The afternoon of First Friday, July 1, was warm and sunny, a perfect day to walk around Boothay Harbor and visit the art galleries on this self-guided tour!

Gleason Fine Art had many visitors. Some were there for First Friday, others were there to meet artists Kevin Beers and Henry Isaacs and spend some time pondering the work in their new shows, “Isle Views” and “New England and New York,” respectively. The “isle” of  Beers’ show is Monhegan, an island that has inspired artists for hundreds of years. Beers’ plein air paintings bring the island’s raw, natural beauty into the spotlight as well as the places and locations dear to Monhegan’s year-round residents and summertime visitors. 

Ask Beers why he loves Monhegan Island and he responds without hesitiation, “First of all, it’s the light. When the light comes up over the hill on the top of Monhegan and it first hits Manana, and then it comes down, it’s all a bright orange color. As the day goes on it becomes more modulated into green and purple shadows on the rocks of Manana. And the sunsets are fantastic. Next morning, everyone in town is talking about it like it was last night’s football game.

“It’s the diversity of subject matter: Black Head and White Head cliffs, the lighthouse which I love ... you walk up the winding, tree-lined road and then, it’s like the trees are like a curtain opening up to it. Monhegan hasn’t changed at all. You’ll look at something today that looks exactly the way it did when Rockwell Kent or George Bellows painted it 100 years ago,” Beers said.

For example, in 1995, Beers was painting on the lawn of the red house on Monhegan that looks out to Manana at sunset. “The island was a purple silhouette with just two slivers of light trickling down the hillside ...” The next day, Beers attended a show at Bowdoin College, “Allure of the Maine Coast: Robert Henri and His Circle.” And there he saw it – the exact scene as painted by Rockwell Kent a century before. “The same silhouette, the same shaped slivers of light that were still fresh in my mind – every little break in that light ... the same that I had painted,” he said. 

Powerful, profound experiences like this one are shared by all artists who visit Monhegan, an island none can stay away from for very long.

At about 6 p.m. most of us went out to the gallery gazebo where Isaacs met with curator/A&E writer Bob Keyes for a Q&A. Isaccs was asked about his new paintings, why he has brought people back into them, how and where he spent the pandemic, and a host of other topics. You could feel the rapport between the two; Keyes has written about the art of Henry Isaacs for decades. Lucky us.

Everyone at Studio 53 Fine Art was celebrating the opening of the solo shows of David Dupree and Jaap Helder. Dupree has the coolest brush strokes, well, they’re really more like dots. The former philosophy major began serious painting in 1973. His show is running through this month and I intend to do a feature on his art, which is colorful, detailed and distinctive. He was there with his wife Gerda Andersen up from North Waterford. I’m looking forward to speaking with both of them for the piece.

Studio 53 always draws a crowd and this First Friday was no exception! Between three floors of distinctive art created by the artists: owners Heidi Seidelhuber and Terry Seaman; Bob McKay, Dupree, Jaap Eduard Helder, David Estey, Don Josephson, John Silverio, Nancy Wilkoff, Ida Schmolowitz, H. Lane Smith and Tony van Hasselt, maestro Aaron Robinson on piano and/or harpsichord, and friendly barkeep George Bishop, it’s a good time!

Ed and Susan Brown at Wharfside Gallery next to Red Cup Coffeehouse was participating this month. Ed was just finishing up framing his new miniature sailboat series paintings. Several people wandered in and began talking about the scenics around them.

I meandered up to Gold/Smith to see what was happening. Karen Swartsberg was talking with some visitors so I checked out the miniature paintings in pendants and earrings facing you as soon as you enter. The gallery began in 1974! The watercolor works of Susan Headly van Campen demand your attention. And the traditional sunflowers outside this gallery are babies compared to the height they’ll reach later this summer.

Boothbay Region Art Foundation (BRAF) has a lot going on: the new nature-themed member show downstairs and two solo shows upstairs. In the Harbor One room you’ll find the memorial show, “Carol Jessen’s Watercolor World.” In 1982, when Jessen lived in St. Louis, she came to East Boothbay to attend a watercolor workshop led by the late Judy Wagner. And she came here every summer afterward. Jessen’s blog, the same name as this solo show, is still online. The other solo show upstairs, “All About Maine,” in the Harbor View Room, is composed of the photography of Diane L. Woodworth of Hermon and Augusta.

The member show is full of imaginative scenics and humans, animals and vegetation. Some cool mixed media by new members Marylou Ashooh Lazos and Wendy Clayton shouldn’t be missed! And there’s a wall with some of the 12” x 12” paintings for sale that are by local and regional artists. If the size sounds familiar, they are from the annual Art in the Square show held late November through mid-January.

Other galleries participating in First Friday were Ae Home and Joy to the Wind Gallery. I’ll catch them next month!

The art in each gallery invites your imagination to travel to places you’ve never been before. The artists are almost always there and enjoy discussing their work.

There are still three First Friday Art Tours to come: Aug. 5, Sept. 2 and Oct. 7. Boothbay Harbor Region Chamber of Commerce prints a map showing where the participating galleries are located. Find the map outside Coastal Maine Popcorn on Townsend Avenue.