ANNEX ARTS is a non-profit artist residency program located on the Blue Hill Peninsula in Castine, Maine. We provide creative workspaces for artists and writers so that they can benefit from unfettered time and the opportunity to draw inspiration from our stunning village and coastal region. Annex Arts’ programming promotes the arts as a means to address the economic, cultural, and spiritual well-being of our community.
DREW KLASSEN / JUNE 15 – JUNE 27, 2019
Ottawa, Ontario,Visual Arts
Drew Klassen, painter and educator, was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1964, and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He attended Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While teaching English in Japan, Klassen established a strong studio practice and began to exhibit regularly upon his return to Canada in 1998. His work is held in numerous private and institutional collections in Canada and abroad. In 2010 he received one of five Established Artist Recognition Awards presented annually by the government of Nova Scotia.
SHELLEY MANSEL / JUNE 15 – JUNE 22, 2019
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Visual Arts
A landscape and figurative painter, Shelley Mansel attended UCFV in British Columbia and received a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has shown in solo, two-person, and group exhibitions internationally with works reviewed in magazines including House & Home and featured on HGTV. Her paintings are held in private collections in Canada, Germany, France, and the US, and in permanent public collections at St. Mary’s University Halifax and UBC Vancouver. She has received two Nova Scotia Creation Grants, a Presentation Grant, and has served on the selection committee for the Nova Scotia Culture Division’s Grants to Individuals Program.
KRISTY CUNNANE / JUNE 24 – JUNE 30, 2019
Ellsworth, Maine, Visual Arts
Kristy Cunnane is an artist and educator who loves to cook and lives in the woods of rural Maine on a long old road called Happytown. Cunnane specializes in graphic and text-laden images that often mix humanity with the splendor of the natural world in witty and wonderful ways. In addition to spending much of her time teaching at a small Waldorf school in Blue Hill, Maine, where her days are full of lively children, she works as an illustrator, printmaker, and book artist and is a force behind “Table for Change,” an art and food dining experience which directs its proceeds towards specific charitable causes.
Where do ideas for creating fictional characters come from? How are these ideas developed so that characters are both believable and complex? In this half-day course, writer Elizabeth Poliner leads a lively exploration of these questions through discussion and the use of in-class exercises. After developing characters through various techniques, participants will learn how an understanding of character can generate a story’s plot. By the end, participants may have enough material at hand to go home and write a great story!
ELIZABETH POLINER / JUNE 5 – JULY 5, 2019
Hollins, Virginia, Literary Arts
Elizabeth Poliner is the author of As Close to Us as Breathing (winner of the 2017 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in Fiction and an Amazon Best Book of 2016); Mutual Life & Casualty, a novel-in-stories; What You Know in Your Hands, a poetry collection; and Sudden Fog, a poetry chapbook. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared widely in literary journals including the Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Colorado Review. She teaches creative writing in the MFA and undergraduate programs at Hollins University where she is an associate professor and current director of the Jackson Center for Creative Writing.
Friday, July 5, 5-7pm: Opening Meet-the-Artists Reception— meet Annex Arts’Artists-in-Residence, Moira Holohan & Xavi Comas, visiting from Miami, FL and Barcelona. Find out what this interdisciplinary artist and geophysicist duo will be doing while in residence. 8 Water St. Castine, Me. www.annexarts.org, Free and Open to the public.
MOIRA HOLOHAN / JULY 1 – JULY 21, 2019
Miami, Florida, Visual Arts
A multidisciplinary artist, Moira Holohan merges two sets of temporal art practices: slow and meditative with fast and urgent. The laborious process of weaving and hand-marked flip book animation are paired with the immediacy of performance and video montage. Holohan explores the process as both signifier and instrument, while contemplating questions of meaning, purpose, and value. In collaboration with Dr. Xavier Comas, Holohan’s recent work employs geophysical profiles collected with a ground-penetrating radar. She received her BA at Bard College and her MFA at Hunter College and has exhibited widely.
