In Paper Whites, a dark, thinly-clad woman poses, face in profile, holding an extirpated narcissus, roots in her lap, leaves splayed across her torso, blossom at her breastbone. In Mrs. McGregor, the same striking woman stands in a white-on-white environment dangling...

Phyllis Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth had been married for over fifty years when Phyllis died in 2019. During the preceding half century and more Wyeth painted her portrait continuously. But, she is also present in many indirect portraits—homages, really, to his partner,...

It is difficult for me to determine whether satisfaction can be measured in this world. Ecstasy and misery leave a strong impression in the memory, while pale satisfaction is as easy to forget as any minor disappointment. There is a painting by Carlo Pittore, based on...

A few months after graduating from the Maine College of Art & Design (MECA) in May of 2006, I started teaching Mixed-Media Portraiture (MMP) through their Continuing Studies Department. I was asked to teach this course based on the popularity of my senior thesis...

Still Lives: Stories in Profile documents the rarely seen side view of a person capturing the moment when a personality and a story emerge in its simplest form. There's a distinct dignity, as well as a mystery, that I try to bring to my subjects through light,...

Feminist artists sought to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork through the inclusion of women's perspective. Art was not merely an object for aesthetic admiration but could also incite the viewer to question the social and political landscape, and...

I first remember seeing the rusty brown wool coat from a distance. The high school art teacher, Mrs. Weed, would sit in the choir loft of the Catholic church where I was an altar boy. I could see her from my seat on the altar, usually to the left of the priest if you...

Judy Taylor’s first portrait subject was her grandfather on his Nebraska farm, painted when she was twelve years old. Later in life, Taylor studied portraiture with artists at the New York Academy of Art, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League,...

The 2023 photographs presented in this issue of the Maine Arts Journal are my photographic response to stumbling upon a portrait stenciled on a Parisian yellow mailbox. Walking casually on the Île Saint-Louis, I spotted and immediately recognized the work of French...

Feminist art historian Shearer West points to the capacious definition of a “portrait” noting that a “portrait” emerges “on a continuum between the specificity of likeness and the generality of type . . . showing specific and distinctive aspects . . . as well as the...

Haystack: Portrait of a Fledgling Craft School by Carl Little   While in the past crafts were necessary for practical survival, now and for the future they will be just as necessary for preserving sanity and achieving some kind of salvation. —Francis Merritt When...

There is a myth associated with the village we live in (Annascaul) and, like many Irish myths, it has to do with bloodshed and getting the upper hand when all seems lost, or perhaps finding it's more important that if you die, you die with honor, because that goes a...