Bass Harbor Memorial Library

Celebrate our community with books!

Bass Harbor Memorial Library
89 Bernard Road, PO Box 99
Bernard, Maine 04612

Voice & Fax (207) 244-3798

Art Reception~June 30@5pm

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Join us for an opening reception for Maria Charette and Janet Elvidge’s “Back to the Beach” show on display at the library throughout the month of July. Refreshments will be served and the artists will be on-hand to discuss their artwork. Thursday, June 30, 2022 5-6pm

Maria Charette is a Bernard resident and has a background in fine arts painting and printmaking. She is currently an ed-tech at Mount Desert Island High School and has a background in museums, working with collections and exhibitions. She paints local scenes in oils. 

Janet Elvidge grew up on MDI where her love of nature and art started early in a house of artists. Janet found art to be a way to express and fully absorb the light, textures, and patterns of nature and continues to explore all that nature evokes using a variety of mediums including oil, gouache, and cold wax. She has a Master of Library Science degree and has been involved with libraries for over 30 years. She is the school librarian at the Indian Island School for the Penobscot Nation on Indian Island, Maine.

Janet Elvidge
Maria Charette
Janet Elvidge
Janet Elvidge
Maria Charette

Call for Artists: Ruth Moore Days Exhibit

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During the month of July, the Bass Harbor Memorial Library will once again host our annual celebration of Tremont’s own Ruth Moore. Traditionally, we have put out a call to artists to take part in our month-long show, creating work based on a theme.

This year, the library is honored to have on loan a small collection of framed original book covers and posters from Ruth Moore’s original publications. In keeping with this theme, we are welcoming artwork that reimagines, recreates, or reinterprets the cover art on any of her books. Artwork is due by July 1, with the show running from July 5-28. A reception will be held the week of July 18. Please call the library at 207-244-3798 if you have any questions.


Please register for the show HERE.

For more information about Ruth Moore, CLICK HERE.

To view a selection of her book covers, CLICK HERE.

Create, Communicate, Connect! Public Art Show at the Kelley Farm, Bernard

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Monday August 3 – Saturday August 15, 2020  

For 15 years, the Bass Harbor Memorial Library has held a week-long, half day Art and Nature Camp for children aged 6-11. In-person camp was not possible this summer, but thanks to a generous grant from the Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund, camp directors Kathie Pratt and Dawn Nuding retooled and adapted a new format, offering the same high quality art instruction, materials, and fun projects, but remotely. 

The library is partnering with Maine Coast Heritage Trust to install an open air art show at Kelley Farm in Bernard.

The show consists of artwork by the children who participated in art camp, placed on signposts.  Letter signs which spell out our theme, will span the road front.  This message invites people to come view the work, but also suggests that anyone, in these often isolating times, can also create in their own way, communicate with their creations, and therefore connect with their community.  

This year’s theme “Create, Communicate, Connect” addresses the shared experience of confusion, loss and isolation the pandemic has created. On the grounds of the preserve, paintings by the children will line the pathways between the community garden plots.  Families can safely enjoy this open air art walk at their leisure, in the natural beauty of the setting.  

http://bassharborlibrary.com/bhml-art-camp-project-list-and-journal-prompts/

Art Camp Art Walk 2020

Art Camp participants projects.

  • Genevieve Burke
  • Genevieve Burke
  • By Cole Lessard and friends
  • By Cole Lessard and friends
  • By Cole Lessard and friends
  • By Cole Lessard and friends
  • By Cole Lessard and friends
  • By Cole Lessard and friends
  • By Cole Lessard and friends
  • Juniper Macko painting at home
  • Juniper Macko painting at home
  • Oliver and Delfina
  • Oliver and Delfina
  • “pagoto SANTOUÏTS” by Isaiah Brugman “icecream sandwich” in Greek
  • Isaiah Brugman
  • Liberty Carter really gets into her art supplies!
  • Junior Carter and Dad Spiff work on one of the projects

Ruth Moore Days 2020 Artshow

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Title:  What Once Was
Artist: Kathie Pratt
Contact: Kathie.pratt@bassharborlibrary.com
This work was inspired by the novels Second Growth and Speak to the Winds in which Ruth Moore talks about abandoned farms and quarries, dying island communities; the ravages of time on forgotten places or practises.  I always get a pang of sorrow when I see a choked orchard or decaying barn.  In Speak to the Winds, the character Elbridge is worried about his island town’s sustainability.  His forefathers had established a thriving granite quarry, now long defunct.  He thinks, “The feeling, he knew, was all mixed up with the past and with old MacKechnie’s dreams- a feeling almost as strong as grief, over something worthwhile wasted, lost; although why it should be kept he couldn’t say, now that the world had gone on and passed it by.”

