Emma McHold Burke started working with the Portland Art Gallery just as COVID was causing small businesses like the gallery to “shift direction.”
She had recently graduated from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Pennsylvania after gaining an education in painting and art history and had planned her next life steps around the Philadelphia community in which Tyler is located.
With the uncertainty of the pandemic looming, McHold Burke reluctantly gave up her post-college apartment and moved to her family home in Maine. Wanting to maintain her connection to the art world, McHold Burke reached out to the Portland Art Gallery. When she learned that the gallery, as a non-essential business, had been instructed to close its doors to the public, she volunteered to work behind the scenes.
Her work ethic and enthusiasm were immediately evident. She was soon offered a paid position, and her willingness to work through strange and challenging times eventually earned her the position of gallery manager.
Learn about the power of creativity, and the importance of resilience, in McHold Burke’s conversation with Lisa Belisle in Radio Maine Episode 27. Listen at https://www.portlandartgallery.com/podcast.
Harbor Square Gallery in Camden is showing new work by Thomas O’Donovan, the jeweler and artistic director who founded the gallery more than four decades ago. On view is “Revelation,” from his series The Offering, crafted in 18k gold and bronze with antique coconut heishi beads. Harbor Square Gallery is at 37 Bay View St., […]
The Deer Isle Artists Association gallery welcomes North Carolina-based painter Tony Griffin as artist-in-residence for April. Griffin’s work — deeply rooted in the tradition of the Renaissance masters — spans portraiture, figure painting and plein air landscape. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and has exhibited throughout North Carolina […]
Waterfall Arts in Belfast opens “Make Your Mark,” an immersive, community-driven exhibition transforming the Clifford Gallery into an interactive space inspired by street art, April 18 through May 29. An opening reception is April 18 from 1 to 3 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The exhibition features participatory installations including doodle […]
Local Color Gallery in Belfast welcomes fiber artist Sarah Leighton as guest artist April 21 through May 17. Leighton will speak about her work during Fourth Friday Gallery Night on April 25 from 4 to 7 p.m., with her talk beginning at 5 p.m. Leighton grew up in Midcoast Maine, where her French-Canadian grandmother — […]
The Union of Maine Visual Artists presents “Bodies in Motion,” an exhibition of work in various media at Zoot Coffee in Camden, running April 1 through 30. The show features 19 artists: Hillary Steinau, Cynthia Motian McGuirl, Jess Lauren Lipton, Charlie Newton, Maryjean Viano Crowe, Mackenzie Martin, Jorge Pena, Rachel Robbins, Shanna McNair, Kristi Marsh, […]
Three artists are currently featured at Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland, spanning painting, assemblage and works on paper. Robert Hamilton (1917-2004) thought of his paintings as “a place for something to occur — little pictorial events, little plays.” In “Come Back Sweet Mama (Boy in Museum)” (1990), the avid recreational tennis player imagined a museum […]
Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset has shaped its 2026 exhibition season around the ways artists respond to the natural world and Maine’s place in the sustainable agriculture movement. The season opens with “Art to Table: Visual Sustenance,” a juried show examining individual and communal relationships to food through works that elevate ingredients, meals and rituals. […]
Meetinghouse Arts kicked off the season with a creative conversation featuring artist Charlie Hewitt on March 18, partnering with Freeport Community Services for the evening event. Hewitt is known for his Hopeful Project, a glowing installation originally commissioned by Speedwell in 2019 that has since spread to dozens of sites. The gallery also hosted a […]
George Marshall Store Gallery in York opened “Block Party!” on March 15, bringing together artists living, working or with ties to York, Kittery, Eliot, South Berwick, Ogunquit and Wells. The open-call exhibition featured a wide variety of mediums, experimental approaches and interpretations of local landmarks. The show included work by Karen Adrienne, Marena Bach, Todd […]
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