How do I love you, Maine? Let me count the ways.

Sunset at Castine, oil on canvas, 12X9, $395, available through Castine Plein Air.

Maine—where people offer you a spot on their deck to paint the sunset and add, “There’s a bathroom on the lower level and cold drinks inside, anything you need.” And then simply leave and let you paint. Or see you painting outside their house and come over and offer you a cool drink and a bathroom. Or coffee. Or anything you might need.

I really did finish it, but then I forgot to photograph it. The Dyce Head Light is too lovely to not paint, even if you suffer from a surfeit of lighthouses.

Maine—where even in the middle of summer, your window fogs up when you start your car after dusk, a gentle 64° breeze sweeps away the heat of the day as you drive slowly ‘home’ down a dirt road with the windows open. And when you get there, your friends have made you a delicious home-cooked meal.

Maine—where the clouds are ever-changing and always rolling along, pushed by the clash of ocean breezes and the prevailing westerlies.

Boathouse and dead tree. I painted this in a deluge and didn't like it at the time, but I've reconsidered. It has a certain off-hand charm. I was listening to Dorothy Sayers' Whose Body on my phone while I painted this. Perhaps it is influenced a little by Lord Peter Wimsey.

Maine—where there really are still village greens, Civil War memorials, streets lined with white-clapboard covered houses, and one-room schoolhouses.

A lovely scene below the lighthouse. If I live to be 99, I will never completely paint Castine.

Yesterday I painted four paintings. I was so intent on my work that I neglected to photograph one entirely, and photographed the other half finished. That is an indication of how intense Castine Plein Air is, but it’s also very engaging. I talked to people from all over the United States, including new Facebook friends from Central New York who are vacationing near Acadia and drove over for the day to see this event. It was great meeting you, Daphne and Bruce.

Sorry, folks. My workshop in Belfast, ME is sold out. Message me if you want a spot on my waitlist, or information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.

Street scene from Damariscotta

Main Street in Damariscotta, oil on canvas, 8X10

Yesterday I had less than two hours to paint with my student Loren in Damariscotta before I took off for Castine. I love the gaps on the water side of Maine Main Streets, with harbors glimpsed behind them. The buildings themselves are venerable and full of character, and the gaps speak of transition to a sparkling, clearer, brighter future.

Two quiet hours with a friend was in itself a nice transition from my concerns back in Rochester into the busy brushwork we will all be doing at Castine Plein Air for the next three days. If you’re ever in the mid-coast region, come by and see this lovely small city. Plan to take time for a self-guided walking tour of historic sites; Castine has an amazingly rich and varied history.

Me, painting. That was fun!

Castine is off the beaten track, so the tourists trundling up US 1 never see it. It has almost an otherworldly quality because of this. This morning at 7:30 AM, we painters will stand in the village green and have our painting boards stamped. It remains to be seen how we capture that quality.

If you come to Castine this weekend, stop by the Castine Historical Society and pick up a copy of their new self-guided  walking tour map. I immediately marked mine up with potential painting sites. (Photo credit, Castine Historical Society.)

Sorry, folks. My workshop in Belfast, ME is sold out. Message me if you want a spot on my waitlist, or information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.

Censored. Me. Really.

Shuttered. Closed down. Censored. Moi? Really?

My duo show with Stu Chait, Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space was closed on July 18 by RIT-NTID’s Dyer Gallery because the nude figure paintings might be offensive to young campus visitors. It seems like just yesterday that I was saying issues of censorship didn’t raise their ugly heads here in Rochester.

At our first meeting with the gallery, I specifically asked whether nude figure paintings would be a problem. I pointed out that the primary work dealt with difficult themes of how women are marginalized in the 21st century. I am a feminist, and my figure work deals with things like religious submission, bondage, slavery, prostitution, obesity, exploitation, etc.

The Laborer Resting, 36X48, oil on canvas. Available.

These paintings were reviewed, accepted and hung by the gallery with no problems. The opening was well-attended, and there were children present. (For that matter, my son regularly schleps paintings for me, and his biggest complaint is that he’d rather be using his computer.) The show was featured in RIT’s University News  and mentionedin City newspaper. It was not until administrators saw the work that it was deemed unacceptable.

The cynic in me thinks that if I painted coy, sexy Odalisques there would have been no objection to the show. Young people are exposed to sexually-charged but non-intellectual images every day; in fact, this is part of the problem I am painting about.

Meanwhile, kids who go to malls are exposed to images like this on an everyday basis. And this really is obscene, because it uses sex to sell clothing.

If difficult issues of women’s rights can’t be examined in a college gallery, where can they be examined?

I have occasionally pulled individual pieces that were too challenging. Last month I had a show at AVIV Café and Gallery at Bethel Church on East Avenue. The director pulled one work because its depiction of starving Africa frightened children. But since he left the bulk of the work intact, this was no problem.

Aviva Sleeping, 36X24, challenges the notion that an obese woman cannot be a beautiful one.

Of course, I’m in Maine, so Stu Chait and Sandy Quang had to deal with the work of pulling, wrapping and moving around 60 large paintings. And visitors to the show will find the gallery empty. What a pity.

Sorry, folks. My workshop in Belfast, ME is sold out. Message me if you want a spot on my waitlist, or information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.