First Friday Art Walk, Rockland ME, 5-8pm, 7 September 2018

Rockland’s Penultimate Art Walk for 2018 will be on Friday, 7 September. Many of Rockland’s galleries will be open, including (but not limited to): The Farnsworth Art Museum, Art Space, Yvette Torres Fine Art, The Strand Theatre, Craft Gallery, The Art Loft, The Gautschi Center, Harbor Square Gallery, The Maine Coastal Islands Art Gallery, Jonathan Frost Gallery and Black Hole.

Art Space will showcase the work of Penny Markley, Leecia Price, Laurie Lofman Bellmore and Sandra Leinonen Dunn.  The subjects of Penny Markley’s paintings are inspired by twelve years of visiting Monhegan Island for a week each June. Creating something unique on an island so thoroughly painted by others can be a challenge, but she continues to find interesting, beautiful scenes to explore in paint.  Leecia Price is an encaustic and oil painter as well as a beekeeper. She combines beeswax with oil paints and dry artist pigments to create her contemporary paintings. She remains fascinated by the tactile properties of the wax, enhancing its translucency and shine with the effects of scraping, layering, incising, melting, and fusing with a blowtorch.  Laurie Lofman Bellmore, is a self-taught jeweler with years of experience working with fine metals, dichroic glass, and vitreous enamels. Her exhibition includes new “Diptych Wall Pieces” and “Sea Splash Jewelry”, which reveal the spirit of our coastal surroundings.  Sandra Leinonen Dunn is a Maine artist. Her style is a mixture of classical old-world realism and contemporary impressionism.  Sandra paints florals, still life, and landscapes, all rich in color and painterly brushstrokes.

Yvette Torres Fine Art opens “Angelo Ippolito, Color as Light”, continues through September 16th.

The Strand Theatre will be screening BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (1999) as part of our Music On Screen Series at 8pm

CRAFT Gallery opens its annual “Black and White” show on First Friday, focussing on mixed and traditional craft media rendered in black and white. The gallery also introduces guided all day tours to CRAFT Gallery artists  studios on Tuesdays in October.

The Art Loft will be open and showing a selection of work by Katharina Gifford as well as a return of some works by Justin Kinney.

The Gautschi Center will host the opening of “Dream Tunnel”, a special exhibition of new paintings created by Brigitte Gautschi.  Inspired by her summer in Lincolnville, being engulfed in nature, Brigitte continues to find her inner peace through her creativity.   She describes the paintings in this show as  “A tunnel of my dreams.  Everything I was painting was round in the beginning, as if I was going into a tunnel deep inside myself.”  Guests will have the opportunity to meet the artist and discuss the new works.  Throughout the evening in the outdoor courtyard, the Elm Street Galleries are hosting a musical performance by Meghan Clarke.

Harbor Square Gallery will be welcoming new artist, Kim Bernard.

Maine Coastal Islands Art Gallery will be having an opening reception for two new shows.  Libbey Seigars of Whitefield Pottery will be exhibiting her hand-thrown, nature-inspired tableware.   The Women Painters of Midcoast Maine & Friends’ show,  Close to Nature is inspired by and focused on the landscapes and nature of coastal Maine.

The Jonathan Frost Gallery will be hosting the opening reception for a show called “Abstract and Semi-Abstract,” with artists Brenda Free, Terry Hire, Sally Lee and Linda Simmons-Arnold.