Farnsworth Art Museum

The Farnsworth Art Museum is located at 16 Museum Street in Rockland, Maine. Since its inception, the Farnsworth has collected and exhibited the work of nationally recognized artists whose careers have been closely associated with Maine. The collection is rooted in the history of Maine, her people, and their occupations and values, all of which is central to the Museum’s quest to celebrate Maine’s role in American Art.

The Museum enjoys 20,000 square feet of space and more than 10,000 pieces in its collection. The Farnsworth is home to the nation’s second-largest collection of works by Louise Nevelson.

The Museum’s Wyeth Center is one of only two centers in the country dedicated to the work of America’s first family of art: Andrew, N.C., and Jamie Wyeth.

Two historic houses are also part of the Farnsworth Art Museum: The 1850 Farnsworth Homestead and the Olson House of Cushing.

The Farnsworth Homestead was the home of Lucy Farnsworth, the Museum’s original benefactor. It is part of the Museum’s main campus. Lucy left instructions that her home retain its original design, with original furnishings, and be kept open to the public. As a result, patrons are invited to tour what was probably the first indoor bathroom with a flush toilet in the city.

Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth

The Olson House, located in nearby Cushing, was a popular subject for artist Andrew Wyeth. This house is featured in his 1948 painting, Christina’s World, which is owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Thanks to a family friendship, Wyeth was allowed to wander through this house as he pleased, and to use the upstairs as a studio. The house has remained mostly unchanged since 1871 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.

The Farnsworth Art Museum offers school programs, family programs, studio programs, teacher workshops, lectures, youth and adult docent programs, video and film programs, and seasonal celebrations.

Farnsworth Art Gallery exhibits

The Main Museum is open Memorial Day through Columbus Day from 10 until 5 on every day, except for Wednesdays, when it stays open until 8. During the winter, the Main Museum is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 until 5. The Wyeth Center, Farnsworth Homestead and Olson House each operate on independent schedules.

Admission is free to members. Admission for nonmembers is as follows: Adults $12, Seniors $10, Students aged 17 and older $10. Ticket prices include admission to the Olson House and the Farnsworth Homestead when these buildings are open for regular summer hours. Admission to the Olson House may be purchased separately for $5. Children 16 and under and Rockland residents are offered free admission. The Main Museum is wheelchair-accessible. Please call 207-596-6457 for more information.

You get it from the sap of certain species of maple trees. In early spring time if you cut or drill into the bark of this certain species of tree, you will see clear liquid, the consistency of water seeping out. A bucket catches this flow and it is collected in a large holding tank. The sap is boiled down to get the water out turning it into a thick syrup, lastly being filtered and is then ready to store and eat. While boiling it can produce excess moisture in the air, so the use of a dehumidifier is often used indoors. The sap contains about two percent sugar.

The trees that this comes from are the sugar, red, silver and black maple trees. The sugar and black ones are the first choice, as they have a considerably higher sap sugar contents than the other kinds of trees, so there is less sap needed to produce a good volume of product. However, good flavours can be made from the silver and red trees, although it is often cloudy.

You may find cheaper imitations called ‘syrup-flavoured’ they are made from a mixture of ingredients including many refined sweeteners, and do not compare to the real thing. Also, they contain sugars and artificial sweeteners and are not pure having no genuine content in them. They do not taste like the genuine article, and they are also not as good for you as the natural produce. The real thing contains zinc and manganese, natural antioxidants which are great for the immune system, male reproductive system and may help prevent heart disease.

It can also be used in a number of recipes, including muffins, doughnuts, fudge, baked ham, chicken recipes, also decadent cakes and more. Even ciders and some beers make good use of this natural pure sweetener. Also, it caramelizes at a lower temperature than sugar, meaning the oven temperature is often reduced. There are many different brands and some specific types can be enjoyed by diabetics and people on low carbohydrate diets.

It takes up to 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. One tree may produce ten gallons of sap over the course of a month, and some trees have been reported as producing up to 80 gallons of sap in one year. Being an all natural product with no preservatives, the pure end produce keeps almost indefinitely. Once opened store in a refrigerator or freezer, it will not solidify. Transferring to a glass container after purchase is recommended, as it preserves the flavour and colour much better than other containers.

