By Dagney C. Ernest / Village Soup
The changing seasons bring new artists and a new selection of paintings and local works of art to Archipelago. The Island Institute’s store and gallery will host an opening reception for its fall gallery show Friday, Nov. 3, from 5-8 p.m.
The public is invited to stop into the gallery’s 386 Main St. location during Rockland’s First Friday Art Walk to enjoy light refreshments, see the new pieces and meet some of the artists. The show, which highlights the work of printmaker Kathleen Buchanan; painters Claudia Diller and Hélène Farrar; and fiber artist Anne Walker, will be on display through the winter.
Buchanan is a Midcoast printmaker whose work focuses on collagraph printing, where a handmade print of a collage of various materials is pulled off a printing plate. Educated and employed as a biologist prior becoming a full-time printmaker in 1999, Buchanan said that much of her training as a scientist has served her extremely well as an artist, since both disciplines require skill at observing the environment and not only looking, but seeing, what’s going on around her.
Diller of Portland is a freelance designer and illustrator who splits her time between her studio apartment on Munjoy Hill and Maine’s western mountains. Diller works with acrylics and occasionally watercolor to help depict the places she’s been; and derives her inspiration from time spent camping around the islands off the coast in the summer and skiing through the western mountains in the winter.
Farrar’s approach to art making is one of experimentation and momentum, using oils, encaustics and watercolors on material such as canvas, panel, paper and found objects. She has taught and worked in the visual arts for 15 years; and has actively exhibited in commercial, nonprofit and university galleries in New England, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Italy and England. The professional art educator most recently served on the faculties of the University of Maine and Thomas College. She currently owns and operates her own private art school out of her Manchester studio.
After careers in business and education, Walker of Rangeley found a passion for fiber arts, using fabric as her main medium. Moving gradually from a background in traditional quilting and basket making, she now concentrates on art quilts and fabric/mixed media collage. Walker is primarily self-taught and her work ranges from landscapes of the Maine mountains, lakes and rugged shore to impressionistic and graphic pieces, all inspired by her surroundings and travels.
Other featured artists include Belfast’s Annette Huval, who will bring her one-of-a-kind felt sculptures to Archipelago. From her home studio, and through her business Oliver Rabbit, she develops patterns and designs, creates her own handmade work and teaches other to sew and enjoy the magic of making.
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