Maine has claimed my artist’s eye. This summer and fall I traveled to Bailey Island, Maine. For a NYC raised gal, this small remote island felt like I had traveled to the end of the earth.

Staying in a small cottage right on the edge of the shore, I woke to the motoring of the lobster boats and wild turkeys calling.

I spent my time marveling at the landscape and feeling welcomed by a kindred mother earth spirit.

I too had the persistence and courage to weather harsh elements. I too was the carved out coastline… ever changing, but ever strong.

Despite my great skill in overpacking, I did have the limits of what I could fit into my secret admirer’s car. Lucky for me, he has skills in underpacking. No easel would fit easily but I did not mind, as I usually paint with the canvas placed horizontally on sawhorses outside.

This fall when we arrived, an easel was sitting on the deck of the tiny cottage nestled on the shore!

Thank you unknown fellow artist for forgetting your easel.

Setting up outside started with some paint accidents as the wind kept blowing my easel over with paint flying. So my beau secured the easel with gaffer tape and a giant rock. And as he knows to do, leave me alone with my paints… to be in the glorious solitude of creation.

Actually, for a few days I was so enthralled with the landscape that this abstract artist declared she was going to try her hand at painting realistically. I would conquer and paint the Maine coast. I actually picked up a paintbrush and palette knives, something I have not done in years since I paint with my hands.

I failed quite miserably over and over. I ended up banging on the canvas in frustration with my paint filled hands at my inability to capture the beauty in front of me.
©2017 Alicia R Peterson, Photo: Artist.

This struggle had a happy ending as I had a talk with myself.

“Alicia get a grip. Why are you trying to make yourself into a type of painter that does not exist in your soul?” Return to your calling of abstraction.

So indeed using brush and palette knife, I abstracted Maine.
©2017, Alicia R Peterson, Photo: Artist.

I will be returning to this place that calls to me so deeply and it remains in my artist’s third eye. The memories and experiences shape my current studio practice.

Indeed, talking to my mentor, Stan Brodsky, about my passion for this location, he told me:

“Yes. The Light is Cleaner in Maine.”

Expansion of Blue, ©2017, Alicia R Peterson, acrylic on linen, 30 x 40.” Photo: Peter Scheer. 
A work from my Water Series.