Arts & Leisure
Holiday happenings, gifts abound in and around town
By Rose Safran
YORK - Looking around for last-minute creative and original gift ideas near home? In York, many galleries are open throughout the year.The Village Gallery features, in addition to fine art by owner Gloria Gustafson and other area artists, exquisitely crafted wooden bowls and vases by Michael Dow, as well as handmade jewelry and ceramics.
Jo-Ann Campbell's Powder House Gallery features colorful original watercolors and prints of florals as well as small gift items. The York Village Marketplace in the old church has its fine antique toy train collection, which always interests children, and also offers a variety of gift items, many original.
Open at York Beach through the holiday season is Helen Hennessey's Sea Rose Gallery and, by appointment or chance, Nancy Davison's Blue Stocking Studio.
Roz Fedeli's Mill Dam Studio on Lindsay Road puts out an "open" shingle regularly, especially on festive weekends. And, at the York Public Library, well known watercolorist Wendy Turner of Kittery, whose florals are popular among local collectors and who lately has been working in oil and painting woodland scenes, is exhibiting through the months of December and January.
Art and theatre in Portland
The Portland Museum of Art: The highly informative exhibit, "American ABC: Childhood in 19th Century America" continues (See The Independent, Nov. 29) through Jan. 7. The accompanying catalog, "Young America" is both educational and visually packed with interesting reproductions of art, prints, photographs, books - a fine gift idea. Simultaneously on view at the PMA are masterworks by N. C. Wyeth, father of Andrew Wyeth and grandfather of Jamie Wyeth, a highly successful illustrator, whose art embellished novels, history texts and poetry, including works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Fenimore Cooper and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Also important at the PMA is an exhibition of selections from one of the greatest and perhaps most clever graphics series - namely, Goya's "Los Caprichos" - a series of 80 black-and-white prints published in 1799 satirizing Spanish society, leading figures and people in general. These small prints require considerable "up-close" viewing, invariably arrest visitors and give testimony to the genius of Francisco Goya, who sometimes subtly and other times boldly denounced injustice and portrayed the human condition in all its artifice and assorted practices. A knowledge of Spanish culture and its symbolism helps in understanding some of these visual statements; on the other hand, many are clear and shockingly direct.
Additionally, during the year-long closing and expansion of the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, several important works of art from it will be on loan to various museums. At the PMA will be paintings by Childe Hassam, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Claude Monet, Georgia O'Keefe, Charles Sheeler and Pablo Picasso - offering an opportunity to appreciate these in a different setting, where they will be side-by-side with the permanent art collection in Portland. Also benefiting with loans from the Currier is Dartmouth College's Hood Museum, which this writer visited recently. There, in addition to the works from the Currier, a special exhibition of art by indigenous Australian aboriginal women was held, the first such presentation in the United States. The special exhibition of Australian art closes Dec. 10, but an illustrated scholarly catalogue explains the symbolism and cultural history reflected in these colorful paintings - "Dreamings" - on canvas and bark.
Admission to the Portland Museum of Art is free every Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. and the museum is open every day except Monday, and holidays such as Christmas and New Year's Day.
Also in Portland, the popular Portland Stage Company at 25A Forest Avenue is hosting Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" through Dec. 24. Call 774-0465 for dates, reservations, prices and tickets.
Cultural events at the Kittery Art Association
The Kittery Art Association (KAA) at 8 Coleman Avenue, Kittery Point, is having its annual art sale of works priced at under $100 during December on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fine crafts and art including jewelry, note cards, ceramics, textiles, paintings, prints and photographs are featured.
Regular ongoing KAA events now include a poetry group. Kittery Art Association member Kimberly Cloutier Green, a prize-winner in several poetry competitions, including The Aldrich Poetry Prize and author of "What Becomes of Words," a chapbook, leads a poetry group entitled "First Tuesday Poetry Circle" from 7 to 9 p.m. the first Tuesday of every month. A workshop for beginning and practicing poets in which poems are read, discussed and perhaps revised, all word-lovers are invited to participate.
Also, noteworthy among the KAA events is its Harbor Light Stage, in which actors perform new scripts, and its well-attended, very popular Music Series, now in its fifth year, which opened this year at Kittery's First Congregational Church and which features such popular personalities as Cormac McCarthy. For information call 439-5401 or 451-9384.
Portsmouth's Strawbery Banke strolls and more
While the Strawbery Banke Museum is hosting its wonderful Candlelight Stroll on three December weekends (it's the 27th annual for this popular event) from 4 to 9 p.m., this year initiates 90-minute Holiday House Tours held weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the hour and will include five decorated houses.
For both the Candlelight Stroll and the House Tours, hot cider will be offered in the Wheelwright House. The Museum Store will be open during these events; new items include Victorian bears in holiday outfits, lighthouse coffee canisters, porcelain Jewish immigrant dolls, wool ornaments made in Maine's Christmas Cove, music boxes and books.
"Art Round Town," the ongoing open gallery program during which about nine key galleries stay open from 5 to 8 p.m. the second Friday evening every month continues in Portsmouth year and is especially inviting for those looking for unusual holiday gift items. Participating galleries include Family Tree, Vera Peck and Harbor Gallery on Ceres Street; Kennedy Studios, Three Graces and the N. W. Barrett Gallery on Market Street; Nahcotta on Congress Street; and on State Street the Banks Gallery across from the Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery (603-431-4230), home to the New Hampshire Art Association, where the annual "Art for Holiday Giving" show will remain up through Dec. 29 with a reception on Dec. 8 from 5 to 8 p.m. Pick up an "Art Round Town" brochure for descriptions of these fine galleries, many of which offer fine crafted items, creative jewelry as well as affordable works of art.
Also in Portsmouth at the West End Theatre, Pontine Theatre's talented team of Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers is offering an original production of the Christmas classic, "It's a Wonderful Life," featuring puppets, masks and live musical accompaniment. Along with this "tabletop" version will be seasonal favorites sung by seacoast songstress Lucie Therrien as well as eggnog and cookies. Performances run Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. from Dec. 15 to 23. For reservations call (603) 436-6660.
In Rollinsford, N.H.
The Salmon Falls Village Gallery at 72 Front Street (603-740-0330) is featuring small works by artists from the Salmon Falls Artists Mill through Dec. 17.