Montpelier - General Henry Knox Museum

The General Henry Knox Museum is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the life and home of General Knox and his family, and providing educational community events. The Museum is located at the junction of Routes 1 & 131, on 30 High St. in Thomaston, Maine.

General Henry Knox was born in 1750. In 1775, General George Washington chose Knox as his Chief of Artillery. Knox spent most of the Revolutionary War by Washington’s side and following the war, he was chosen to be the first Secretary of War. Knox and Washington became and remained lifelong friends. In 1795, Knox retired to a large tract of land, located in what is now Thomaston, which his wife had inherited from her mother. On this land, they built an elaborate nineteen-room mansion and named it Montpelier. Knox had a hand in much of the area’s economic development: He shipped timber, made bricks, participated in agriculture, built a lock and canal system on the Georges River, built roads, helped found a church, and quarried lime. A true extrovert, he once welcomed over 500 townspeople to a party at Montpelier. Knox died in 1806, at the age of 56, but he left behind many people dedicated to preserving his legacy.

Flying Staircase - Montpelier

The original Montpelier was torn down in 1871, but a replica was built in its place in 1929. The Montpelier Museum now houses many of the objects Knox kept in the original mansion.

A tour of Montpelier begins in an orientation room, which showcases changing exhibits, a cannon, and many photographs and paintings, with an introductory video. Guests are then invited to tour the mansion. Much of the inventory is original, and what is not is a close second. Wallpaper in many of the rooms is copied from wallpaper salvaged from the original mansion. In the ladies’ withdrawing room, the wallpaper is embedded with mica, which makes it sparkle in candlelight. Also found in this room is the famed Longman & Broderip piano, rumored to have been the first piano in Maine.

General Henry Knox

The oval room is another patrons’ favorite. This main room features thirteen foot ceilings, two marble fireplaces and large doors which fit the curved walls. This room offers an impressive view of the St. Georges River. Another architectural achievement which intrigues guests is the semi-flying staircase, a magnificent set of stairs with no visible means of support. The Museum’s one kitchen displays several domestic implements, some of which bear the stamp that Knox put on all of his family’s tools.

The Museum is open from Memorial weekend through Columbus Day. Guided tours are available Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 until 3:30. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors, and $4 for children. (Visitors under the age of 5 are free.) The Museum offers a family rate of $18. Group tours are available by appointment. Please call (207) 354-8062 for more information.

Davistown Museum

The Davistown Museum is a regional history, tool, and art museum located about 17 miles west of Belfast, in Liberty, Maine. Founder H.G. “Skip” Brack opened the Museum in 1999 in a historic building across the street from Liberty Tool Company and named it after the Davistown Plantation (now the towns of Montville and Liberty).

The Museum’s goals are: to recover, display, and explain hand tools of New England’s maritime culture; to increase awareness about Native American and environmental history; and to provide an arena for Maine artists to exhibit their work. The result is an intriguing juxtaposition of tools, art and history.

The Davistown Museum showcases tools with a special emphasis on the shipsmiths and edge toolmakers who crafted the hand tools that helped fuel Maine’s industrial economy from 1607 to 1930. Featured trades include: the iron forgemaster, blacksmith, shipwright, cooper, sail maker, wheelwright, pattern maker, tool maker, machinist, and mechanic. The Museum is also popular for its displays of Native American tools and artifacts.

Davistown Museum

The Museum offers an Annual Art Exhibition that displays the work of Maine’s contemporary artists, including painters, photographers, sculptors, printmakers and artisans who utilize glass, fabric and ceramics. The Museum includes the Maine Artists Guild Gallery, which showcases works by contemporary Maine artists which are for sale. Artists include: John Whalley, Alan Jagee, Abby Shahn, and Melita Westerlund. A virtual version of this gallery can be accessed via the museum’s website.

The Museum publishes a series: Hand Tools in History, which discusses the Museum’s multi-faceted missions. Another publication, Norumbega Reconsidered narrates the ethno-history of the Gulf of Maine.

The Museum strives to be of educational value to scholars and students of all ages, and offers public presentations on a variety of subjects. The Museum is currently working on a program which will allow them to loan out some of their tools to public schools. Visitors are welcome to utilize the Museum’s Center for the Study of Early Tools, a library that allows researching and studying onsite. The Museum also offers a Children’s Corner, which features age-appropriate, educational activities for both individual visitors and organized groups.

