2010 Exhibit Schedule

Sara Christy, Kate Russell Henry, Susanne Grosjean, and Susan Barrett Merrill

Four fiber artists weave masks, rugs, and intricate sculptural chains from handspun, hand-dyed fiber. All four artisans are spinners and weavers who use natural dyes and prefer Maine island wool collected from a flock of sheep that roam several islands off of Addison, Maine, including Little Nash, Nash, and Flat Island.

The artisans are longtime members of “Wednesday Spinners,” a Hancock County gathering of fiber enthusiasts who meet weekly to share techniques and offer each other encouragement. The group is fascinated with spinning and weaving despite the onslaught of technology. Through their craft, they remain connected to a way of life that was commonplace 200 years ago when the landscape was dotted with sheep and there was a loom and spinning wheel in every household.

Lisa Creed’s oil paintings are devoid of human reference. There are no boats, no buildings, and no people to distract from her subject of the open horizon. At this juncture where sky meets sea, Creed awakens a sense of awe as she explores the numinous elements unique to coastal Maine. Creed knows her subject well—she grew up on Newbury Neck, running wild in the fields and swimming in the ice-cold water. To this day, Creed maintains a personal ritual of swimming in the bay at least once a year. Her ritual, like her paintings, recalls a primitive beauty that restores and sustains the human spirit.

"Devoid of human presence or man-made structures, her coastal paintings celebrate the transitory, ever-shifting nature of weather, atmosphere, and light."

-Suzette McAvoy from The Canvas
June 2009 issue of Maine Home + Design

Participating artists include:
David Graeme Baker
George Bayliss
Jane Dahmen
Gregory Dunham
Kate Emlen
Philip Frey
Tom Hennessey
Kazumi Hoshino
Liddy Hubbell
William Irvine
Beth Lambert
Eliot Markell
Diana Roper McDowell
Ed Nadeau
John Neville
Stephen Pace
Colin Page
Jolene Powell
Jesse Salisbury
Robert Shillady
Jessica Stammen
Cynthia Stroud
Sydney Thomas
Michael Vermette

Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, is pleased to announce that Maine sculptor Kazumi Hoshino has joined the gallery. Hoshino's work is currently on view at the gallery in Ellsworth through June 20, and at the Farnsworth Art Museum through the end of December. Hoshino's work was selected by Michael Komanecky, chief curator of the Farnsworth Art Museum, for their 2010 exhibition "Four in Maine: Site Specific." Komanecky invited Hoshino and three other Maine sculptors, Jesse Salisbury who also shows at Courthouse Gallery, Warren Seelig, and Aaron T. Stephan to select a site, inside or outside the museum, that best fits their work. The exhibit examines how each sculptor integrates their work into the place they have chosen.

Regarding the Farnsworth exhibit, Hoshino describes her concept for "Composition" (Kosei) as such: "The series "Composition" comes from combining simple forms. The circle we can see by observing nature and life. It evokes motherhood with its encircling shape. Its form is soft, enfolding and unending. There is no beginning or end. There is harmony. It is a peaceful image. With "Kosei," by combining this simple form I hope to enhance the perception of these pleasing qualities. To me these "compositions" seem to hint of some potential memory or whisper an un-remembered experience. I want my sculptures to be a medium to stimulate the image of a warm and pleasing experience."

Hoshino was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan. She studied oil painting and sculpture privately before attending Tohoku University of Art and Design, where she graduated with a sculpture degree. Her work was exhibited widely in Japan and featured in a solo show. Hoshino has participated in several international sculpture symposia. In 2004, she met her husband, sculptor Jesse Salisbury, at the Nasunogahara International Sculpture Symposium. Both artists participated in the symposium. They married in 2006, and moved to his hometown in Steuben, Maine. In Maine, Hoshino appreciates living close to nature. Her sculptures are carved form local granite and basalt with a focus on intimate shapes. She emphasizes the natural beauty and character of the stone.

A son of the Hall's Harbour waterfront on the shore of the Bay of Fundy, Neville is steeped in the traditions of fishing and boat-building, and this knowledge lends a special resonance to his work.
-Carl Little

Artists have painted Mount Desert Island since the mid-nineteenth century when Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, painters from the Hudson River School, came to the island to capture Maine's rugged beauty and dramatic light. Courthouse Gallery Fine Art continues the tradition by asking its contemporary landscape artists to paint their view of the island.

Participating Gallery Artists include:
Judy Belasco, Ellen Church, Jane Dahmen, Philip Frey, Tom Hennessey, Liddy Hubbell David Little, Diana Roper McDowell, Colin Page, Jessica Stammen, and Michael Vermette

Stephen Porter's stainless steel sculptures are meant to be outdoors-in fields, parks, or gardens-where his highly polished surfaces can reflect the atmospheric moods of the environment. Here, the mirrored surface takes advantage of the changing light and its impact on design, turning cold, sterile stainless steel into a fertile vehicle for personal reflection.

Fifty vintage Maine photographs by Berenice Abbott, who is best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City, will be included in a two-person show with modernist sculptor and painter Chenoweth Hall.

The two longtime friends and colleagues collaborated to publish a book about their adopted state. Published by Macmillan in 1968, "A Portrait of Maine," combines Abbott's photographs with a comprehensive text by Hall. The photographs were taken in preparation for the book.

Works by Hall include stone and wood sculptures and a selection of watercolors depicting Down East Maine.

The domestic scenes portrayed in David's beautifully rendered paintings inhabited by close friends and family, belie an inherent underlying tension which gives the paintings that "edge" that Andrew Wyeth often spoke of as being present in all great art.
-Bo Bartlet

David Graeme Baker Catalog Available (1.4MB PDF) $14 postage paid.
To order call 207-667-6611 or email kw@courthousegallery.com.

In meticulous, light-filled watercolors, he [Dunham] renders the details of this world [waterfront subjects], be it propeller perched on sawhorses or skiffs pulled up on the beach at Monhegan.
-Carl Little
"Artists of the Working Waterfront", Maine Boats Homes & Harbors

Gregory Dunham Catalog Available (2.0MB PDF) $14 postage paid.
To order call 207-667-6611 or email kw@courthousegallery.com.

Courthouse Gallery owners, Karin and Michael Wilkes, invited Thistle Brown to bring a selection of her artists to Courthouse Gallery Fine Art for "The Wingspread Legacy," a group exhibition to commemorate Ms Brown's contribution to the art scene in eastern Maine. Ms Brown is the owner of the Wingspread Gallery, which burned in a Northeast Harbor fire in 2008.

Participating Gallery Artists include Katherine Bell, Aurelia Brown, Ildekoe Butler, Antonietta Capecchi, Shirley Fuerst, Nicole Herz, Patricia Ingersoll, Dima Karabschevsky, Constance LaPalombara, David LaPalombara, Jill London, Eliot Markell, Andrew Newman, Robert Neuman, Mark Newton elizabeth nields, Robert Packie, Tammy Packie, Jeanne Seronde Perkins, Mary Prince, Paul Rickert, Rebecca Rolke, Linn Sage, Adele Seronde, Ulrike Stadler, and Patricia Toogood.

Wingspread Catalog Available (2.5MB PDF) $20 postage paid.
To order call 207-667-6611 or email kw@courthousegallery.com.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.