Blog
Dear Friends,
In quiet corners of Hampden, Maine, artists have been following their own creative paths: painting, drawing, hooking rugs, teaching, sharing. Now seven artists in Hampden have come together to open their studios/workplaces for you to visit.
Join us December 11 from 11:00-4:00 for the First Annual Hampden Artist Crawl. Why an ‘Art Crawl’ you might ask. How else would you get from Chickadee Lane in East Hampden to Main Road South without following the artists’ pathway! Why in Hampden? Because creativity abounds in our community and has been hidden for too long!
Follow the Art Crawl pathway, see amazing artwork, talk with the artists, and find special sales on some works.
Artists and studio locations include:
Kay Carter Long Time Sun Gallery, 76 Main Road South, Hampden
Sue Roberts 66 Chickadee Lane, Hampden
Obrianna Cornelius 105 Main Road North, Hampden
Peg Hanson showing work at Calkins Farm Stand, 295 Main Road South, Hampden
Jim Toothaker showing work at Long Time Sun Gallery, 76 Main Road South, Hampden
Ed Nadeau 72 Summer Street, Hampden
Toni Philbrick. The Keeping Room, 56C Main Road North, Hannibal Hamlin Plaza, Hampden
We look forward to sharing the creative spirit of Hampden with you.
For more information email us at:
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Dear Friends,
This is a quick note to let you know that I was chosen as one of the artists whose work will be highlighted in the 2020 Art Maine Annual Guide which comes out in January. That's so exciting!
I have been a bit remiss in keeping my web site, www.kaycarterpaints.com, up to date. As a result of the listing in Art Maine, I have been adding new work to the web site and will continue to do so for the next month or so. Take a minute or two to check out what's there.
Another item of interest: between now and the end of December, all cards, prints, and paintings in my Gallery, Long Time Sun, will be on sale for 10% off. With the sale of any paintings, cards, or prints based on images from Baxter State Park, I will donate 10% of the sale price to Friends of Baxter Park.
The Gallery is located in the back of my house in Hampden: 76 Main Road S. It is a working studio and gallery and is open by chance, by appointment, and when the 'Open' flag is flying at the end of the driveway. If you are in the neighborhood, stop in or call ahead (944-7814). As always, I love visitors to the Gallery.
As the holiday season arrives, with predictable cold here in Maine, I am constantly aware of the blessings which art brings into my life . I am also aware of those who struggle for enough food, safe housing, and a country which will welcome them as refugees, asylum seekers, people who have been forgotten. I see the impact of climate change and the rhetoric which divides us person to person. May each of us act from a space of love in all we do. Love for every individual on this planet, love for the plants and animals which sustain our world, love for the Universe with her beautiful, mysterious space and healing rhythms and energy.
We can do better.
Greetings to you in this holiday season.
Kay
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Close to Nature - A show of drawings and paintings informed by Mother Earth |
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Dear Friends,
I am pleased to invite you to the opening of a show of my works which will hang in the Stairwell Gallery at the Bangor Public Library during the months of October and November 2019. The opening will be: Friday, October 4 5:00-8:00 PM as part of the Downtown Bangor First Friday Artwalks Music by Women With Wings from 6:00-6:30 Artist talk 6:30-7:00 Please join us to celebrate this exhibit. Below is a description of the installation
The paintings in this show, completed in oil, pen and ink, watercolor, and writing, explore my intimate connection with our environment. The viewer is invited to join in that exploration. Through each piece the calm beauty of nature, its trees, rocks, plants, are amplified. Moving ever closer to the source of inspiration, my work brings our earth and its environments into focus.
As you approach the lowest part of the Stairwell Gallery, black and white pen and ink drawings invite one to experience the textures and forms of nature through the dance of pen strokes. Move up the steps and watch the images change in character. Black and white renderings transition to color images, woodland plants emerging. Continue up the stairs. The images will take you closer to Mother Earth. The higher images are non-representational but informed by forms, textures, and energy found in nature. At the top of the Stairwell Gallery, the painting: 'Moonrise over New Mexico', completes the cycle and returns to black, grey, and white renderings.
