BAR HARBOR – Linda Rowell Kelley likes time by herself in her A-frame studio, a hundred yards down a brushy path from the home she shares with her husband Terry. She paints there for hours on evenings and weekends. When she retires from her day job, as director of administration for the Bar Harbor Housing [...]

ELLSWORTH – There’s a hubbub of cheerful chatter, and it’s difficult to make out what Celtic/rock contemporary/fusion musicians Carmel Mikol, Rachel Davis, and Darren McMullen are saying. “We’re not even a band,” says Mikol, who adds, “We’re free radicals.” Or maybe it’s, “We’re three radicals.” The three are scheduled to perform shortly at the home [...]

BAR HARBOR – Masanobu Ikemiya is a concert pianist, conductor, and recording artist, a foremost exponent of American ragtime, the founder of the summertime Arcady Music Festival in Maine and of the New York Ragtime Orchestra, and a Zen Buddhist disciple. His wife, Tomoko, is a former nurse-midwife, psychologist, and college instructor. She now manages [...]

BASS HARBOR – The projects of the Mohawk Arts Collective begin with the ideas of the two founders, Andrew Simon and Pavel Ezrohi, and evolve with the added energy of invited artists, who recently traveled from New York City to Bass Harbor for a week’s worth of rehearsal and performance. Youthful and vibrant, the collective [...]

BAR HARBOR – Celebrating its 30 anniversary this year, Island Artisans is a vibrant shop that showcases the works of more than 100 Maine artisans. The cooperative got its start with a group of just 11 local artists, who found strength in numbers. The store is currently owned and managed by five of the original artists: [...]

SOUTHWEST HARBOR – Somewhere on the Maine coast, a middle-aged man, Rusty, shouts, “It was a freak accident, Maynard! When are you going to get over that?!” Maynard, seen in the film’s frame from behind, grabs Rusty. “You’ll never know what it’s like to see your only son’s baseball cap float away with the tide, [...]

NORTHEAST HARBOR – Gwen Elizabeth Schwartz was a young artist who is remembered by friends and family for her bold vision, independent thinking, spontaneity, and fierce spirit. Gwen was 21 when she died suddenly, on April 5, 2011 in New York City, not long after receiving a possible diagnosis of bipolar disorder. She attended Mount [...]

SOMESVILLE – Auctioneer Jerry Miller had cleaned out the good furniture from a large Southwest Harbor estate, whose contents were being put up for auction. He and his assistant had moved on to the garage, where they were hauling out metal file cabinets and other items. Behind a bunch of stuff was a cardboard mirror [...]

NORTHEAST HARBOR – Artist Aaron Mitchell makes paintings that are big with in-your-face primary colors and bizarre images that hint of inner chaos channeled into art. Mitchell paints on anything that comes to hand – old planks, windows and doors from the dump figure large – with acrylics, oils and spray paints wrought in a [...]