Archive
Transcending the Everyday
THE CANVAS - NOV/DEC 2008
by Carl Little
Alison Rector, Jill Hoy, & DeWitt Hardy
When describing an artist’s connection to the landscape, the term “a sense of place” is often used to convey that ineffable personal resonance that elevates a work of art above the merely descriptive or picturesque.
Legacy of Talent: A Moser Reunion
CRAFT OF MAINE - NOV/DEC 2008
by Candace Karu
Photography Scott Dorrance
Skill and artistry forged in the workshop of Maine’s premier cabinetmaker
In a career that spans four decades, Thomas Moser has established himself as an icon of American furniture design and craftsmanship. During this time, Moser has employed some of the country’s most talented woodworkers, while influencing a new generation of fine furniture makers.
The Monumental Talent of Bernard Langlais
NOV/DEC 2008
by Candace Karu
Photography Darren Setlow
A Maine modernist’s endangered legacy
The towering wooden horse looks down on a winding rural road guarding a small weathered farmhouse. Behind the house, in no discernable order or pattern, are dozens of monumental figures, representing both animals and humans, carved and assembled from massive timbers and planks. An assembly of bears shares a field with the twelve-foot-tall figure of a woman seated in the grass, a plein air homage to Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World. Nearby, a huge hand emerges from a stand of bushes. In a swale surrounded by cattails, a dark-eyed Richard Nixon flashes his signature “V for victory” hand gesture.
Traditional Heart, Modern Touch
PROFILE - NOV/DEC 2008
by Joshua Bodwell
Photography Irvin Serrano
A Blue Hill architect whose unique designs capture Maine’s spirit
Blue Hill Bay, late September, and the weather has snapped. The weak morning sun pushes back the season’s first frost, and the air is crowded with the crisp smells of autumn.
At the edge of the bay, a father and son carefully prepare to put up their small wooden sailboat for the season: the mast is unstepped, the rigging is stored, the ropes coiled and stacked in bright nests on the dock.
The Heart of Stone
PROFILE - NOV/DEC 2008
by Joshua Bodwell
Photography Irvin Serrano
A craftsman’s pursuit of quality
When the towering doors of Morningstar Marble & Granite’s Topsham shop are pushed wide open to let in the last of the season’s sunshine, the sound of whining saws fills the air. Only the shop radio—tuned to rock-’n’-roll, the volume knob twisted as high as it can go—can compete.
The shop is thrumming with the cutting, sanding, and polishing of stone. It is here that some of the most awe-inspiring natural stones from around the world are shaped into custom countertops, vanities, showers, and sinks for homes across the state. And it is here, in the hands of these craftsmen, that the functional use of stone is elevated to art.
A Cockeyed Optimist
PROFILE - NOV/DEC 2008
by Stephen E. Abbott
Photography Irvin Serrano
The passion of Angus King
Angus King is tapping his iPhone. “Some of the gizmos they make for these things are remarkable,” he says. “My kids showed me this one.” The distinctive sound of a Star Wars lightsaber suddenly fills the air as he waves the glowing phone over his head, a look of boyish delight spread across his face.
Taking His Own Advice
NOV/DEC 2008
by Joshua Bodwell
Photography James R. Salomon
A Portland architect goes green in his own city loft
Architects are actors. They spend weeks, months, and even years inhabiting their clients’ lives so they might better understand how a home should be designed. During the process, however, the architect constantly slips out of that actor’s skin and makes recommendations on a project’s nuts and bolts, such as what materials to use and why—the architect, in other words, must also assert a bit of his or her own vision.
Backyard Gourmets
FEAST - NOV/DEC 2008
by Joshua Bodwell and Candace Karu
Photography Irvin Serrano
Portland’s best young chefs vie for supremacy in Deathmatch
Sun warms the last Sunday in August. Labor Day has arrived early and the balmy afternoon begs for some sort of celebration.
Downeast Island Home
The DRAWING BOARD - NOV/DEC 2008
The organic, barn-like elements of this downeast island home are evident inside and out. The home’s wood shingles and dark green trim visually link it to older homes nearby, while parts of a reclaimed barn were reassembled to provide the home’s dominant living space. The aged exposed beams of the large room provide the framework for a warm, relaxed space that is anchored by a massive stone fireplace on the north wall and a wall of windows on the south; the towering windows provide expansive vistas of coastal waters.
'Tis the Season
NOV/DEC 2008
Photography Irvin Serrano
Five Maine designers transform homes for the holiday.
Manganello's Mission
NOV/DEC 2008
by Candace Karu
Photography Trent Bell
A Maine builder and designer brings dramatic details to a classic Cape in Falmouth
In The Current
ESSAY - OCTOBER 2008
By Joshua Bodwell
“My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane” —Robert Frost
Viva Havana!
FEAST - OCTOBER 2008
By Candace Karu
Photography François Gagné
Nuevo Latino flavors find a sophisticated home in a Bar Harbor hot spot.
The unassuming exterior of Havana belies the excitement and activity that diners discover inside this innovative bistro. The small, gray-shingled building on Main Street in Bar Harbor, located just a few blocks from the village green, keeps the restaurant’s secrets tucked safely inside. Only its festive trim, the color of cool guacamole, and the lush flower beds laden with vibrant orange and yellow blossoms hint at the fiesta going on inside every evening from May through December.