Stop and read the descriptions associated with the 'Month Series' paintings. Each work began as I thought and wrote about the energy flow happening above and below ground in my immediate environment. The writing then informed the painting which evolved, tying the work back to the cycles and energy of the earth and the universe.
In this show, I share with the viewer my experience in expanding and celebrating the beauty of our earth, my connection to our natural world with its cycles of birth and death, and my concerns for the health of our planet.
I recognize and honor that these paintings were created on and about places which the Penobscot Nation and the Wabanaki people inhabited, nurtured, and sustained for thousands of years. For their stewardship of the land through past generations and for generations to come, I am grateful.
More of my work can be seen at Long Time Sun Gallery, 76 Main Road S, Hampden, ME 207-944-7814. Feel free to stop by and enjoy other works. |
Dear Friends,
Over two years in the making, my gallery, Long Time Sun, is ready for it's Grand Opening. You are invited to stop in on the weekend of November 16, 17, and 18 between 10:00 and 6:00, enjoy some munchies, music by Women with Wings on Saturday afternoon, and art works by Linda Stearns and myself.
Find the gallery at:
76 Main Road South, Hampden ME 04444
(about 1/2 mile south of the old Hampden Academy on Rt 1A)
207-944-7814
Having a working studio and gallery in my home has long been a dream. The space, which is attached to my house, was built during the summer of 2017 by House Revivers, a construction company in Bangor lead by Bob, Suzanne, and David Kelley. An inviting, open and light space, I find it perfect for my work as an artist.
I hope you will take a few minutes on the weekend of November 16-18 to stop by and help to celebrate the opening of the gallery. Ten percent of all sales at the opening will be donated to the Good Shepherd Food Bank.
Look for the 'open' flag in the front yard. If you are unable to stop by on the opening weekend, stop in any time the flag is out. I love to share the space and my work with others.
Kay
You are invited
Many folks know that I spent a good deal of the summer recovering from an infection which attacked my brain. There wasn't any painting while I spent 10 days as a guest of St Joseph's Hospital and Eastern Maine Medical Center (or even after discharge). My recovery progresses as I work to regain strength, endurance, stability, and the ability to paint again. Inspite of this diversion into the medical world, I am pleased to invite you to two shows which include representations of my art work.
Create VI is a show sponsored by Maine College of Art in Portland. I was pleased to be juried into this show with a piece, completed in early June, at a week long class which I attended. The opening of Create VI is Friday, August 25 from 5:00-7:00. If you are in Portland stop by to see the show. It will be up until September 15.
Women Artists of Midcoast Maine will hang a show at The Gallery at 900 Broadway (the St Joseph's Medical Office Building). The art work of nine women from Midcoast Maine will be shown. Three of my paintings, completed in the Spring of 2017, will be on display there. The opening of the show is September 19 from 5:30-7:30. It is a treat to show work with eight other women from our area. Each woman has their own style, resulting in an eclectic mix of paintings which lend themselves to a very energetic show. The show will be up until into December.
As luck and calendars would have it, I will not be able to attend the openings. The conflict is caused by the wedding of Daryle's and my son in Lyons, Colorado, an event I would not miss! I trust that you will be able to stop by at the opening or see the show at another time.
Thank you for your continued interest in my art work.
Kay
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Dear Friends,
I am pleased to invite you to enjoy the work that has been keeping me busy these past few months. New paintings will be on display in a show: Mother Earth - Sister Moon in the Back Gallery of the Rock and Art Shop from April 3 - 23. The show opening is Friday April 7 from 5:00-7:00. I hope you can stop by. The Rock and Art Shop is located at 36 Central St in Downtown Bangor.
