Events at Member Institutions

As part of the Maine Photo Project (www.mainephotoproject.org), the L.C.Bates Museum will offer an exhibition of Maine artist/photographers who focus on natural history both in the museum setting and out in nature. The exhibition runs from Tuesday, September 15, 2015 and run until December 30, 2015. The exhibition includes artist/photographers Gary Green, Rosamond Purcell, Lauren Shaw, Leslie Bowman, Thomas Birtwhistle, John Stetson, Lisa Ennis, Christian Farnsworth, Jim Nickelson, nataliya slinkoand Michael Grillo.  Each artist has created a unique image that depicts their personal vision of nature, but also speaks to the viewer. The artists’ statements on labels express the stories behind their work. What Christian Farnsworth writes of his work speaks for many of the photographers. He writes, “My photographic inquiry explores the various ways we perceive the landscape.  I hope to render the photograph in a way that is more aligned with our own visual perceptions, while subsequently satisfying our human penchant to categorize the world through multiple perspectives.” “I employ the camera as a gathering tool, varying position and movement to complement our human response to visual stimuli.”

 Image: Thomas Birtwistle, Heron

• Extended hours for researchers: Every Tuesday in October the Research Room will be open from 9am-7pm and every Saturday from 9am-1pm. (Excluding holidays, the regular business hours for the Research Room are M-F, 9am-4pm.)

• Public tours of the Maine State Archives will be offered, free of charge, on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 5:30pm and Saturday, Oct. 31 at 10am. Archivists will discuss the bureau's work and show areas normally closed to the public. Reserve your spot by emailing your full name and phone number to kristen.muszynski@maine.gov or call 626-8404. Tours will be limited to 20 people; no large groups, please.

The Maine State Archives is a bureau of the Department of the Secretary of State. Visit http://www.maine.gov/sos/arc or our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/MaineStateArchives, for more information and updates about our plans for Archives Month this October.  

Contact info: Maine State Archives, Cultural Building, 230 State St., Augusta, ME 04333, 207-287-5795, maine.archives@maine.gov

Many legends surround the Finish-American photographer Kosti Ruohomaa, and it is said his life was “haunted”.  Ruohomaa was an award-winning photo journalist who shot iconic portraits of working Americans which appeared in LIFE, National Geographic, and other publications from 1940 to 1960, but Maine was always his favorite subject.  Deanna S. Bonner-Ganter, Curator of Photography at the Maine State Museum, has studied Kosti Ruohomaa for twenty years, and her biography of Ruohomaa will soon be published by Down East Books.  On Thursday, September 24 at 7:00 pm she will give an illustrated talk Close to the Land & Close to the Sea: The Photography of Kosti Ruohomaa at Penobscot Marine Museum’s Douglas and Margaret Carver Memorial Art Gallery, 11 Church Street, Searsport, Maine.  Tickets are $8, or  $5 for Museum members and Searsport residents.

Close to the Land & Close to the Sea: The Photography of Kosti Ruohomaa is part of Exploring the Magic of Photography: Painting with Light, Penobscot Marine Museum’s first major exhibition of historic photography.  It includes four exhibits, a walk-in camera, a wall of selfies taken by museum visitors, an historic darkroom, tintype and cyanotype demonstrations, and workshops on making pin-hole cameras.  The four exhibits, Through Her Lens: Women Photographers of Mid-Coast Maine, 1890-1920; Twenty Best; Evolution of the Photographic Snapshot: 1888-2015; and The Carters and the Lukes - Selections from the Red Boutilier Collection are filled with inter-active opportunities for visitors including life-sized photographic cut-outs with which visitors may photograph themselves, an online exhibit of visitor photographs and comments, and QR codes and tablets providing access to audio clips of interviews, biographies, and commentary by historians, curators and professional photographers.

About Penobscot Marine Museum

Penobscot Marine Museum is in the historic seacoast village of Searsport, Maine.  Check the website for daily activities and events.  Eight of its twelve exhibit buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places.  The museum is open seven days a week, Memorial Day weekend through the third weekend in October.  For more information go to www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org or call the Visitors Center 207-548-0334 or Administrative Offices at 207-548-2529.

Directors’ Cut: Selections from the Maine Art Museum Trail

May 21 through September 20 at the Portland Museum of Art

Art and culture has defined the identity of Maine since artists began visiting Monhegan Island and trekking up Mount Katahdin before Maine even became a state. This magnificent environment and the art it inspired has captured the public imagination for centuries, and to this day a growing number of visitors from around the world continue to affirm that Maine’s galleries, studios, and art museums are unlike any in the world. The goals of the Trail are to promote public access to the arts, to educate the public about the state’s cultural heritage, to enable the museums to become strong visible partners in the state’s efforts to promote cultural tourism, and to forge new partnerships among businesses, the arts, and education.

 FMI: 207-775-6148 | www.portlandmuseum.org

Generously supported by Isabelle and Scott Black. Funded in part by the Maine Humanities Council. Corporate sponsorship is provided by Bank of America and Migis Hotel Group with media sponsorship provided by WCSH 6, Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, and Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

Rose Marasco: index

April 24 through December 6 at the Portland Museum of Art

Rose Marasco is perhaps Maine’s most-prolific living photographer, having lived and photographed in Portland and its surrounding communities for more than 35 years.

The photographs in Rose Marasco: index, the latest in the Circa series at the PMA, are stunning and display extraordinary range, encompassing everything from her images of the urban environment to her unexpectedly poetic response to the natural world, and her exhaustive, thought-provoking examination of the domestic world of women, in which she layers historical objects with contemporary materials. It’s this diversity of both subject and technique that has long characterized Marasco’s artistry, and visitors of all interests and backgrounds will find something special to immerse themselves in.

 FMI: 207-775-6148 | www.portlandmuseum.org

Circa is a series of exhibitions featuring the work of living artists from Maine and beyond. Generously supported by S. Donald Sussman. Corporate sponsorship is provided by The VIA Agency and The Bear Bookshop, Marlboro, VT.