The Davistown Museum Café offers snacks, beverages and wireless Internet service, and a selection of new and used books for reading and/or purchasing.

In the summer months, the Museum is open Wednesdays through Fridays and on Sundays from 11 to 5. On summer Saturdays, the Museum is open from 10 to 5. During the offseason months, the Museum is open on weekends and by appointment. Call (207) 589-4900 for more information.

Colby College Museum of Art

The Colby College Museum of Art is a collecting and teaching museum located at 5600 Mayflower Hill, on the Colby College Campus, in Waterville, Maine. The Museum is part of the Bixler Art and Music Center, a building named after President J. Seelye Bixler (1942-1960) in honor of his support for the arts. The Museum strives to be a resource for Colby’s students, academic departments and interdisciplinary programs, and they also work to be of value to the Central Maine community, and to the global community. The Museum was founded in 1959 and now includes four wings with more than 28,000 square feet of exhibition space, and offers patrons access to more than 5,500 works. The museum specializes in American and contemporary works.

The Museum is home to a significant permanent collection and also typically displays five or more temporary exhibitions each year. These include currents, exhibitions that showcase the work of emerging and cutting-edge artists.

Lady in the Garden

The Museum’s permanent collection includes major American works by Gilbert Stuart, Winslow Homer, John Singleton Copley, Albert Bierstadt, Mary Cassatt and William Meritt Chase. Works from the modern movement include John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, George Bellows, and Rockwell Kent. The Museum also showcases contemporary works by Agnes Martine, Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt, Kara Walker, Dan Flavin, Elizabeth Murray, and Alex Katz.

The Museum is home to an impressive collection of works (numbering nearly 700) by Alex Katz, who gifted the collection to the Museum in 1992. Now, an 8,000 square foot wing houses his works. This wing is one of only a few museum wings in the country dedicated to the work of a living artist.

Taos, New Mexico

The permanent collection also includes the American Heritage Collection of Folk Art, 18th-century American portraits, primitive portraits and weathervanes, and work by American Impressionist painters. The collection also offers European prints, drawings and paintings, and special collections such as the Bernat Collection of Oriental Ceramics.

A popular set of prints by James McNeill Whistler and a collection of ancient Chinese ceramics, The Colville Collection of Early Chinese Art, are on long-term loan to the Museum.

The Joan Whitney Payson Collection of Impressionist and Post-impressionist paintings is showcased for one semester every other year.

The Museum welcomes volunteers. The Friends of Art and the Museum Docent program joins Colby students, faculty and alumni with members of the community to support the Museum.

The museum offers many programs including lectures, gallery talks and tours for both adults and children. Admission to all events is free and open to the public.

Admission to the Museum is free. The Museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 to 4 and Sundays from 12 to 4 and is closed for major holidays. Please call (207) 859-5600 for more information.

Center for Maine Contemporary Art

The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) is a contemporary art scene that exhibits work by 300-400 living artists each year. This nonprofit organization works to establish and sustain a network for Maine artists, offering exhibitions, educational programs and professional development workshops.

The CMCA began as the Maine Coast Artists, a small group of artists who came together in 1952 in Rockport, Maine, to put on a small summer art exhibition. Over the next 50 years, the Maine Coast Artists evolved into the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Today, the Center welcomes more than 14,000 visitors each year to its facility, still at home in the village of Rockport, at 162 Russell Avenue.

Exhibitions cover a spectrum of styles and genres. Every year since 1970, CMCA has offered a juried exhibition of artists with ties to Maine. Other exhibitions have included: “Work of the Hand” Crafts Show and Sale; “Just Look at Yourself!” an exhibition that explored self-portraiture; Works by Karen Lewis; Annual Benefit Art Auction Preview; Works by Brenda Bettison; Photography of Thomas Peter Michelena; “Comic-al” an exhibition exploring the aesthetic, stylistic and conceptual influences comics have on art; and “On and Off the Midway” 25 photographers celebrated 26 annual Maine state fairs and festivals.

Brenda Bettinson: Arcadia & Archetype

CMCA actively supports local educational institutions and their students. They have featured a Camden-Rockport Student Exhibition which showcased work from seven local elementary, middle and high schools. They also offer an annual “Next Generation” show, which is a juried exhibition of works by college-level junior and senior art majors in Maine.