The paintings and drawings were inspired by my experiences with the natural and the nocturnal world. The Full Moon Rising series, completed mostly in pastels, was created between June and November 2016 on-site in New Mexico and Maine. From the stillness of the New Mexico desert in June, to moon rise during a waterfront concert in Bangor in August (Jimmy Buffett), to the supermoon rise over Blue Hill and Bucksport in November, the series tells a diverse story of our activities within the cycles of time.
New works can also be seen on my web site (Kaycarterpaints.com). Click the link to 'recent work' under the 'Paintings' heading. I have worked more in my studio than outside this winter, unlike past years. A warm (and sometimes organized) place to paint has been a delight. It has given me the opportunity to push into more abstract forms in my painting, often inspired by textures and shapes seen in nature.
I look forward to sharing my art work with you.
Kay |
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Painting and learning in the New Mexico high desert |
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Greetings friends from this long silent writer. Spring and early summer have been a good time of painting. Below are reflections on one very special adventure during this time.
I had an opportunity to spend a week in June at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM, learning about Georgia O'Keeffe's work and doing some of my own painting. The experience was captivating, exhilarating, joyful, deepening, and just plain fun.
Impressions of painting at Ghost Ranch:
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Reflections on one house and three paintings |
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Cycles and seasons loom large in my paintings and my life. For the past three years I have regularly turned in my art work to one place: an iconic, glorious, imploding house in the Town of Searsport, Maine. It sits on Rt 1, looking east to the ocean, tucked far back on the lot so a hurried traveler might pass by and never notice its slow demise.
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From small wisps of weeds emerging from snow mounds in 'Memories', to the spartan vine twists in 'Signs of Life', and the exuberant color in 'Door Yard' we travel on a journey of life, death and re-birth which is as true and whole as the journey of the house. That which stood, that which sheltered life, that which was abandoned, that which faded and that which explodes again in new growth are all part of a universal cycle. Blessings, gifts, and mystery all.
Enjoy!
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Permanence/Impermanence - Two words with similar sound, which are hard to spell and conjure many images. I have been thinking about these in my art work for some time... What reflects permanence; is there really anything which is permanent? Two drawings come together:
They each are about place, about cycles of living, and, in their own way, about birth and death. They are not different, one from the other; each is whole as it stands, and incomplete at the same time. Each challenges the idea of permanence.
A drawing and a painting comlpleted at Schoodic Peninsula ask similar questions:
Are the rock masses of the Schoodic Peninsula permanent? To what rhythm do they roll and change? Will the magma intruding into granite of the one make way for weeds over time? This fall, on a warm and sunny mid November day, I went to Schoodic to paint. I took all my oil painting gear. As I left home I imagined the changing light of Autumn reflected on turbulent waters and solid rocks. No one was at the end of Schoodic Peninsula when I arrived. Walking around in the sun, feeling warm within and warmed from without, I looked. Unexpectedly what called to me were weeds growing thru rock cleavages. They were dry but alive, opportunistic in their rock beds. Again I asked myself... what is permanent? What is impermanent? and is there a difference.
As I look back at paintings from last Spring and summer I find the same questions, explored thru a variety of mediums, places and images. Each is about long history... from where have we come? what is offered to us? what will our children's children know of time past and present? Does it matter?
My answer for now is that it does matter. As I come to understand impermanence, that even the rocks change over time, that our grandest accomplishments are neither grand nor enduring, then I am freed up to celebrate possibilities and change. Impermanence gives us license to explore, to risk, to create. It gives us hope.
I was going through some boxes recently and found a card which I designed back in 1982. What was shared then is relevant today . I share it now for all of us to ponder as this Season of Light and Darkness, hope and despair cycles in our lives.
"The world is awaiting its own re-birth. With each new dawn, with each new day, the peoples of the earth have risen with the morning star, hoping that today will bring news of peace."
Blessings to you and to all who foster hope, work for peace, and speak out against fear, hatred, and suspicion. May we all revel in the impermanence in our lives and our world.
