Jane Banquer

JANE BANQUER studied at the DeCordova Museum, the Boston Museum School and at Smith College with Leonard Baskin and Amy Namowitz Worthen. She is a state juried member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, where she served to set fine art print and photography standards and to review the work of new artist applicants for exhibition and sales throughout the state.  She has been represented by Addison Woolley Gallery, Portland, Maine and Wenniger Graphics, Boston, Rockport, and Cape Cod, MA. Her work was included in the 2006 Maine Print Project. She has found employment as a master printer, illustrator, graphic designer, arts educator and program manager in the visual and performing arts. 

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Rick Boyd and Pamela Willamson                                                                  

Artist Statement
                                                                                     In the 1960's I took a pottery course to fill an elective requirement while attending college. Now after 35+ years as a potter I am still amazed with the process of transforming balls of clay into works of art. It's about centering the human body and making a connection with the clay. My energy and the feel of the clay defines the shape of the piece. I'm a potter not a sculptor. My work is wheel-thrown and is admired for it's classic lines.                                                                            
I work with a variety of clay bodies, high fire porcelain to low fire earthenware, each with its own characteristic's. I do the throwing and trimming and my companion Pam does the cleaning and glazing. This is a great collaboration as I'm somewhat colorblind and she is by her own admission wheel challenged. Surface decoration is achieved by using various techniques such as etching. We believe our work should speak for itself and when used decoration should compliment never dominate. Surface color is achieved thru various firing techniques and by using stains and glazes made in our studio on Peaks Island. We play at alchemy creating new glaze formulas and modifying existing formulas. Pam uses combinations of glossy, matt and semi-matt glazes which she builds up in layers using a spray gun, airbrush and hand-glazing techniques to achieve the desired effect. Pottery is a marriage of art and science. We are glad to share our knowledge of the pottery making process and eager to try new techniques and advances in ceramics. Success sometimes comes from failure and circumstances beyond our control. After all in the end it is the firing process and the Kiln God who retain final control of the piece.                                                                            

Artist Biography                                                                                
Born in Pennsylvania and educated as a Nurse Anesthetist in Philadelphia, Pa., Rick was inspired by a pottery course while attending Nursing school. In 1974 Rick moved to Portland, Maine. Rick continued to develop his style while apprenticing at The Portland Pottery on Exchange Street.                                                    
In 1975 he opened Second Story Pottery in the Old Port section of Portland, Maine, which closed after he moved to Peaks Island, Me., where he has lived for 30+years.           

Rick has taken a seminar with Warren Mackenzie at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana, courses at Vanderbilt University, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Maine College of Art and has served as visiting artist at Nicolet College in Wisconsin. His work has been shown at galleries and shows across the United States and in the Working Waterfront Newspaper and Down East Magazine. Member of the American Ceramic Society Potters Council, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and the Maine Crafts Association.                                                                            
Pamela earned a BA with a double major from the University of South Carolina. She comes to the studio with 25+ years experience in the apparel industry, marketing and product development.                                

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Cole Caswell

I investigate landscape, place, environment, and geography, through strata of observation, technology, subjectivity, and my surroundings.  I use traditional and digital photographic mediums, GPS, environmental data sets, augmented sampling procedures, clothing design, and classification to investigate our current present state. I received an interdisciplinary M.F.A. from the Maine College of Art, and have been working, living, and observing on Peaks Island three miles off the coast of Portland Maine. Over the last few years I have co-founded The Geographic Observatory and WEAREX [wax] with my partner Jessica George. The Geographic Observatory uses systems of observation, perception, and exploration to form cross discipline perspectives on relationships between community and the landscape. While WEAREX [wax] is a clothing and design project that focuses on the reconfiguration of clothing and design to affect and inform the way in which we move and inhabit. In addition to my collaboration with Jessica George I have worked with the arts collective Spurse and the art non-profit organization the Creative Material Group [CMG]. In an attempt at financial stability and the proliferation of information I hold an adjunct faculty position at Southern Maine Community College, where students engage with photography in a completely digital environment. I am also teaching workshops on photography at the Maine Media Workshops and at Gorham Adult education. In addition to these teachings I have lectured at the Maine Media Workshops, The Maine College of Art, and at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture. At the present I am investigating the landscape of peaks island with the historic wet plate photographic process.

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Eleanor Lincoln Morse

Eleanor Lincoln Morse has published two novels: Chopin’s Garden (Fox Print Books, 2006) and An Unexpected Forest (Down East Books, 2007), which won the 2008 Independent Book Publisher’s Award (IPPY) for best regional fiction (Northeast region) and the 2008 Maine Literary Award from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance for best published fiction. A non-fiction book, Over the Mountains: Two Tibetan Girls Journey Toward Hope (Fox Print Books, 2008) was written in collaboration with Namdol Kalsang Methok and Dawa Dolma about their flight from Tibet into Nepal and India as children. Eleanor has received grants from the Maine Humanities Council to establish writing programs in three Maine prisons. She has also taught at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, through the University of Maine system, Portland Adult and Community Education, and at Maine Medical Center. She received a Master of Arts in Teaching from Yale University and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College. She is presently an adjunct faculty member at Spalding University teaching in the brief residency MFA in Writing Program. She lives on Peaks Island with fellow writer, John Moncure Wetterau. 

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Celia Strickler

Celia has been knitting and crocheting since her grandmother taught her when she was 8, but her grandmother would never have believed what she can do with wire, beads, shells, sea glass, yarn, ribbon and a crochet hook or knitting needles.  While not pursuing her craft as a career (math, accounting, law, and various other endeavors), she has continued working with needles (not acupuncture...) throughout.  Since beginning to winter in Florida, she has developed an enthusiastic following on Anna Maria Island and Sarasota for her whimsical earrings, bracelets, pins, necklaces, and other wearable art.

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John Moncure Wetterau

I was born in Greenwich Village, New York City, but raised, mostly, by my grandparents in Woodstock, a small town in the Catskill mountains. Midway through sophomore year at Hamilton College, an inner voice said, “Get out!” It seemed crazy, but I knew it was the right thing to do. A fraternity brother told me I'd have no trouble finding work on the shrimp boats in Key West.
I hitchhiked south. In Key West, I walked to the harbor and asked for a job on the first boat I found that had anyone on board. The captain said, “Shrimp season’s over, kid.”
I think he felt sorry for me. He pointed to a rusty shrimper across the water. “He might take you.” I picked up my bag and ran around to the other jetty, arriving just as the boat began to pull away. A man on deck was doing something with a cable. He wore a sweatshirt and had a two-day growth.
“I’m looking for work,” I shouted over the engine.
 “You a winch man?”
The winch occupied a large part of the deck, a complicated assembly of giant gears and levers. The strip of water below my feet widened. It was jump or forget it. I had a vision of winching the boat upside down in the Gulf. I shook my head and walked to the Southern Cross Hotel, a wooden building with white peeling paint and a sign declaring, The Southernmost Hotel in the United States.
I wrote it down in a notebook and have been writing ever since. Along the way I served in the Air Force, earned a degree in computer science from the University of Hawaii, married twice, and raised children. The adventures, the loves and betrayals, the teachers, the lessons---they are in my stories and poems, where, like all writers, I have tried to make of my deeper bio something worthwhile.
 

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