Painter and muralist Susan Bartlett Rice sits in her art studio at her South Bristol home on Thursday, June 6. Rice has been artistically inclined for as long as she can remember. The Lincoln Academy graduates murals are all over the New England coast and every fall, she paints a giant pumpkin for Damariscottas Pumpkinfest and Regatta. (Johnathan Riley photo)
The beauty of Lincoln County lives in art all over the world, printed on paper, thrown into clay, and etched in the hearts of those who visit and call this place home. Susan Bartlett Rice, a painter and muralist living in South Bristol with her husband and two kids, has been capturing the textures and patterns of the Midcoast for most of her life.
“I could always draw and that was my thing, so I would keep sketchbooks,” Rice said. “I didn’t really start painting until college, but I always did art even as a child.”
New England residents have seen Rice’s art all over, from murals in Machias to pieces in Portsmouth, N.H. and painted giant pumpkins in Damariscotta’s Pumpkinfest and Regatta.
Rice typically paints her vibrant New England scenes on 30-by-30-inch canvas, but enjoys getting the opportunity to paint larger scale works due the full body involvement that’s demanded and the “loud” nature of the work.
“I think it’s kind of funny, because I think of myself as a kind of quiet,” she said.
Born in Plymouth, Mass., Rice moved to the area 35 years ago when she was a teenager and attended Lincoln Academy in Newcastle her junior and senior year. She said her family moved around a lot while growing up, but they came to the area because of friends and family that were here.
Rice said that she immediately felt a connection to the area and made friends at school, which cemented a place in her heart for Lincoln County.
“I went to high school here, had these really great friends, and I loved it here,” she said. “I always wanted to come back.”
After graduating from Lincoln Academy in Newcastle in 1991, she attended the University of Vermont, bouncing back and forth from school and the coast of New England for summer jobs.
Rice has worked at local spots like Harbor Ice Cream in New Harbor, Pinkham’s Plantation in Damariscotta, The Bradley Inn in New Harbor, and The Anchor Inn – now known as The Anchor – in Round Pond as some of the summer work she did.
Rice graduated with a dual bachelor’s degree in art history and studio art with a concentration in painting. She also has a minor in German.
When Rice graduated, she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do, so she came back to Maine and worked at The Anchor Inn. At the conclusion of the summer season, she and a group of friends drove across the country to move to Seattle.
During the years Rice lived in Seattle, she worked at a gallery of antique Native American art while also working at the University of Washington. There she earned a graduate certificate in museum studies.
Afterward, she got a job at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art would take her all over the world with art of all levels of sanctity.
“It was a dream job, I was traveling, I was working with what I thought was a big museum and famous works of art,” Rice said. “The artist side of me really loved it because having hands on experience with stuff that was unimaginable to me. A lot of the job was traveling with famous works of art flying on cargo planes with Picassos and Rothkos.”
Rice was an art courier for the museum and traveled with famous works and exhibitions around the world with destinations as far away as Japan and Germany. Sometimes the transportation was as simple as a nondescript painting in a briefcase, other times she was in a cargo plane with an entire show.
“I would land somewhere and watch them come through the airport system and then go to a museum and put them up in a show with a curator,” Rice said. “It was a lot of responsibility for someone who just had an art history degree from the University of Vermont.”
The jet-setting experience was incredible and being exposed to art all over the world was great, but after a few years, she said that, it started to take its toll due to its pace and the amount of time spent alone.
“It wasn’t a sustainable career,” Rice said. “Now I’m so grateful that I did that because I live here and I’m very happy here but I have all of these experiences.”
After a few years on the west coast, Rice’s homesickness for New England eventually pulled her back east. Her return was facilitated by landing a job with the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, R.I. working in the school’s museum registrar.
However, she found she was missing Maine.
“I was homesick for being back in Maine because I just always loved it here,” she said.
After 18 months in Rhode Island, Rice said she moved to Maine in a leap of faith where she said she was going to be make a living off of her art, and if she had to waitress again or hold another job while doing that, so be it.
“I said to myself, ‘Whatever I have to do, I’m going to pursue being an artist and piece it together,’” she said.
Rice ended up in Newcastle where she said she started painting and making work. It wasn’t long before she had her first show at First National Bank in Damariscotta.
Then, through connections she made at the local frame shop, Rice had some of her work displayed in the building across the street from Osier’s Wharf in South Bristol, a place where summer and local residents would look at art while the swing bridge to Rutherford Island was up.
“My work was right there with a captive audience at the end of the peninsula, and pretty immediately they kind of embraced me, which was really cool, but I couldn’t have predicted it,” Rice said.
By chance, Rice said sold a painting to someone who invited her to a summer party at a new barn they had built in South Bristol. There she met, or re-met, her eventual husband, Adam, whom had cleared the land for the barn and she had gone to school with at Lincoln Academy.
“All of these things are sort of serendipitous,” Rice said.
The couple continues to be involved in the South Bristol community. Susan Bartlett Rice served on the South Bristol School Committee from 2014 to 2020 and Adam Rice currently serves on the town’s select board. Their daughters, Amelia and Helen, attended South Bristol School and will both be at Lincoln Academy.
“Now that they’re up there it’s pretty wild that this is where I went to school and they’re up there,” Susan Bartlett Rice said. “I never really pictured, because I moved around a lot, that I would be that kind of person who has children going where I went to high school, but it’s kind of nice.”
To learn more about Rice’s work, go to susanbartlettrice.com.
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