Transcending Nature
THE CANVAS - OCTOBER 2008
By Suzette McAvoy
Michael H. Lewis, Alan Bray, and Dennis Pinette
For artist Michael Lewis, painting is “an invitation to extend the boundaries of ordinary reality…an invitation to search for harmony, equilibrium, and perhaps transcendence.” Over the past thirty years, he has been creating evocative landscapes that transport the viewer beyond the particulars of the external world to a timeless inner space that is at once more personal, emotional, and spiritual.
Waxing Poetic
CRAFT OF MAINE - OCTOBER 2008
By Candace Kar
Five Maine artists explore the timeless art of encaustic
For thousands of years artists have worked in the subtle and evocative medium of encaustic. By adding pigment to hot wax and applying it to a prepared surface, often wood or canvas, encaustic artists can create an image of extraordinary depth and complexity. Because of the malleability of the medium—the wax can be reworked, removed, or added to over time—encaustic has evolved into a deeply expressive and often experimental art form. Examples have survived through history, but the recent resurgence of interest in encaustic, which began to gain momentum in the 1990s, has resulted in an artistic field of broad and brilliant appeal. These eight Maine artists have embraced encaustic with confidence. Their work expresses visions of unique beauty, sensuality, and emotion
The Imprint of Creative Collaborations
PROFILE- OCTOBER 2008
By Joshua Bodwell
Photography Irvin Serrano
During the act of creation, the idea of selling one’s art is often a distant thought. The artwork as product recedes from view, and the process becomes an end in itself.
Yet the creative cycle cannot continue unless the art is sold: money exchanges hands, materials are purchased, food is consumed, the rent is paid, and more art is produced.
In the end, the selling of art begets more art.
Old Meets New
PROFILE - OCTOBER 2008
By Joshua Bodwell
Photography Irvin Serrano
A woodworker determined to settle in Maine
I had been trying to get here for a long time,” says Alex Hamilton, his arms folded across his chest as he leans against the drafting table in his sawdust-filled office at Tidewater Millwork in Woolwich. His eyebrows rise and a smile spreads across his face.
By “here,” Hamilton means Maine.
On the other side of his office door, saws whine in the large Tidewater workshop, and the air fills with the fine powder of mahogany. A crew of five is busy turning out some of the most impressive mouldings, turnings, doors, and cabinetry in the state.
Blue Hill Bunkhouse
THE DRAWING BOARD - OCTOBER 2008
Designed and constructed to accommodate visits from children and grandchildren, this bunkhouse sits alongside a home and pool house created by architect William McHenry of Blue Hill. The bunkhouse reflects the functionality and aesthetic proportions of the main house, without interrupting the original scale of the home. The Arts and Crafts style of the bunkhouse allows the organic elements of the property to flow effortlessly through the interior of the structure. The configuration of the main house and the bunkhouse create a courtyard around the pool and offer a private respite from the nearby golf course.
Magic from Big Pink
FEATURE - OCTOBER 2008
By Candace Karu
Photography François Gagné
A Victorian sea captain's home recaptures its spirit in Pemaquid Harbor
Inspired Simplicity
FEATURE - OCTOBER 2008
By Joshua Bodwell
Photography Irvin Serrano
Styling Tyler Karu
A Kennebunk village home built with creative design solutions
Meditation in Green
LANDSCAPE - OCTOBER 2008
By Candace Karu
Photography Trent Bell
An Ogunquit garden captures the sublime serenity of the natural world
The Sound of the Sea
REMARKABLE - SEPTEMBER 2008
By Joshua Bodwell
Photography Trent Bell
Life on the islands of Casco Bay
Maine is defined by its bond to the sea. And with that link comes a natural connection its islands. Casco Bay dominates the state’s southern coast, and it is peppered with dozens of various-sized island’s. Whether large or small, close to the mainland or miles out to sea, each of the bay’s many islands possesses its own unique personality.
The Discreet Charm of the Maine Woods
INN PLACE - SEPTEMBER 2008
By Candace Karu
Photography François Gagné
Making a magic connection at Hidden Pond.
Hidden Pond, New England’s newest and arguably most innovative luxury resort, opened in July with dramatic style to great acclaim. Located near Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport on more than sixty acres of pristine Maine woodlands lush with balsam and sweet ferns, birch groves and exposed granite outcroppings, Hidden Pond is an inviting study in contradictions. The destination offers guests an experience that is at once rustic and luxurious, simple yet refined, a vacation outfitted with every modern convenience in a setting that serves as a nostalgic reminder of times gone by.
Flowerless Perfection
LANDSCAPE - SEPTEMBER 2008
By Joshua Bodwell
Photography Trent Bell
Ponds, paths, and native plantings on the Blue Hill peninsula.
Bold and bodacious landscape designs can offer a dramatic visual feast. But the higher art often occurs when natural elements are subtly accentuated to produce quieter yet ultimately more resonant results. Such is the case with a project that landscape architect Bobbie Burdick has been gradually refining for more than a decade on the Blue Hill peninsula.
Farmhouse, Union
WHERE WE LIVE- SEPTEMBER 2008
Photography Sarah Szwajkos
The St. George River snakes through the hilly town of Union, and the sweeping meadows along its banks rise up toward the hamlet’s many orchards and farmsteads. This winding grass path leads to a white-clapboard farmhouse that was built in 1930 and modeled after the original structure built by one of the earliest families in Union. In this moment captured just before dusk, the birds—bittern, doves, and the occasional eagle—are settling down for the evening. Returning from a late-afternoon splash in the river, family and friends are greeted by the familiar and welcome sight of home.
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