Maine's Capital Area

A Sense of Place / El Sentido del Lugar comes full circle, returning to the Capital district for its final exhibit in 2016. This cross-cultural, collaborative printmaking exhibition was created by Circling the Square Fine Art Press of Gardiner, Maine and Fundación Estampería Quiteña of Quito, Ecuador. It opened January 18 in the Danforth Gallery at UMA and has since traveled to Farmington, Belfast and Damariscotta, The identical exhibition opened in Quito, Ecuador in March.

The final Augusta exhibit opens at Viles Arboretum on November 29. A reception to meet the artists is scheduled Saturday, December 3 from 2 to 3:30 pm. Food and beverages will be served. A Sense of Place / El Sentido del Lugar celebrates a visual conversation on sustainability, biodiversity and the ways local changes may make global impacts.

Featured at Viles Arboretum are thirty framed intervention prints that focus on sustainability and biodiversity. A print, initiated by an artist at one press, was sent to an artist at the other press to complete. Shared visions and artistic conversations about environmental concerns are communicated through lithography, serigraphy, linocut, intaglio and various other printmaking techniques.

Participating are seventeen artists from Circling the Square Fine Art Press, led by director Karen Adrienne, and fifteen artists from the Fundación Estampería Quiteña. The other Maine artists are: Robin Brooks, Judith DeMilo-Brown, Christine J. Higgins, Judith Long, Diana McFarland, Christine Olson, Rebeka Ouellette, Jane Page-Conway, Donna Parkinson, Ellen Roberts, Kris Sader, Susan Dean Smith, J. P. Strode, Sarah Vosmus, Lisa F. Wheeler and Barbra Whitten.
The exhibition travels next to Boston University School of Theology in January 2017 for two months, A bilingual exhibition catalog is available at all venues.

Vile Arboretum, 153 Hospital Street, Augusta, is open Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. FMI: (207) 626-7689, or www.circlingthesquarepress.com