Unique Attic Window Series by Jean Kigel at Gifts at 136 Damariscotta

Gifts at 136 on Main Street in Damariscotta presents a unique series of Attic Windows paintings by Waldoboro artist, Jean Kigel. Attics occupy a special space directly below the pitched roof of a house. Once common in New England houses, attics are now obsolete architectural structures. These awkwardly shaped spaces, with exposed rafters and difficult-to-reach corners, are generally used for storage. Vast troves of family papers in neatly tied bundles, heaped beside dusty Seth Thomas clocks, and sea chests of clothing stored in attics, reveal family histories.

“There is something romantic about an attic.” In Kigel’s paintings the viewer is invited to take a virtual look from the street into attic windows to imagine the history within. Kigel travels Mid-Coast Maine towns, seeking unusually shaped attic windows, in the form of crescent moons, polygons, or ornately arranged and decorated multi-panes. Her compositions consist of apexes of old New England homes clustered into an architectural community. In these compositions harmonized of colors and shapes create a distinct personality of a given town. Gifts at 136 is open seven days a week from 10-5