CMCA also offers their facilities for certain special events, including weddings, parties, reunions, and business events. The scenic views of Rockport harbor and the intimate, artful ambiance of the center make it an ideal location for many social or business occasions.

CMCA offers different levels of membership, several of which are fully tax-deductable and all of which offer tantalizing member privileges.

From Memorial Day through Halloween, the Gallery is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 to 4, and Sundays from 1 to 4, and is closed on Mondays. During the winter (November 1 – May), the Gallery is open Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 to 4, and Sundays from 1 to 4, and is closed Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. General admission is $5 per person. Admission is free to Rockport residents, members, and children. The facilities are wheelchair accessible. Call (207) 236-2875 for more information.

Brick Store Museum, Kennebunk, Maine

The Brick Store Museum located in Kennebunk, Maine used to be a brick store. Built in 1825 by William Lord, the locally-kilned bricks were an unusual choice in the midst of an abundance of inexpensive Maine timber. The exterior of the building remains mostly unchanged since then, but the interior has been altered significantly. However, evidence of the store’s history remains: One can still see the pulley system used to hoist heavy goods.

William Lord’s great granddaughter, Edith Cleaves Barry, inherited the store and opened the Museum in 1936. She then overtook three other buildings, dating from 1810 to 1860, and linked them on the inside. The complex now consists of five buildings.

The Museum is home to more than 70,000 artifacts, including maritime papers, items from the estates of authors Kenneth Roberts and Booth Tarkington, paintings by Thomas Badger, John Brester Jr., Abbott Fuller Graves, Hannah Skeele, and Louis D. Norton. Visitors’ favorites include quilts with secret pouches and handwritten inscriptions, a painting found floating at sea of a Kennebunkport ship captain, and the largest collection of World War I and World War II posters in the state.

Researchers of all ages visit the Museum to utilize the extensive primary source materials: diaries and family papers, more than 3,000 historical photographs, vintage postcards, indexes for Kennebunk-built ships, commercial records, maps, and architectural drawings. They even have area newspapers dating back to 1877. A section of the archives is devoted to Maine writers, with collections of Sarah Orne Jewett, Kenneth Roberts, and Booth Tarkington. Call (207) 985-4802 to schedule an appointment with an archivist.

The Brick Store Museum offers a variety of exhibitions and events. There is truly something for everyone. Past exhibitions have included: Mailed from Maine: Vintage Postcards of the Kennebunks; Quilts from the Collections of the Brick Store Museum; Living Little: A Selection of Dollhouses and Architectural Models; Around the World with Edith Barry; Faces of the Kennebunks by Photographer Liam Crotty; Kennebunk’s Big Leaguers: The Baseball Legacies of Colby Jack and Bobby Coombs; Wild Things: Selections from Kate Manko’s Collection of American Folk Art Animals; Camp Maine: Rustic Furniture and Accessories, 1860-1940; and The Art of Rug Hooking in Maine.

The Museum is conveniently located on 117 Main Street, at the junction of Route 35 and Route 1, in downtown Kennebunk, Maine. They are open year-round, Tuesdays through Fridays, from 10 to 4:30 and Saturdays from 10 to 1. The Museum is closed on national holidays and the day after Thanksgiving. Please call (207) 985-4802 to verify hours. Suggested donation of $5 for admission.

Now, the Museum is home to 14,500 artifacts: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine objects; European Old Master drawings; and paintings by John Singleton Copley, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and Andrew Wyeth. In 1960, Winslow Homer’s family donated an extensive archive of memorabilia: pictures, letters, newspaper clippings, palates and paintbrushes from his studio. The Museum’s collections are continually growing, through purchase, gift, and bequest.

Since 1894, the Museum has made its home in the Walker Art Building (9400 College Station) on the Bowdoin College Campus in Brunswick, Maine. The Walker Art Building was constructed in 1894 and was given to the College by Harriet and Sophia Walker, both avid supporters of art education. They selected the architect Charles Follen McKim, whose firm, McKim, Mead and White, also designed the Boston Public Library, The Morgan Library and Museum in New York, and the Brooklyn Museum. This landmark has recently undergone extensive renovation and expansion, a $20 million endeavor, and now the famed edifice features a new dramatic entry pavilion (a glass and bronze structure that houses a glass elevator and floating steel staircase), an extensive glass curtain wall, and a fully remodeled interior.