XAVIER COMAS / JULY 1 – JULY 21, 2019
Miami, Florida, Interdisciplinary
Born in Barcelona, Spain, Xavier Comas earned a fine arts degree in graphic design and photography from the Superior Faculty of Fine Arts of Barcelona University and his doctorate in Environmental Sciences from Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Florida Atlantic University. Comas’ timely collaboration with Moira Holohan seeks unique fusions of art and science. His graphic designs, blogs, and photo essays have exhibited and been published in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and The Netherlands.
ª Friday, July 12, 5-7 pm: Meet the Residents Reception— Annex Arts’ Artists-in-Residence, Painter, Sara MacCullouch from Nova Scotia. 8 Water St. Castine, Me. www.annexarts.org, Free and Open to the public.
ª Tuesday, July 9, 5-7pm: Opening Reception for Exhibition by Dez Ryan Odegaard at the Gallery B Project Space at 9 Main Street, Castine, www.gallerybgallery.com, Free and Open to the public. Exhibition runs from July 9 – July 17
SARA MACCULLOCH / JULY 10 – 19TH, 2019
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Visual Arts
Sara MacCulloch recently completed her MFA at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and has been painting for over twenty years. Her work centers on sense of place, memory, and the ephemerality of a moment. Her subjects are mostly of landscapes that have had an impact on her from childhood, and more recently of places where she has spent time with her daughter. She has shown extensively in Halifax, Toronto, and New York and has works in collections in the U.S. and abroad.
Fires Within The Kittery Art Association 2 Walker Street, Kittery, February 12th – March 8th. On view at the KAA from February 12 – March 8, 2026. Opening Reception: Sunday, February 15th, from 5-7pm – Free and open to all! Also on View: Works by Spotlight Artist Rhonda Miller. Rhonda Miller loves creating artworks in different […]
Colby College Museum of Art connects generations across oceans through works by more than 40 contemporary artists in “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas.” On view July 11, 2026, to June 6, 2027, the physically and visually immersive exhibition brings together approximately 50 paintings, sculptures, videos, prints, […]
The Zillman Art Museum – University of Maine, located at 40 Harlow Street in Bangor, ME, opened five featured winter exhibitions on January 16. ZAM is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 am – 5 pm and brings modern and contemporary art to the region, presenting approximately 21 original exhibitions each year. Admission to the Zillman Art […]
In an era where migration narratives frequently collapse into faceless statistics, Maine artist Jean Kigel offers something profoundly different: a humanizing gaze that restores individuality to those caught in the global currents of displacement. Her upcoming exhibition at Barbara Kramer Gallery in Belfast Free Library during February transforms political abstractions into intimate encounters. The Belfast […]
The Maine Crafts Association (MCA), in partnership with the Maine Arts Commission and the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, is proud to announce the seven mentor/apprentice pairs selected for the 2026 Craft Apprentice Program (CAP). Now in its 11th year, the program continues to honor the enduring power of mentorship, creativity, and fine craft across […]
Fill your snowy days with creativity by registering for artist workshops! Putting Color to Work for You 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 28 to March 1 Apply paint with confidence! Join Liz Prescott in exploring all the facets of color and how it can be used to create mood and energy in your work. […]
Tracy Van Buskirk, a relief print artist, will be in residence at the Deer Isle Artists Association for the month of February, focusing on the art of collage. Van Buskirk has worked in linoleum block printmaking for a few years and is excited to switch gears and work in the world of cut and torn […]
Local Color Gallery is pleased to welcome Emily Sabino, whose work will be displayed from Feb. 25 through March 22. Sabino will talk about her ongoing series “Path Forward” at this month’s Fourth Friday Gallery Night, which runs from 4 to 7 pm. Feb. 27. Sabino will speak at 5 p.m., weather permitting. Sabino’s paintings […]
The Farnsworth Art Museum is pleased to announce that Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture will be honored with the 2026 Maine in America Award at the Farnsworth’s annual Gala on Friday, July 17, in recognition of the School’s profound and lasting contributions to American art. The award coincides with “MAINE: A Force within American […]
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