Artist Bio: For Kathie, making art in various forms has been a lifetime occupation. She attended New England School of Art & Design and The Museum of Fine Arts School, both in Boston. She lives in the area of Tremont once known as Center, the same locale where her great-grandmother’s family settled centuries ago. She finds constant inspiration in the natural beauty of the area. Her artistic endeavors over the years include a handmade lampshade business, working in the art department of Harris-Strong in Trenton, and directing an Art and Nature Camp for children at the Bass Harbor Library in Bernard.  Kathie has participated in art shows around the island. She likes a variety of media with a special fondness for sculpture.

Untitled
Artist: Jean Forbes
Inspired by Ruth Moore’s Poem “July”
12”x16” acrylic
Contact: http://www.jeanforbesart.com
Artist Bio: Growing up in scenic Northwest New Jersey greatly influenced my art work from an early age.  Trips to Canada, Adirondacks, Maine and working at Rutgers University environmental camp furthered my love of the outdoors and helped me express my ideas in painting.
       Education includes a BS from University of Rhode Island (1972) and an MAE from Rhode Island School of Design (1989). In 1996 I studied “The Major Paintings of Winslow Homer”, Syracuse University, under David Tatham. 
     Painting instructors have been Betty Lou Schlemm, Rockport MA, John Loughlin, RI, and currently, Judy Taylor and Philip Frey.  I taught high school art in RI and watercolor workshops in RI and on Mount Desert Island.  I have juried into numerous art shows and won awards in sculpture, pen & ink, photography and watercolor plus have illustrated several booklets.
       Since retiring to Mount Desert Island in 2012, I have shown work at Bar Harbor Savings & Loan, Southwest Harbor Public Library, Bass Harbor Memorial Library, Northeast Harbor Library, Jesup Library, Quietside Gallery, Shaw Gallery and ArtWaves. 
Title: Bernard Town Wharf
Artist: Janet Elvidge
Contact: www.JanetElvidgeArt.com or email elvidgejanet@gmail.com
For Sale: $150, framed 
“I did this painting plein air at the wharf where I feel like I could get on a boat to head to Little Spoon Island (Spoonhandle).”
Artist Bio: I grew up on MDI where I was inspired by the beauty of the island. I continue to be in awe of the beauty of the island and express this through my artwork. My studio is in Manset.

Title: Charlotte Rhoades garden
Artist: Beverly Bono
Contact: bevbono@yahoo.com, 207-664-3533, Instagram: bev3445
For Sale: $200 oil on panel, 12” x 20”, framed 15 1/2” x 23 1/2”

Charlotte Rhoades Garden in Southwest Harbor – a spot so typical of Ruth Moore’s vivid descriptions of the beautiful flowers and gardens around Maine.

Artist Bio: As a painter, I am largely self-taught, learning from books, workshops and following other artists online. But by far my biggest influence came from Emile Gruppe of the Cape Ann artist colony! I had the privilege of meeting him and was fortunate to purchase one of his paintings! Last year, I won 2nd place among 75 non-juried artists in the Quick Draw event at the Cape Ann Plein Air Festival. About 10 years ago, one of my artist friends invited me to go plein air painting (painting outside) and I was hooked! Nothing can compare to painting from life! Now that I am retired, I can go painting every day! Living in Bar Harbor, near Acadia National Park provides boundless stimulation for my oil paintings. It is a wonderfully endless journey trying to capture the beautiful scenery of the island!

 

Artist: Linda Rowell-Kelley
Contact: lrowell51@gmail.com, Facebook: Linda Rowell-Kelley Art, and in coastal galleries, restaurants, local inns and businesses, or by appointment at the studio on Crooked Road, Bar Harbor.
For Sale: Abstract, 9×12 oil on canvas $200; Seascape, 11×14 oil on linen $280


Both paintings are inspired by the lines from The Ballad of the Night Charley Tended Weir, by Ruth Moore.
“He could see across the bay
Calm and still and wide,
It was full daylight,
And it was high tide.”

Linda Rowell-Kelley is a lifelong student of art, studied drawing, painting, sculpture and print making at the Portland School of Art (MECA) in Portland, Maine.  A plein air painter and Reiki practitioner, gives the work a healing quality, a mixture of what is seen and unseen.  I walk the line between realistic art, impressionism and abstraction and enjoy many mediums, but predominantly work in oils.

 

Over the years we have celebrated Ruth’s birthday on July 21 and the cakes have been artworks in their own right. Thank you to Kathie Pratt for her edible creations!