Early Morn on Harraseeket Road

I'm one of ten artists from the Freeport Creative Arts group to receive a grant from the Maine Arts Commission! This is very exciting news and I'm honored to be included. The grant is for a project called, "Art in our Town", and we were given instructions to provide paintings that would fill a 4 foot by 4 foot space. The criteria for subject matter was left to our descretion but it had to pertain to the Freeport area, past or present.

Within the past 25 years Freeport has transformed from a sleepy little shoemaking town to a shopping mecca largely because of L.L Bean's flagship store and main operations center. Big name outlets, local boutiques, galleries, restaurants, hotels and inns have sprung up all over. Visitors from all parts of the globe make Freeport a favorite Maine destination for shopping and award winning eats, international music provided by Bean's summer concert series and some other attractions such as Wolfe Neck State Park. My favorite part of the area is just a short hop away from all the action(you know me.. a country girl)in South Freeport. You won't find any shopping there or big crowds. It's appeal comes from a decidedly low key village by the sea atmosphere overlooking the harbor and marina of Harraseeket which means "River of Many Fish". Our favorite summer eatery with the freshest seafood around is right on the town dock and we go there often. After dinner we drive up and down the tree lined streets admiring the lovely old homes, or "cottages" as some call them, and abundant gardens. While the main drag in Freeport bustles with people and traffic this area still remains untouched by commericalism. One residence in particular strikes my fancy and it sits atop an outcropping of granite ledges overlooking the entire harbor below. What a spot! The gardens, not fully in bloom when this was painted, wind all around the house and are tucked neatly into every crevice of the massive boulders... I had to paint it...
The paintings will be exhibited in windows of buildings in various locations around town..not sure where mine will be yet..

The opening party and reception is Sept 4, at the new Village Station shopping center, from 5-6:30, with music, and refreshments. Please come meet the artists and non artists who helped make this possible.
This is 4ft. x 4ft. acrylic and available for purhase during the December Winter Gala Event which will be mentioned in a later blog.

I really enjoyed working on this large size ...it's hard to paint small now.