February and March provide a double treat for visitors to the First Federal Savings and Loan in Boothbay Harbor. Currently exhibited are wonderful art works by two local talented artists, Corrine McIntyre, whose oil paintings may be seen, as well as Barbara Fischer Eldred’s works in the art of printmaking. 

Visit the bank on Townsend Avenueand see firsthand the colors, and details of these distinctly different types of art work. You will have doubled your pleasure.

Born in Boston and now a Mainer for 23 years, Corrine currently lives at Ocean Point in East Boothbay. A professional plein-air and studio painter, she is happiest painting by the sea. She originally studied and painted in the classical manner then, for many years, she painted abstracts and semi-abstracts of her trips to Greece, Italy, Spain and France, where she enjoyed the major museums of each country.

After working as a technical illustrator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a freelance illustrator, and a one-person art department for a computer science corporation, she became a graphic designer for a Fortune 500 company. She then owned and managed her own successful design business.

In the years she has lived in Maine, she has come full-circle to focusing her time exclusively on her painting and to plein-air painting in particular. She would like to convey to others the beauty, joy and contentment to be found in this unique place … and through her paintings evoke those feelings in others, even if only for a moment.

The McIntyre exhibition is sponsored by the Boothbay Region Art Foundation, a nonprofit, and First Federal and may be viewed during the bank's business hours. Those interested in purchasing McIntyre’s work or commissioning future work may reach her at 207-633-3990. Those interested in visiting her gallery, Ocean Point Studio,should also call for hours or through Boothbay Region Art Foundation (BRAF) 207-633-2703. Her website is www.oceanpointstudio.com/. 

Barbara Fischer Eldred was born in Southern Germany. She immigrated with her parents, who were both sculptors, to Pennsylvania as a small child. Since birth she was surrounded by art.  This environment became a force in her life and it was a natural progression to pursue art through classes at the Museum School of Art in Philadelphia, majoring in teaching of art at Kutztown University. When she retired from her major career of coaching and directing a figure skating program, she moved to Maine to enjoy the wonder of cruising Maine’s coast by sailboat.  

She is passionate about many forms of art: color, design, shapes, symbols, Southwestern Native cultures and Central America with its antiquity and traditions. 

“I seek to express this passion in whatever medium I am working,” Eldred said. “I use brilliant color to transform subjects into simplified stylized and sometimes abstract painting.”

At First Federal, Barbara has displayed examples of monotype/monoprint; images are applied onto a plate or multiple plates, then pressed onto paper with the use of a printing press, a hand operated heavily weighted roller. The process may consist of a single run through the press or may have multiple runs with various additions. The results no matter how many runs will be one of–a-kind images which can never be duplicated. Every “monotype” is an original. If a matrix is used as the main subject on one or more images, it is then designated as a “monoprint.” The Fischer-Eldred exhibition is also sponsored by the BRAF and First Federal. Those interested in purchasing Eldred’s work or commissioning future work may reach her at 207-319-5808. Those interested in visiting her gallery, “The Puddle and The Mudbath,” should also call for hours. Her email is bkeldred@roadrunner.com/.