Benches: A Seat in the Garden
HELD OVER

You’ll enjoy taking a turn on each of the benches in this exhibit of seating in a variety of materials and styles by artisans including Austin Matheson, Stephen Doe, Laura Long & Tom Dahlke. All the pieces will be for sale, with proceeds benefiting the Gardens.

Plein-Air Painters Exhibit
July 18-25, 2010

See 36 paintings – and 36 different view of the gardens – by 36 artists who participated in Plein-Air Painting Days earlier in July. The oils, watercolors, acrylics, and pastels in this exhibit are in a wide range of styles and prices. All the work is available for purchase, with a portion of sales benefiting the Gardens.

3 Women: Sculpture in the Gardens
Through October 11, 2010

The work of three talented sculptors will grace the Gardens grounds throughout the summer. Carole Hanson and Lise Becu create their pieces of stone, and Squidge Liljeblad Davis works in unglazed ceramic. Visitors have delighted in sculpture by Davis and Becu in past years’ exhibits and in the Gardens’ permanent collection, and Hanson’s dragon heads and spraying whales are iconic images of the children’s garden. There will be a reception from 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, July 10; admission is free and open to the public, and wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Lise Becu is an intuitive artist who delves deep into her subconscious for the stuff of universal myth to create stone carvings of humans, animals, and/or human-animal relationships. Her sensual, spare, figurative forms evolve from found stones in ways that seem inevitable.

She has been featured in Down East magazine and has participated in cultural exchanges for sculptors in Finland and France. She was the recipient of a grant from the Artist’s Resource Trust and graduated from Ecole de Sculpture Surbois in St. Port Joli, Quebec, where she studied with reputed sculptor Pier Bourgeault. Later she studied with Sidney Simon at the Arts Students League in New York City and with Joan Esar at the University of Montreal. Becu was born in the town of Chandler in the Gaspé Penninsula, Quebec, and now lives now in Tenant’s Harbor, Maine.

Classic Beauty is what characterizes the sculpture of Carole Hanson. As the artist herself exclaims, “Beauty is my aim and end, for me there is no higher purpose. My art seeks an eloquence of line, a simplicity of form and the radiating life from within.” Her classic expressions grace both public and private settings in New England and the Southwest. With a résumé of more than 75 commissions, she creates a lasting esthetic for the designed space.

Born in Portland, Maine, Hanson was influenced by her native surroundings and the instruction of her father, a Master Metal Craftsman. She went on to study with figurative sculptors Lloyd Glasson and Wolfgang Behl at the Hartford Art School and later served an apprenticeship with Glasson in New York City. Years of independent study and travel rounded out her education. Along the way, she settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the diverse culture and striking landscape of New Mexico were an inspiration. Stone became her inevitable medium. At her first solo show in Taos, she caught the eye of Navajo artist R.C. Gorman, receiving great encouragement from his mentorship. She moved to Arizona and became a choice for public and corporate commissions in the City of Tucson.

By the late 1980s, she returned to Maine where she began her work with the Maine Arts Commission, producing public sculpture in schools, hospitals and parks throughout the state. Now living and working from her home in Bremen, Maine, Hanson is represented by Gleason Fine Art of Boothbay Harbor and Portland , Maine.

Squidge Liljeblad Davis, director of Starflower Farm and Studios and its principal teacher, has studied with numerous world-class artists and potters and holds a B.A. in literature and an M.F.A. in sculpture. She has been a Resident Artist for the state of Maine since 1978 and in that capacity has taught thousands of individuals the joy of creative process through the vehicle of clay and inner listening. Awarded the Studio Potter Foundation Award ”in recognition of excellence, innovation and commitment to education in the ceramic arts,” she is a gifted teacher as well as an accomplished potter and sculptor. She has taught and shown her work nationally and internationally.

Davis is comfortable teaching all ages and populations and has worked in group homes, treatment facilities, and jails as well as with all ages of school children. In her teaching, she offers clay as a medium for developing calm focus leading to success and enhanced self-esteem. Beginning with fundamental and easy to learn gestures and techniques, she leads students to more complex projects which simultaneously develop inner listening and outer expression.