MOTHERS Art Gallery presents ‘Boats and Other Things That Float’

MOTHERS Art Gallery will feature the show “Boats and Other Things That Float,” with new and antique paintings, sculptures and ship models by artists from Maine and away, including Valerie Aponik, Richard Bazelow, Vera Rahn and unknown masters.

A reception was held on Sunday, June 1, for this show along with landscape paintings by Lora Whelan of Eastport. The show will be up through June 28.

Native peoples of Maine built dugout canoes, utilizing the rich forest resources of the area to access its equally rich river resources. Later, they shifted their boat-building skills to make birch bark canoes, which were lighter weight and more maneuverable. When the English arrived in Maine, the straight white pines drew their attention as wood suitable for masts and shipbuilding. The northeast coast, with its accessibility to England and sheltered ocean ports, became a center of shipbuilding. After the American Revolution and continuing through contemporary times, Maine’s seaport towns and cities have built ships and docks, some exclusively for the fishing and shipping needs of Maine.

When ships sailed into the District of Maine (originally part of Massachusetts) from the south, they sailed downwind and eastward with the prevailing winds. Sailors shortened it to “DownEast.” In generations past, you could see and hear the working waterfronts spring to life in the pre-dawn hours when fishermen loaded up their boats, cast off, and head out for the day with the familiar chugga-chugga-chugga as they headed across the harbor.

Today much of that tradition remains; many of the skilled jobs and businesses that fuel our working waterfronts get passed down through families. These waterfronts are living, breathing examples of the vibrant fisheries, commercial enterprises, and small waterfront businesses that built Maine’s maritime reputation, and are often captured in canvas and wood by artists from all over.

Valerie Aponik gave up her nursing career to paint full time and exhibits her work with Roux and Cyr Gallery in Portland, Archipelago in Rockland and Blue Hill Bay Gallery in Blue Hill. Her work has received multiple awards, and is in the institutional and private collections across the U.S. and abroad. Aponik has had two two-person shows at MOTHERS and her local en plein air landscapes are the focus of the book “DISAPPEARING: The Working Waterfront of Downeast,” published last year.

Richard Bazelow has lived most of his life in the Hudson Valley of New York. It’s where he spent his early years walking the woods and painting before he realized there was a name for it. It’s where he left as a young man to see the broader world around him, and then return to live his life. Surrounded by the Catskills and Hudson River, it was easy to grow up appreciating the unique perspectives that nature offers. Bazelow is a member of a number of well-known artist organizations and shows at galleries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic area.

Vera Rahn, a third generation artist and one of the mothers of MOTHERS, grew up in a family of professional artists in The Hague, Holland. She studied art in Paris, sumi painting in Tokyo, portrait painting in London, landscape painting in Nova Scotia, Santa Fe, the south of France and at the Silvermine School of Art. As a member of the Rowayton Art Center, Rahn has won well over 30 prizes. She has also won prizes at the Darien Art Show, the Art Society of Old Greenwich, and The Greenwich Art Society.

MOTHERS Art Gallery is at 19 Church Hill Circle, Columbia Falls. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday from May 28 to Sept. 13, otherwise open by appointment by calling 510-504-1109. Learn more at www.mothersartgallery.com.