This year’s August First Friday was just as hot as it was in 2023 – and not just because of the weather. The participating galleries – Boothbay Region Art Foundation, Gold/Smith, Studio 53, Joy to the Wind and Gleason Fine Art – all had high numbers of visitors – and sales, to boot!

John Vander and Karen Swartsberg’s winter trip to Sicily is remembered in John’s exhibition at Gold/Smith Gallery entitled, “Postcards from Sicily.” Each of the 20 paintings on paper intrigue and charm, inspire and stimulate the imagination. The reception featured Karen’s delectable appetizers featuring a swordfish spread and a Sicilian cheese spread/dip, luscious Sicilian green olives, served with Prosecco or water. I don’t usually go on about food offerings at these receptions, but Karen created the perfect atmosphere with Italian music filling the gallery as we nibbled our appetizers, sipped our wine, and journeyed to Sicily, with John’s art our passport.

But back to the art. This show ... you will sigh and your soul find contentment, albeit temporarily, but while it lasts! My absolute favorite painting is entitled “Grasses Siracusa.” When I first saw this painting, and it was the first one that really grabbed my attention, I wondered what lay beyond the tall green grasses growing in water, a marsh, perhaps? Bold strokes of black layered on top off the grasses caused me to begin looking beyond to the orange sandy area behind the grass – and quickly – as though I had mere seconds to see what lay beyond that grass before the darkness obscured my vision completely. I told John I could spend hours looking at this painting. And I could. And I want to. Strange how affected our souls can become by an unexpected source.

“You can’t imitate nature; you look at a field of grass ... it’s a universe,” Vander said. “You try to take some of the energy coming from that and bring it through you to get it out (on a canvas).”

It was a few weeks after returning home to their winter home in Tuscany before he filled three notebooks with sketches, a few comments or one or two color notes. John never works from photographs. In fact, he made a few notes during this trip, but no sketches until about two weeks after they returned home filling three notebooks. The first notebook is of loose sketches, maybe a color note or two; sketches in the second and third notebooks become progressively looser and by the third he is adding some color and memory, too.

“Actually, once I put something down it brings the experience right back so I don’t need (sketches) anymore.” he explained. “I want them to be as closely spontaneous as possible; except it has to go through a process to get there.”

With this show, we talked about that initial reaction one has to a painting when you do that double take and move toward it completely spellbound. For me, that was “Grasses Siracusa” (right, like I had to say it again, right?) …

“It’s that first whack of impression,” John said. “I like to keep it a little ambiguous, deliberately. The content of a painting is very small. I was always impressed with (Willem) de Kooning who said (and I found the exact quote): ‘... content, if you want to say, is a glimpse of something, an encounter, you know, like a flash – it’s very tiny, very tiny content.’”

As for never working from photographs, John said: “You’re not trying to imitate pictures, you’re trying to create a metaphor.” He also blends different locations together. “Images come up in dreams and you realize your mind has made an amalgam of experiences related to the emotions of the experience.”

This absorbing show runs through Sept. 18.

At Gleason Fine Art, featured artist Lyn Asselta was there, art lovers speaking with her while others began their art sightseeing in the room to the right of the entrance featuring paintings created centuries ago. That’s one of the facets of Gleason that make it so distinctive for “art time travel.”

Lyn has been painting with pastels for 16 or so years now and a fluid connection was made. She painted in oils in college, but as she said, “it didn’t work out.” Post college, Lyn worked as a calligrapher for 10 years working with fine point pens drafting residential designs. It was when she, unfortunately, injured her neck that Lyn found an old box of pastels and started working with them on sanded paper. 

“The first time I tried pastels, I loved it,” she said. “It was perfect for what I wanted to do – landscapes.” 

She returned to Maine about five years ago from the Carolinas and “dove right back in” to work. I am always drawn to rocks and water and fascinated by the way each artist sees/interprets these elements. Lyn’s have such depth that they appear quite real on the canvas. 

“The rock and water thing is a big challenge: liquid and large solid objects. No matter where you’re at, it’s different,” Lyn said. “Down South the water was flat. In a little boat, the water can feel like Jello. Here, it’s deep and cold. There’s something about that space, that point where they come together.”

Lyn’s painting, “The Breaker" is a gorgeous example of that point. The detailing of the gorgeous rocks and the water ... you can hear this painting. Another painting in this show I was drawn to is entitled, “Outgoing Tide.” Conversely, a quieter experience, it’s the reflection of the sun in the water that I found entrancing. I find myself on the shore, with a “Mona Lisa” smile on my lips and feeling at peace. 

Studio 53 Fine Art hosted quite a crowd. It always does. It has this “happening” vibe about it, and if you’ve been there on First Fridays you know what I mean. The featured solo show: “Recent Paintings” by Jaap Helder of Round Pond, no doubt had something to do with the throngs passing through the door. Jaap’s paintings will draw you in for a “good yarn” of your own making. And, if you’re fortunate enough to be at the gallery when he is, well … let the riffing begin!

I wrote about the show in my column last week that included the new painting “Watusi” – which sold during the event, no surprise there. I forgot, however, to include “Overture.” Love it. The story: a final release from the past; a past that has been carried around a loooong time. See the old rusted latches on the right? It reminds me of an old television set (mind’s eye) that “played” nothing but reruns … Cue that rockin’ overture, please.

Boothbay Region Art Foundation (BRAF) welcomed a lot of art lovers. It’s an eclectic show, as many are there because the artists represented are so diverse in style and media. I went upstairs to speak with Sarah Wilde, who has a solo show upstairs in the Harbor Room along with Sue Henry’s “Reflections On Reclamation” in Gallery One. Sarah’s “Forest Canopy” fairly leapt off the wall at me. The mystery within and beyond the trees – or is it a cornfield – called to me during my entire time with Sarah and her work. The show also includes some abstracts and spiritual explorations.

Sadly, I didn’t make it over on the east side and Joy to the Wind Gallery. I just ran out of time – imagine!  Lynne and John Seitzer hosted a “lovely conversational crowd” of around 30. Said Lynne, “Many speculations on what the “Glyph” paintings meant to them. Some felt they were related to the Mayans Totemic symbols, some saw human figures, while others related that they were ‘like ancient writings’ on stone.”