paintings by Scott Kelley
Gluskap and the Bear, 2014. Watercolor and gouache on paper, 34″ x 48″
Gluskap and the Beaver, 2013. Watercolor and gouache on paper, 22″ x 30″
Gluskap and the Snowy Owl, 2014. Watercolor and gouache on paper, 30″ x 22″
share by Polly Saltonstall
Journalist Alfred Elden took several photos of Muscongus islanders in the mid-1900s for Atlantic Fishermen, including this one from the Penobscot Marine Museum’s collection, of a woman standing in front of traps and looking defiant, which was what most of the islanders were at that time. Back in 1860, the island seceded from Maine in a protest over being left off official state maps, taxation and the draft. Read more at: http://www.maineboats.com/blog
poem by Dave Morrison
I’ve been listening to
the dark for
hours.
At first it was
fine sand sifting
over old stones,
then warm wind through
a rusted screen,
then heavy mist
falling on the
roof of a
convertible.
The night was an
aquarium filled with
stones, each one a
worry, and the sound of
the darkness was
black ink poured in,
until there was nothing
but the sound of
the darkness, like the
hiss of a radiator in
the memory of
another house.
Editor’s note: Dave will be releasing his ninth collection of poetry with a reception and reading this Friday, February 28 at the Camden Opera House. All are invited, especially “those who are convinced that they don’t enjoy poetry.” The official press release:
Downtown Poetry Party
Camden poet Dave Morrison invites you to a Downtown Poetry Party to celebrate the release of his ninth collection of poetry Stethoscope. Festivities will take place on the 3rd floor of the Camden Opera House on Friday February 28. Doors will open at 6:30 pm, and the reading will begin at 7 pm. Signed copies will be available for sale after the reading, and literary lubricant will be offered. Admission is free.
“A stethoscope is a device,” says Morrison “for listening to ones pulse and breath, for making sense of complex inner mechanisms – a poem can be the same kind of device. Of course, a poem can also be a song, a joke, a painting, a prayer, a dance with words.”
Morrison’s poems have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, and featured in Writers Almanac and Take Heart.
Writer/editor Dana Wilde says, “In Stethoscope, Dave Morrison the poet has fully arrived. Few people participate as fully in the musical awe beaten out in these poems as Dave Morrison maintains naturally all the time. “I’m transcribing as fast as I can,” he says of words given to him in a dream, “but / they are disappearing in the / morning sun.” Luckily for us, he has trained his ear to pick up the pulse no matter how faint, and amplify it with practiced skill. In this book, his transcriptive powers have hit full blossom.”
Morrison spent years playing in rock & roll bands in Boston and NYC. Alice Persons, poet and editor says, “There is no voice quite like his. What shines in every poem is musical sound and rhythm, grittiness, reality, humor, and the rare ability to tackle serious subjects without taking himself too seriously. There is a wonderful, refreshing lack of pretentiousness and self-pity in all his poems and books.”
All are welcome, especially those who are convinced that they don’t enjoy poetry. “Morrison’s readings are much akin to performances;” says Ken Gross of the Camden Public Library, “ his presentations are dramatic and lyrical and betray his years as a rock-and-roll musician.”
For more information about Dave Morrison please visit his website.
The Camden Opera House is located at 29 Elm street Camden Maine. The 3rd floor Gentlemen’s Club and Gallery is accessible by the elevator in the Elm Street lobby.
painting by Jessica Ives
The sixteenth chapter of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden begins:
After a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what- how- when- where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward…to my morning work. First I take an axe and pail and go in search of water, if that be not a dream…. Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any level field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more.
***
Every Tuesday The Maine will post a new painting by Jessica Stammen. These small works, all 4 x 4 inches on cradled birchwood panels, will be concurrently listed for auction on dailypaintworks.com, a fantastic platform designed by artists, for artists. View the auction for this painting here, or simply click on the image above.
Tuesday 207 paintings are exclusive to The Maine. They depict the land, the light and the people that make this state a state of wonder. Visit the growing gallery of Tuesday 207 paintings here.
Jessica is the editor of The Maine and writes occasionally as The Outsider.
an invitation from Tuesday 207 contributor Jessica Ives (formerly Jessica Stammen)
BRUNSWICK, February 24, 2014 — In “Maine: Work & Play” Jessica Ives (formerly Jessica Stammen) explores the interior and exterior landscapes where she lives, works, and plays. Over thirty works will comprise the exhibit. The artist will be present to speak about her work at an opening reception on Tuesday, March 4th from 4 to 6pm in the Blue Gallery at David Saul Smith Union, located on the Bowdoin College campus at 3725 College Station.
Ives received her BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and her MA from New York University. She was a New York One Hometown Hero, among Eileen Fisher’s “Women Who Change The World Everyday,” named one of Glamour Magazine’s Top Ten College Women of 2003, and received multiple awards, grants, and public speaking opportunities because of her work as an artist in residence at Ground Zero after 9/11. In 2008 she returned to Midcoast Maine and collaborated on the startup of Jo Ellen Designs in Camden while establishing her studio practice. Her work is represented by Gleason Fine Art in Boothbay Harbor and Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth.
Ives is an athlete and adventurer. She has cycled across the state of Maine from west to east in three days; she has climbed Acadia’s Otter Cliffs with North Face athletes; she has challenged the Islesboro Ferry in a three and a half mile Penobscot Bay swim. In this exhibit her paintings of play portray outsiders — her dad and brothers fly fishing on the Rapid River and Grand Lake Stream, and her friends who swim, canoe, and kayak alongside her during summertime adventures. Also included are paintings of surfer friends who escape with her to Costa Rica for a spring break experience as integral to her winter life in Maine as the pond hockey she plays.
Ives’ paintings of work depict the staff and apprentices of The Carpenter’s Boat Shop in Pemaquid, where her husband works and where the construction of Monhegan Skiffs takes place in a brilliantly lit post and beam workshop. Her visual exploration of this landscape of craftsmanship and Maine tradition is a recent development in her work. Her paintings highlight the windows of The Carpenter’s Boat Shop, linking these new images to her window paintings of the past. Her characteristic repurposing of previously painted panels also continues to play a significant role in this new work. Old outdoor recreation and adventure images peek through layers of workbenches and sawhorses at the boat shop, asking, “In this life of wonder and beauty that we live here in Maine, where does play stop and work begin? Or work stop and play begin?”
Almost all the paintings in “Maine: Work & Play” are water-centric. Individually and collectively they flow back and forth, into and out of each other as they ask the work-play question. They are not comprehensive in any one answer; instead they tease the memory, day dream, and desire of viewers.
Under her maiden name Jessica Stammen, Ives is editor of The Maine, an online publication about the wonders of the state. She contributes as The Outsider and has selected several essays to accompany her paintings in this exhibition.
“Maine: Work & Play” will run through Saturday, March 29th. For more information please visit www.jessicastammen.com or contact Bonnie Pardue, Art Coordinator for the Smith Union, at 207-725-3902 or bpardue@bowdoin.edu
Recent kite-sledding instagram fun from Claire Donnelly:
