Art Walk features mixed media
PRESQUE ISLE — Northern Maine Community College instructor Pam Crawford will be the featured artist at the Wintergreen Arts Center for the month of November.
The theme is PLAY: Mixed Media Art. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Nov. 4, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Barresi Financial Gallery at the Wintergreen Arts Center at 149 State Street. The public is invited to stop by to see the show and tour the art center. A variety of mixed media pieces will be on display, with many for sale. Included in the show will be fabric art quilties, funky jewelry, assemblages and many other items that have been created by using found recycled, reused and re-purposed items.
Photo courtesy Wintergreen Arts Center
FINDING ART EVERYWHERE — Pam Crawford will be the featured artist at the Wintergreen Arts Center for the month of November. The theme is PLAY: Mixed Media Art. Crawford uses objects she finds at yard sales, in closets, etc., combining and transforming them into works of art.
Gainfully employed as a community college instructor, Crawford persists as a mixed media artist, yard sale aficionado and full-time pack rat. Working from a small studio in her home, her mixed media art involves recycling, repurposing, transforming and renewing found objects and “junque” — the leftover, forgotten, discarded, out-dated bits and pieces, gewgaws, baubles, do-dads, remnants and scraps that find their way to her workbench.
Decades before the current trend to “go green” in art, she was recycling cordage into macramé plant hangers, using scrap fabric to fashion coiled baskets and painting river rocks. She’d still much rather “find” her art supplies than buy them at the big-box crafts stores, though yard sales and thrift shops do yield great recyclables when she needs additional materials.
Today Crawford is inspired by experience, experimentation, adventure, ideas, color, shape, seasons and the elements — but more often by a dusty wooden box, a rusty bauble or a gaudy piece of fabric calling for her attention. Creating a fun and/or functional piece of art from something that had a very different original intended purpose gives her endless options for recycling and reusing materials: old earrings become books, discarded glassware morphs into a yard totem, old jeans are converted into a tote bag, a leather dress gets a new life as a book cover.
Crawford dabbles — inks, paints, dyes, chalks, oil pastels, fabrics, Shiva Stiks, crayons, pencils, threads, fibers, metal, wood, clay, paper ephemera of all kinds — all are fair game as materials to be manipulated, stretched, heated, torn, sewn, woven, strewn, glued, pasted and patched. She’s never sure what the end result will be. It’s the playful process that she thoroughly enjoys.
When functional art results, it’s a perfect day!
Along with Crawford’s work, Wintergreen Arts Center staff will host a diverse and thoroughly entertaining evening of music for November’s First Friday Art Walk. From holiday shopping to be-boppin’ — make Wintergreen the last stop on your walk. Then hunker down, tap your toes and sing along.
Join Dorothy and her friends as they “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” The Shipmates Playhouse at Presque Isle High School presents musical selections from “The Wizard of Oz.” Performance time will be 7:15 to 8 p.m. — music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg.
From 8 to 9 p.m., enjoy the melodic sounds of Bosom Buddies. Bosom Buddies, a female singing duo, arose out of the desire of two ladies who enjoy performing. Sherri (Pelletier) Calhoun and Melissa (Baker) Hall combined forces last summer to create a repertoire of songs to delight the palate of a variety of audiences. They can be found singing music from the 1920s up through the popular music of today. Hall’s rendition of “Slow Boat to China” may be followed by the song “Side by Side,” sung in two-part harmony. Of course, they sing the song “Bosom Buddies” from the musical “Mame” as well as “For Good” from “Wicked.” The popular music of Elton John, Billy Joel and even Peter, Paul and Mary can also be heard from this duo.
Hall grew up in Ashland, attending the SAD 32 schools. She has been an active performer in the central Aroostook area, playing bass and singing with Too Far North and Misdemeanor. She also is a member and soloist with the Just Folk Singers and Aroostook River Voices. Hall lives in Ashland with her husband Joel and children, Mackenzie and Willow.
Calhoun grew up in Mapleton, attending the SAD 1 schools. She has had a variety of experiences with musical theatre, choral and instrumental music, church music, as well as performing with rock bands in the area. Calhoun lives in Ashland with her husband Matthew and children, Micah and Ellie.
Reed Gallery presents Logging in the Maine Woods Today
PRESQUE ISLE — The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Reed Fine Art Gallery will present “Logging in the Maine Woods Today,” a photographic exhibition on tour from the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts [MMPA], from Nov. 4 through Dec. 17. An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Friday, Nov. 4, from 5 to 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend this event, which is being held in conjunction with the Presque Isle First Friday Art Walk.
Funding from the Robert & Dorothy Goldberg Charitable Foundation is supporting this MMPA inaugural traveling exhibit, which features contemporary photographic images by Tonee Harbert. “Logging in the Maine Woods Today” explores the entrepreneurial community, stewardship and spirit of industry in the Maine woods. The MMPA is exhibiting these works in collaboration with photographs by Madeleine de Sinety.
Harbert has explored the diversity of Maine culture for more than 20 years. His subjects have included migrant workers, refugee immigrants, as well as musicians and brides. He received his degree in visual communications from Ohio State University. He continued his education informally by working for the Library of Congress printing archival photographs from the Depression Era of the Farm Security Administration. He has resided in Maine since 1988. His work is held in private and public collections across the country.
The University is the third venue to house this traveling exhibition, which opened on Jan. 15, 2011, at the Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg. It remained there until March 4, and then traveled to The Albert Brenner Glickman Family library, located on the Portland Campus of the University of Southern Maine, where it was on exhibition from March 31 to Aug. 21.
“We’re delighted to be showcasing the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts inaugural traveling exhibition,” Sandra Huck, Reed Fine Art Gallery director, said. “These contemporary black and white images offer a compelling glimpse of logging in Maine today. We invite everyone to visit the gallery and join us for the opening reception so they can view these striking images of an industry with such close ties to our region.”
The Reed Fine Art Gallery is open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed Sundays and university holidays. For more information about this event, please contact Huck at 768-9611.
