Alice Kent Stoddard at the Monhegan Museum

View from the lighthouse tower.

Looking back over the last few months' posts, I realized I hadn't blogged about my annual trip to Monhegan with the Maine Landscape Guild. Every year for the past four years, my artist buddies and I have carved out time for a week-long stay on this very special island nine miles off the coast of Maine. Last fall, our stay coincided with "Lighthouse Day," a fundraising event for the recently restored Monhegan Lighthouse. We got a tour of the buildings and we were able to climb up the iron staircase to the top of the lighthouse tower--very exciting for me because not only do I love lighthouses and towers, but also I love to paint views looking down on the landscape from an elevated viewpoint. Needless to say, I took a lot of photos from the tower looking out over the village and neighboring island of Manana.

After the tour, I was walking through the Keeper's house, also known as the Monhegan Maritime Museum, and I noticed a wonderful portrait by Alice Kent Stoddard. I had seen some of Stoddard's work in Philadelphia, in the Drexel Collection, and this portrait of a former lighthouse keeper was among the best I had ever seen of her work! I asked the curator about it, and she said, "Oh, there are some even better ones in the vaults! Would you like to see them?" Of course I said yes. She took me to the "vault," which on the outside looks like just another white clapboard building in the lighthouse complex. But inside was rack after rack of incredible paintings, including a staggering collection of paintings by Alice Kent Stoddard! I thought she painted men especially well-and here are three of my favorites:

Portrait of the man who built the Island Inn, by Alice Kent Stoddard
Portrait of landscape artist Andrew Winter by Stoddard
Another Stoddard portrait

I highly recommend the Monhegan Museum to anyone interested in seeing a star-studded collection of work by well-known artists who painted in Maine. Both the keeper's house and assistant keeper's house have been made into exhibition spaces. And if you happen to get there on Lighthouse Day, you'll get to climb the tower and get a 360 degree view of this artists' island.

FRENCHMANS BAY FROM CADILLAC

Last fall it was a gorgeous day and I knew the sunset would be striking on Cadillac so I headed up to the top. This is just a bit before sunset and the fall colors were emerging. Everything was crisp and glowing. This painting is 18 x 4o.

Wreck of the DT Sheridan

We must all have Monhegan on the mind now that the winter is almost over. Here is a painting I have been working on of the wreck on the beach.

Maine Mystery Round-Up!

I recently stumbled across a trio of mystery series, all set in Maine. What could be cozier on a winter's evening than a cup of tea and mystery novel set in one of my favorite states? All three writers are about as different as they could be. Let me start with my favorite of the three:
The Gray Whale Inn series by Karen MacInerney

This enjoyable series is set on Cranberry Island, one of the places on my Maine bucket list. These are definitely "cozies", mysteries that are not into scariness or grisly details (think Miss Marple.) Innkeeper Natalie Barnes juggles guests, cooking, island community life and the occasional murder with great aplomb and verve. While not contenders for the Nobel prize for literature these entertaining books are nonetheless well-written, with good plots, charming characters and great descriptions of life on a small island. There are even terrific looking recipes at the back of each book: I am a fan!

The Home Repair is Homicide books by Sarah Graves are set in Eastport, Maine. I stumbled into this lengthy series at book 11, and had to backtrack a bit, although it was not hard to slip into the series midway. Graves is an excellent writer, with a real talent for noticing local color and writing description. I read about five of these books before my enthusiasm began flagging, due in part to the high body count and a little too much violence. That's a purely personal taste: I can take some scary, but a little brutality goes a long way in my opinion. I will start up again with these books again eventually, and if you have a thicker skin than I do (as is likely) I heartily recommend them! An unique twist is that instead of recipes, home repair tips are included.

Well-known seafaring life writer Linda Greenlaw has turned her hand to fiction, with this fairly recent series of mysteries set way up near the Canadian border. I am a big fan of Greenlaw's nonfiction and was excited to get my hands on Slipknot. However, I am sorry to say I found it disappointing. Greenlaw's clipped straightforward style which works beautifully when she is writing about real life events does not translate well to fiction. She has a hard time with both description and characterisation and also, sequencing. Several times I had to re-read passages to understand what was happening. And the plot, once revealed, was extremely shaky. I forced myself to keep reading to the unsatisfying conclusion of this book, and I have not yet run out and gotten the other one in the series. Which might be miles better...so I have to admit this is a somewhat unfair review from reading just one book. Let me know if you've read them and what you think? I admire Greenlaw's other work very much, so would be happy to have another opinion on her fiction!

An enjoyable note to all three series is that each features a seasoned, strong, sassy woman as the main character! I like this new tide of middle-aged heroines.