Green Lion Gallery opens in Boothbay Harbor

Fri, 07/07/2017 - 11:45am

Green Lion Gallery in Boothbay Harbor is different from a lot of local art galleries. We've come to think of art galleries, around Boothbay Harbor anyway, as purveyors of paintings and sculpture.

The gallery, located at 16 Granary Way, next door to the Chowder House Restaurant, opened in early June. What you'll see is still original art, but of a somewhat different nature than many local galleries.

This one features handmade original woodcuts, etchings, drypoint, collagraphs, wood engravings, monoprints and linocuts from 15 artists around Maine, and as far away as Russia.

“Even though some gallery artists work in other media as well as prints, we continue to celebrate the creative alchemy of the printmaking process,” reads a passage on the gallery's website, http://www.greenlionart.com.

Owner David Morgan, originally from New Mexico, and his business partner, Penny Lane, own a gallery and printmaking studio by the same name on Front Street in Bath, that opened in 2015.

Morgan's prints are mostly woodcuts influenced by the different phases of his life. He had a few other careers before settling on printmaking, starting with photography, “back when photographs were produced in a dark room.”

He went from creative photography to freelance work in museums. “It was hard to make a living at it though,” he said. “So I started doing woodwork and cabinetmaking, and I carved signs and designs on furniture.”

Then he worked as an archeologist in England. “I had a split personality. I was a woodworker on the west side of the Atlantic, and.an archeologist on the east side.”

That stint led to a fascination with Medieval art, and his earlier woodcuts reflect that influence. “I came back here and started cutting up boards that were headed to the wood stove, and thought, ‘People make prints from these, and I already have the carving tools. I know how to do this.’”

A woodcut artist was born. “Whenever I had some spare time, and an idea, I'd make a print. Now 30 years have gone by.

“When I started making prints I wanted to celebrate and share the exuberant wonder of sculpture created by artists a thousand years ago, that I’d discovered working as an archaeologist. I was almost trying to bring to life people my imagination had met somewhere in the dusty past.” 

Morgan said the decision to open a gallery in Boothbay came after meeting Bob and Sally Maroon, who own the space and the adjoining Chowder House Restaurant. “We had been thinking about having a presence here, and they were looking for an art-related business for this spot, so it was really kind of serendipitous.

“It seemed like a good opportunity to see how a season would go here.”

Printmakers featured are: Siri Beckman, Holly Berry, Matt Brown, Kathleen Buchanan, Angie Coleman, Brian Keegstra, Tanja Kunz, Mary Ann McLellar, Martha Truscott, Kris Sader, Russell Wray, Morgan, and Russian artists Irina Makoveeva, Stanislav Nikireev, Alexander Vetrov and Vladimir Vorobyov.

There are watercolors and pastel and colored pencil drawings, a terra cotta sculpture by Wray and cards by Jean Williamson and Mick Sharp in the mix, too.

The Russian etchings and drypoint had just arrived, and Morgan said they are currently the only ones in the United States. “The four artists who made these are quite well-known in Russia, and they're very good at what they do,” he said. “There's nobody in the world as serious about etching as an art form, as Eastern Europeans. Here, if you're well known as an artist, you're usually a painter, but printmaking is all these people do.”

Morgan said that since he became a full-time printmaker just a few years ago, the subjects of his art are focused more on the here and now, rather than the “dusty past.”

“I’m exploring the visual wonder of the contemporary world with — and perhaps beyond — more representational work, from right here in Maine.”

One, a closeup depiction of a sailor standing on the deck of a ship with waves around it, was made from three different wood blocks and three separate printings. All of his and the other handmade prints are numbered, and some unframed, as well as framed, prints are available.

Visit the gallery’s website and Facebook pages for current hours, or call 207-844-3770.