From left: Kimberly Skillin Traina, Cate Cronin, and Sandi Hammond attend the Wednesday, Oct. 25 opening reception for the Anne Cronin-Susan Parrish Carter art show at Damariscotta River Grill. (Christine LaPado-Breglia photo)
Talking art at the grill: On Wednesday, Oct. 25, I caught the opening reception for the new art show up at Damariscotta River Grill, featuring the work of painters Susan Parrish Carter and Anne Cronin. Cronin is an accomplished watercolorist in her 80s, and Carter, who lives in Rockland, has a unique style that includes painting intricate landscapes on layers of glass.
Carter, who was at the opening, explained that she constructs her oil-paint-on-glass landscape pieces by employing “three layers of glass and a mirror for a feeling of depth. My main intention is bouncing the light back through the colors” painted on the layers of glass.
Artist Susan Parrish Carter poses next to “Spring Brook,” her glazed oil-on-canvas painting currently on exhibit at Damariscotta River Grill. (Christine LaPado-Breglia photo)
Carter has four small oil-on-glass pieces – “Casco Islands Winter,” “Rangeley,” “Cousins Estuary Winter,” and “Icicles” – in the Damariscotta River Grill show upstairs near the bar, and they are definitely worth seeking out. The first three are landscapes. “Rangeley” is particularly beautiful with its subtle pastels. “Icicles,” a close-up take on bluish icicles on a sea-green background, really shows off Carter’s layering technique to full effect.
Cronin’s daughter, Cate Cronin, attended the opening as well, and she was just as enlightening about her mother’s life as a painter as Carter was about her own work. (Hint: A good reason to attend an opening reception, besides viewing the art and eating yummy hors d’oeuvres, is that one can chat with the artists, etc. about the artwork on exhibit.)
Cate Cronin said that after her mother had a stroke in 2009, she “had to learn how to paint again with her right arm, her primary arm, her affected arm.” Both paintings created before Anne Cronin’s stroke and ones painted after her stroke are included in the current show. All are lovely, but, as Cate Cronin pointed out, her mother’s post-stroke work tends to be “sometimes bolder, sometimes more ethereal” than her earlier work.
The Carter-Cronin show runs through Monday, Dec. 4 at Damariscotta River Grill, 155 Main St., Damariscotta.
Liz Proffetty throws a piece of pottery on the wheel at Neighborhood Clay in Damariscotta in preparation for her ceramics sale at the studio’s Nov. 4 Grand Opening Party and Late Riser Sale. (Christine LaPado-Breglia photo)
The late riser catches the clay party: Liz Proffetty, at Neighborhood Clay on upper Main Street in Damariscotta, will host a Grand Opening Party and Late Riser Sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4, making it possible for Early Bird shoppers to hit her clay studio after raking in the early-morning deals downtown.
Attendees will be treated to coffee, muffins, and other snacks, and will have the opportunity to “play with clay” either on the pottery wheel or on the table (hand-building), Proffetty said. She will host a drawing for a door prize of a piece of her own pottery, and the winner need not be present to win.
Proffetty will also offer a 25 percent discount on her lovely and practical handmade pottery, as well as a discount on gift certificates for classes or retail items.
Neighborhood Clay is located at 590 Main St., Damariscotta.
Heartwood sells out: Congratulations to Heartwood Regional Theater Company, whose joint production with Lincoln Academy of the musical “West Side Story” at the Parker B. Poe Theater is completely sold out – and we are talking all seven performances scheduled over the period of Nov. 3-11!
On its website, heartwoodtheater.org, the theater company noted that “the demand for … tickets is unprecedented in Heartwood’s history.”
(Email me at clbreglia@lcnme.com or write me a letter in care of The Lincoln County News, P.O. Box 36, Damariscotta, ME 04543. I love to hear from readers.)
