SACO — The cities on the Saco River are ripe with inspiration for local artists, and the fruits of their labor are currently on view at the Saco Museum and North Dam Mill.
The 2010 Mill-ennial, Celebrating the Art and Artists of the Cities on the Saco, opened in April and will run through June 13.
The exhibit contains 61 works of art by 39 area artists connected to Saco, Biddeford and Old Orchard Beach.
Saco Museum Director Jessica Skwire Routhier said she liked the idea of having displays on both sides of the river, with some in a traditional museum location and a former industrial space. She hopes in future years to find a location in Old Orchard Beach to display some items.
Routhier said she’s had the idea for this exhibit since she first interviewed for her position at the museum. “It’s been really exciting to see it all happen,” she said.
Routhier said the museum has done a good job of documenting the history of the area, and she wanted to do more to explore what’s being created in the area today.
Routhier said she was “pleasantly impressed” by the variety and quality of artwork created in the area. She said the collection, which includes paintings, sculptures, photographs and is a “diverse and eclectic” mix.
Omer Gagnon of Dayton won the juror’s award, selected by exhibition juror Fredrick Lynch, for his wood, metal and found-object sculpture “Carasoul of War.”
Purchase prizes, selected by the Collections Committee of the Dyer Library and Saco Museum, went to Pat Campbell of Saco for her relief sculpture “Mandala II,” made of rice paper and reed; to Laura Lee Dobson of Saco for her black-and-white photograph “Rocky Hill Road;” and to Kathy Angel Lee of Old Orchard Beach for her art quilt entitled “Saco Mills.”
The purchase prizes will be in the museum’s permanent collection.
“It’s nice for the artist, but it’s also really nice for us,” said Routhier.
Dobson said she is trying to balance art with working full time and family. She said she is passionate about both photography and drawing, but photography fills an immediacy. Dobson said she has displayed her work at local venues such as coffee shops, but this is her first award.
“I’m still kind of in shock,” she said.
Dobson’s photo is of large trees looming in a field, with fog fading out the background. The scene is from a place she drives by every day, and she said that she took about 150 pictures of the scene, before whittling the photos down.
Dobson said she grew up an army brat and has been in Maine 25 years. She said she has learned the local landscape and grown to love it and what she can capture with her camera.
Lee works from photographs when she makes her quilts. Her piece comes from a picture she took last spring of the Saco Mills.
Lee uses various techniques including overlaying bridal netting or using the reverse side of a piece of material to create depth and shadow effects of the mill buildings in her quilt. She used Angelina fibers, which she ironed and melded together to create the effect of the rushing river.
“I like working with fabric. I like the texture of fabric, and what I can do with it,” said Lee.
Her pieces are sewn by machines.
“I think of my machine as a paintbrush,” said Lee.
She said many people, when looking at the her quilts from a distance, think they are paintings.
Campbell has been an artist for many years and has been working with reed, wood and rice paper since about 1994.
Campbell said she finds making sculptures meditative and the rice paper and reed pieces are influenced by her love of Japanese architecture.
“ I enjoy making things. It’s just something I’ve done since I was a child,” said Campbell. “It’s exciting when you make something beautiful and people enjoy it.”
The piece in the museum, like all her current pieces, is modular. It’s made of two sheets of swirl shaped pieces ”“ made of rice paper and reed ”“ layered over each other.
Gagnon’s piece is a sculpture of a carousal with military figurines ”“ some standing and some on horses, canons, and hanging parachuters.
Gagnon, a Vietnam war veteran, said the piece is a statement about war.
“It’s not pro-war, it’s not anti-war. It is what it is. It’s a carousel of war,” said Gagnon.
The piece is part of a series he’s making of amusement park pieces with war themes.
Gagnon said he likes exploring new mediums and works with found objects in a deconstruction and reconstruction process.
He works with both natural and manmade objects.
Gagnon said he will find items and does not always realize why they are important when he finds an additional medium.
“I will collect and collect and collect and then suddenly it hits me,” he said. Often, he said things will come together and it will “open up doors to a whole new journey” and things will go in a different direction than he originally thought.
For more information on the exhibit, go to www.sacomuseum.org.
— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.
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