Childhood memories of growing up Down East greatly influence the art of Matt Barter. For Matt, memories are both relived and preserved on canvas and board and through statuary. From crabs being boiled on a woodstove in the back of a store, steam rises, and with it traces of the sea mingling with cigarette smoke. Wormdiggers bringing in a day's work for pay and a few scratch tickets. And the people (fishermen, diggers, boat repair and storage folks, shopkeepers and family). Always family.

“Oil Paint & Brine,” on exhibition at Kerr + Jones Fine Art & Craft in East Boothbay, has a double-billing; it features Matt’s work and also his late father’s, Philip Barter,  who was born and bred here in Boothbay. Both artists share similarities: self-taught, work in oils, creating visuals of Mainers at work and the visually stunning land and sea scapes of the place they called home.

The show title came about after Matt shared a worm digging story with Diana Kerr, co-owner of the gallery with Kathleen Jones. Over a 10-year timeframe Philip took on a variety of jobs to provide for his wife, Priscilla, and their seven kids; being a full-time artist wasn’t providing enough income for the family. One of those jobs was worm digging and somewhere along the line Matt went to work with him.

“It sounds like a really nasty job because it is; probably the worst job I've ever had. But the amazing thing was the easel Dad kept strapped on his back. Waiting for a tide to go out, he would take the easel off, sit on the shoreline and paint. He was constantly thinking about his artwork no matter what he was doing, and he was always such a hard worker as far as that goes."

And now to the first painting of Matt’s that caught my eye … “Crab Pickers.” As you enter the gallery it hangs on the wall to your right. Three individuals, one man, two women, looking down at their laps and the crab in each. There’s a large pot on a stove cooking up more crabs, the walls are stained brown from dirt and the steam. It is a small room. One man and two women sit silently, eyes downcast on the crab in their laps. I was struck by how much was being conveyed within this color-filled painting. The man is old and weary; the woman in the center is the younger of the two and is getting on with the job at hand, but by the expression on her face, you get the feeling her mind is somewhere else. The woman seated next to her is older, white hair in a bun at the top of her head. But unlike with the other two people who are just getting on with the job, her crab seems to be almost cradled in her arm, OK sort of. But she is really looking at the crab, perhaps a show of gratitude before she begins cracking its legs and gets to the job at hand. When I was done musing, Matt said he was actually going for more of a van Gogh “Potato Eaters” vibe and that, in fact, the crabs were already dead and she was probably not feeling sadness for the little buggers (my original take...I know, I know, insert eye roll here).

There’s another painting of a man Philip and Matt knew as Toot, Toot Andrews. An older guy who with his brother Tommy, worked on the boats that came in, and with a big old truck,  dragged the boats back and forth so the rich people could get their slate of sailboats in the water and sail off in Frenchman's Bay.

“And what I find so interesting is that my dad's interaction with them wasn't just hey, bring my boat down. Dad would help them out, and when they got too old to drive, my dad would bring them to doctor's appointments and different things, just to kind of speak to the fact that my dad was a real human. Was a real person, and he loved people.”

Matt’s painting of Toot surrounded by boats behind him and a smaller, skiff probably, at the dock. You get the impression this man was larger than life, or maybe that’s how Matt saw him as a child.

“That's kind of what this show is about for me. A lot of them are of people, and that's what you find in Maine. A place where there are still real people. You go other places and, you know, I think people have lost their sense of who they are,” Matt said.

“An artist documents the time period that he lives in. And I do see the Maine fisherman is at this sort of critical point with the struggles and challenges they face. I don't see Maine fishermen the same way they are now in 20 years. So being able to paint and document them as they were and are now is a really important thing for me,” Matt said. I do a lot of work with Maine coast Fishing Association, and I really like what they do there.”

Matt, wife Rebekah, and two sons live in Brunswick. It is also the location of Barter Art House, a gallery of Matt and Philip's work exhibited on the first floor. Matt works in his studio upstairs.

Matt's current show at his gallery is The Toy Show. “Yeah. I built this toy store, basically just a bunch of toys inspired from my childhood,” Matt said. “Most of what I do is basically from the first five years of my life. I do a collection of toys. Some of them are based on Mickey Mouse, some on Voltron Transformers. And there's figures done in my own way; they're just very creepy.”

Matt also makes statuary (of the non-creepy variety) out of reclaimed wood painting with oils become sternmen, men with chainsaws; kids, or, and this one is my favorite on the gallery website, “Replacement Trap” with two lobsterman figures, one up above handing the trap down the second which is more like a vignette, of which there are more. Matt adds more depth to each piece creating vignettes, moments frozen in time.

At the Kerr + Jones show there are also totem-like reclaimed wood structures that must be explored.

Barter Art House came to be while Philip (did I mention he was a Boothbay native) before the service before the time in California in the '60s where he met an abstract artist with a colorful painting palette, Alfonso Sosa? The use of a bright color palette there stayed with him here in Maine. But I digress ... Matt and Philip opened an exhibit, The Cantown Company Store, a tribute to the last Maine fish cannery in Prospect Harbor closed 10 or so years ago. It was a place you could buy cereal, bread and fishing gear, odd things like that on the same shelf. Lots to see at Barter Art House. It's at 68 Cumberland in Brunswick. I know I plan on dropping by.

But for now, head over to Kerr + Jones Fine Art & Craft, 268 Ocean Point Road, East Boothbay for the current father-son show of Philip and Matt Barter.