyn Caldwell)

(Image: "Open Window" by Joan Proudman)

(Belfast, ME) Freedom, Maine digital collage artist, Joan Proudman, will be exhibiting prints of her work at the Kramer Gallery, Belfast Free Library, throughout the month of July. The show is entitled, “13 Stories: A Family Album” and features work built around a selection of vintage family photographs. Proudman says, “The eternal thread we often forget: are family stories merely a moment in time, an old photo? By building a collage around an ancestor's tale, I pick up the thread, realizing we are still one, living whole. My life and art are thereby enriched.”

To see more of Joan's work, please visit www.joanproudman.com.

For Kramer Gallery hours, please visit the Belfast Free Library website.

(Image: "Roads Not Taken" by Bob Richardson)

(Washington, ME) The Gallery at Gibbs Library in Washington will be showing recent systemic paintings by Washington resident Bob Richardson from July 8th through September 1st. Richardson, known also as a musician and composer in the Midcoast area, was twice Artist in Residence at the Robert M. MacNamara Artist Residency Program on Westport Island. His work was selected for the 2008 Biennial Show at The Center for Maine Contemporary Art and has recently been shown at Aarhus Gallery in Belfast.

The concepts behind this work, with roots dating back to graduate school at the University of Hartford, were revisited by Richardson during the MacNamara residency and vigorously pursued in his studio during the past three years. Says Richardson: “My work is a sensory as well as sensual response to seeing and hearing in the natural world, much influenced by my lifetime involvement with music. The resulting images take on a rhythmic, ordered form. My work is not about depicting what is seen, the external, the known. It is about attempting to grasp and share what I internally 'see', that which is perhaps not known, but felt.” A public reception for the artist will take place on Friday, July 9th from 5:00 – 7:00 pm at the Gibbs Library located at 40 Old Union Road in Washington.

>link to Gibbs Library website

(Portland, ME) Please join us for an opening reception for The Artful Art of Drawing this Friday, June 18th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm, featuring live jazz provided by Luc Cary and his trio. Other participating artists include: Sylvia Bangs, Marlene Ekola Gerberick, Fred Lynch, Crystal Nicholas, Noriko Sakanishi, Anthony Shostak and John Whalley. The exhibit runs June 18th through September 12th.

There is something basic and utterly satisfying about studying good drawings. Perhaps it is because all of us started out by picking up a pencil or crayons and expressing our basic selves on paper – not to mention, in some cases, walls and floors as well. To see what a fine artist can accomplish with pen and ink or graphite or some combination, and to see the range from small to big, from figurative to abstract and from geometric to fanciful is downright inspiring. These eight artists could not be more disparate in their choice of subject, composition or world view even. What they have in common is talent – and lots of it!

The University of New England Art Gallery is located on the Portland Campus at 716 Stevens Avenue. Gallery hours are Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 to 4:00 pm, Thursday from 1:00 to 7:00 pm, and by appointment. Admission to the gallery is free. For more information, please call (207) 221-4499 or visit www.une.edu/artgallery.

Runs June 24th through September 12, 2010.

(Portland, ME) American Moderns: Masterworks on Paper, 1910-1960, will showcase more than 100 works on paper from the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, by nationally recognized artists such as Edward Hopper, John Marin, and Rockwell Kent. This is the first in-depth examination and presentation of the Atheneum’s American modernist works on paper.

(Image: "Custom House, Portland" by Edward Hopper)

The Show Runs Through July 11th.

(Belfast, ME) From June 1st through July 11th, Perimeter Gallery will exhibit the work of Camden artist Gideon Bok. In addition to showing several oil paintings and large scale drawings on paper, the artist will complete a wall drawing over the duration of the exhibition. Instead of an “opening”, Perimeter Gallery will host a “closing” reception on Thursday, July 8th from 6:00 – 8:00 pm, to meet the artist and celebrate the piece, after which he will erase it and re-paint the gallery wall.

(Image: Wall Drawing by Gideon Bok)

(Image: Henry Isaacs "Big Valley")

(Islesford, ME) Last winter, we received several inquiries asking about Henry’s pastels. Our earliest purchases of his works from the late 1980’s include one of Emerson Ham in his legendary Islesford garden as well as a diptych of our children hanging out on the old restaurant dock. We have loved these pastels for a long time now.

Henry describes his painting in pastel as a graphic process. A stick was selected in a particular value and hue and color applied to the paper. What mixing occurred was in the layering of strokes. Colors are brilliantly heightened and close to pure pigment. Henry no longer works with pastels, but we prevailed upon him to help us bring this collection together.

(Image: Henry Isaacs "Wildflowers")

Over the past months we’ve gathered works, painted throughout the country in the 1980’s and 1990’s, which have not been on the market for many years. Henry describes this group as “like looking at an old family album.” Unlike certain relatives, though, these plein air pastels have aged beautifully, and remain vivid and evocative.

(Image: Henry Isaacs "Mount of the Holy Cross")

To view more of this collection, please visit www.islesforddock.com.

(Image: Henry Isaacs "Fishing Cabin")

The Islesford Dock Gallery reopens for the season on Friday, June 18th.

Combine food, art, and friends. Reserve the Islesford Dock Restaurant’s Gallery Room. There is seating for up to 14 guests, evenings at 8:00 pm. Order from from menu or, with five days' notice, Islesford Dock will prepare a special menu just for you and your guests.

Please call 207-244-7494 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with any questions.