New sculpture joins the trail
Story Location:
192 Townsend Avenue
Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538
United States
Isabel Catherine Kelley’s “The Spirit I Crave” sculpture of Heritage granite and granite was installed at Boothbay Harbor Region Chamber of Commerce on Nov. 20 ... and it’s a beauty.
She completed it at this year’s Maine Stone Symposium in August, held for the first time on the Boothbay Common. Kelley arrived with a vision of the finished sculpture.
One of the granite blocks is dark, its surface rough; the other, the Heritage granite, is light, smooth and polished. There’s just the one space between the two pieces that is also a polished area connecting the two.
Kelley said, “Even though there’s a space between them, they are still joined – and fit very well together. It’s about two independent elements joining together animating the necessity of balance; light and dark, masculine and feminine ...”
From this writer’s perspective, the contrasting textures as well as the light and dark are an invitation to touch the sculpture and explore its essence, as you interpret it. The darkness embodies the unknown, the past and the present. The lighter Heritage granite is polished, curvy, smooth , cool and comforting … particularly after the first journey into the unknown …
The installation at the Chamber is just a stop along the Boothbay Harbor Region Sculpture Trail for “The Spirit I Crave.” It also becomes the 25th sculpture on the Trail which, noted BHRCC Director Patricia Royall, “is the only concentrated, coordinated trail in the state of Maine. It is the only one that allows people to go and see everything – the sculptures and the town – by walking.”
The Chamber will be putting out a call to sculpture artists in January to bring new pieces to the Trail that will be expanding, in part due to popular demand (there are several businesses waiting for an installation) and to keep the experience fresh.
Sculptor and Trail visionary Bill Royall expects installations of new work as well as moving currently installed works to new locations – to begin in late April or May with the expectation of completion in June.
Where will Isabel Catherine Kelley’s sculpture be moved to? No telling. Guess you’ll have to walk the trail to find out.