The glass curtain wall draws attention to the prize behind it: six Assyrian relief sculptures. These sculptures, some as tall as 6 feet, once decorated the walls of King Ashurnasirpal’s palace at Nimrud in Assyria (northern Iraq) in the 9th century B.C.E. These sculptures were excavated in the 1840s and Bowdoin acquired them in 1860.

The Museum features fourteen galleries, including a Media Gallery, and both rotating selections from the permanent collection, and changing exhibitions from museums and artists around the world. The Museum also offers public programs and lectures.

The Museum offers a new membership program with 7 membership levels. All levels offer a newsletter and calendar, invitations to previews and events, and a 10% discount in the museum shop. (The Benefactor level of membership offers an exclusive exhibition preview and dinner with director and curator.) The museum shop offers a variety of items, including: cards, catalogs, books, gifts, jewelry, posters and prints.

Admission is free. The Museum offers interactive educational tours for all ages. The Museum welcomes groups of all sizes and interests. Guided tours are available at no charge Tuesday through Friday, from 10 to 4, and last one hour. The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 to 5, Thursdays from 10 to 8:30, and Sundays from 1 to 5. They are closed on Mondays and national holidays. Call (207) 725-3275 with any questions

Bates College Museum of Art at the Olin Arts Center

The Bates College Museum of Art is located in the Olin Arts Center on the Bates College Campus at 75 Russell Street, in Lewiston, Maine.

The Museum was founded in 1955 as the Treat Gallery with the generous gift of The Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, from Marsden Hartley’s niece, Norma Berger. Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), a Lewiston native, is considered to be one of the most important American modernist painters, and one of the most renowned artists from Maine. The collection includes drawings, oil sketches, personal photographs, and writings. Hartley and his work led several other artists, including Carl Sprinchorn, to Maine to paint. The Bates collection also features work by Robert Indiana, who paid homage to Hartley through a body of work called, “The Hartley Elegies.”

Beyond Hartley, the Museum continues to focus on Maine artists. They also concentrate on works on paper: Old Master prints; European works by artists such as Georges Rouault, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso; American works by John Marin, Mary Cassatt, John Sloan, and George Bellows; contemporary works by Anne Harris, Robert Indiana, Charlie Hewitt, and Alison Saar. They also offer patrons a collection of contemporary African and Chinese photography, a selection of pre-Columbian sculpture and ceramics, and Japanese woodblock prints.

Olin Arts Center - Bates College

The Museum is also home to William Pope. L, a well known contemporary performance artist. William Pope. L (1955) is an American visual artist, but is best known for his performance art and interventionist public art. He was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and is a Guggenheim Fellow. Pope. L was a lecturer of Theater and Rhetoric at Bates from 1990 to 2006. While there, he directed a production of A Raisin In the Sun, in which he cast both Caucasian and African-American actors as members of the same family.

The Museum organizes three original exhibitions each year and hosts an annual exhibition by art majors. The museum also features a student-curated exhibition called Students in the Vault.

Bates College Museum of Art exhibits

The Museum recently renamed the Upper Gallery the Bates Gallery, which is devoted to changing exhibitions, and created three new spaces in the Lower Gallery: the Collection Gallery (for long-term exhibitions), the Underground Synergy Seminar Space (a project, viewing, and study space), and the 150 Art Reader Stairwell.

Bates College Museum of Art welcomes 20,000 visitors each year, and frequently hosts special events and lectures. The Museum strives to foster a “creative community” by creating collaborative programs with area schools, arts organizations, and the Lewiston-Auburn community.

In support of the Museum’s attempts to redefine the art museum’s role today, they have recently received a generous gift, a “synergy” fund dedicated to “the development of education, with focus on the synchronistic parallels in time and space across the subject matter of liberal arts.” These funds will allow the Museum to continue to explore new territory as it organizes exhibitions and educates its patrons. They hope to create an intimate space where art can be fully engaged, where more questions are asked than are answered.

Admission is free and the museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 to 5. Call (207) 786-6158 to verify that the museum is open before you visit.