Lighthouse
By Tame Arnold
YourSpace High School Intern
In the Call of the Coast exhibition, there were many fantastic pieces of artwork that interested me. I found it very interesting how a person’s style of painting really change a picture. The piece of artwork that really grabbed my attention was Lighthouse, 1947, by De Hirsh Margules.
I chose this piece of work because the colors were very bright. That painting was the very first painting I saw in that room. I enjoy pictures that have a lot going on. In the painting of the lighthouse, I didn’t know what to look at first. The painting was very abstract and that is exactly how most of my work is, so I feel like I can relate to how the artist wanted the picture to look like. I really love how the artist looked at the object and somehow incorporated vibrant colors.During my internship at the Museum, I have been immersed into a wide-range of projects. I have sketched an assortment of paintings and portraits, I have done research on a couple artists I found interesting in the Museum, and I’ve created a podcast. I am looking forward to working with kids and creating my own artwork. My experience of being an intern has been great so far.
When I looked at this painting, my mood changed drastically. I felt very excited and overjoyed. I had the urge to sit down and start painting for hours. I especially liked this painting because it had such a wide variety of colors, and somehow they all seemed to accent each other very well.
Image credit: De Hirsh Margules (United States (born Romania), 1899–1965), Lighthouse, 1947, watercolor on paper, 21 3/4 x 29 1/2 inches, Portland Museum of Art, Maine. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison D. Horblit, 2003.21.1.
An Exhibition Ritual
By Tom Denenberg
Deputy Director and Chief Curator
I have a ritual that I perform just before an exhibition opens. For years now, I’ve taken all the files pertaining to the show off my desk and out of my office. Xeroxes of paintings, generations of checklists, research notes—they all go. The material gets organized and placed in the archive of the institution as a permanent record of the project. The ritualized aspect of the move is that I replace them immediately with the files for the next exhibition. Three-ring binders of images and manila files of articles all fit right back on my desk—same place, same order. I do not recall exactly when I started doing this, but it always reminds me that exhibitions are part of a larger history of a museum. With our summer show almost finished and looking great I’ve just pulled the big switch, moving from Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England to Moods of Nature: Jay Connaway and the Landscape of New England. I get a particular kick out of this transition as there is a close relationship between the projects indeed Connaway is represented in Call of the Coast for his years painting on Monhegan.
Switching files is also something of a melancholy task as it means my part of the project is finished. I’ll be giving lectures throughout the summer, but the actual hands on part of researching an exhibition in this case with my colleagues Amy Lansing and Susan Danly, organizing the project with Erin Damon and Ellie Vuilleumier, designing the show with Greg Welch and Karin Lundgren, and sweating the details of installation with Sage Lewis and Kris Kenow is over and done. In the end, this is probably why I place such great stock in switching files, it reminds me that there is always the next project and it will have its own life and, in the end, look just as elegant as this one.
ARTREK: Summer Camp at the Museum
By Julia Einstein
Coordinator of Youth and Family Programs
The days are getting longer and the time is getting shorter when the Museum will be filled with the young artists at our summer camp program. Boys and girls, from ages 6 to 9, will enjoy getting to know the artists behind the masterpieces that hang on the gallery walls. We will have fun ways of looking at and talking about the art so that it becomes very real. We will try out techniques, discover and explore our own ideas, and let our creativity show.
This summer we’ll see new faces. I’m thrilled to be teaching with Gillian Crisman, a recent graduate of the Art Education program at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Gillian will take the ferry everyday from Peak’s Island to the Museum. She and our talented group of high school interns will energize the program. We welcome you all!
Our curriculum is designed around the wonderful summer exhibition Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England, and will “call for” lots of outside painting and exploration into the world of the coastal artist. We’ll travel inside and out, through the Museum’s galleries, art studio, and outside sculpture garden to create as artists did in the early 20th century.
