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Artist: Kathleen Galligan

Katy Elliott — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:00:23 +0000

Passages #1, oil on linen, 10″ x 10″

I came across Kathleen Galligan’s work looking through an art auction at Maine College Of Art (MECA) in Portland, Maine. Her oil series expansive and quiet struck a chord. I contacted Kathleen originally regarding Passages #1 (above) and I then asked if she would be willing to share more about the series with all of us. A beautiful response from Kathleen below.

I love your paintings. Can you tell me more about the oil series?

Kathleen Galligan: Approximately ten years ago, I shifted from working from life—either through plein air studies, or my own photos—to painting instead from my memory and imagination. It was liberating and exciting! I would start with some broad dark shapes of color, which might either be land or water, and see where my process took me. I had no plan and was willing to embark on a journey of exploration.

The oil paintings are aerial images from a previous solo exhibit, Uncharted Shores, at Greenhut Galleries, Portland, Maine. The title is a metaphor and has a personal dual meaning. The paintings were oil on canvas, linen or panels and as this was my first solo exhibit in which I had chosen to work exclusively in oils, I was venturing into uncharted waters. In each previous solo exhibit spanning my 30-odd year career as a professional painter, I exhibited only pastels, with two exceptions when I integrated a few small oils.

The title also serves to describe my relationship to the paintings, which are aerial perspectives of water and land’s interactions. Over the two years which I took to paint this series, I embarked on an adventure, exploring a terrain that was new, uninhabited, wild and waiting to be discovered. Completely imaginary, the journey was a process of exploration of places that were unfolding before me, yet I was the creator. I did no preliminary studies, no visual plan was in place for each painting. One thing I knew I wanted to do, however, was to create a believable sense of expansive distance, which I think I achieved in these paintings.

The seed of this series had already been germinating a few years prior to the exhibit in Portland. I had been working from an aerial perspective in pastels which culminated in an exhibit entitled Updraft, at the same gallery. At that time, I was seeking to gain a broader perspective of our earth. As an environmentally concerned individual, I hoped to make paintings that were celebratory and majestic. As those pastels developed, civilization was present with suggested ports and harbors, without literal detail, but there nonetheless.

This time I painted images of non-existent natural shorelines and found myself in an exhilarating exploration of unknown estuaries. I contemplated our world before we inhabited it, primordial, without civilization—and produced a totally fabricated series of coastlines and waterways, using light and color to communicate their magic and mysteries.

The places, all imagined, yet created by an informed imagination, hopefully suggest this primordial world. Creating places of interest that are both familiar and unfamiliar simultaneously, might invite the viewer to begin their own exploration of these uncharted shores. I am pleased that, from what people have said and written, I succeeded.

Where do you draw your inspiration?
KG: For most of my professional painting career, my inspiration has been drawn from the small, everyday wonders of the natural world.

Do you paint indoors or out?
KG: I think of myself as a studio painter more than a plein air painter. I do, however, teach plein air workshops and love to travel to paint the landscape (view travel series paintings). I think it is a wonderful way to exercise one’s skill as a painter, a great way to be out in the open air and a personal way to pay homage to what I love about what I am painting. So, I do work both indoors and out, but painting inside my studio allows for more creativity and imagination.

How often do you paint? Do you have a set schedule for studio time?
KG: I seem to have a seasonal cycle related to where I live. Maine is a state with distinct cycles of life born out of the seasons. Summers are all about coming out of a winter hibernation, intensive gardening, breathing the sea air, greeting and housing friends and relatives; and for the landscape painter such as myself, painting and teaching plein air painting. It is a time to be out there in an extroverted fashion. Work in the studio is infrequent. At summer’s end, and as autumn nears, while there is some work in the garden harvesting and preparing for winter months, there is more time to retreat to a place of quiet, reflection and creativity. My studio is the venue for this retreat. I can focus well during the autumn/winter and spring months and I try to enter my studio each morning during the week. Of course, it doesn’t always happen, life does have a way of interjecting itself. But if I can put a couple of hours into work in the mornings, and then again after lunch, that’s a good day.

Have you always been an artist?
KG: I have wanted to paint since as far back as I can recall. As a child I would draw any willing relative, copy photographs in pencil or watercolor, and when my great aunts took me and my sister to Cape Cod for a week each summer, they knew they could leave me to watch the portrait artists in Hyannis, while they wandered through the nearby shops. I would be riveted to the very spot they left me as I gazed transfixed by the magic before me. I received academic training in art and earned my BFA (in the Illustration Dept at Philadelphia College of Art, now University of the Arts) in my late twenties, after I had already completed college at a liberal arts school and had been in the work force for a few years.

Who are your favorite artists?
KG: That’s never easy to answer; there is an ebb and flow of both influential artists and artists who I simply appreciate for their work. Sometimes they are contemporary artists, other times, historic. Some are people I know, Maine artists, such as Linden Frederick for his realistic, nostalgic and beautifully painted low-lit scenes of Americana; Dozier Bell, whose work is somewhat dark, but gorgeous and inspiring, moving from the large-scale and ethereal to the very corporeal, detailed and small war drawings. I am fascinated by Cornelia Parker’s conceptual installations. She is a British artist who at one point was short-listed for the coveted Turner Prize. I think she does remarkable work of significance.

I love Wayne Thiebaud’s lushly painted urban scenes, Gustav Klimt and the charm of Vuillard. The paintings, both oils and watercolors, of John Singer Sargent were early inspirations. Rooted in the study of Illustration, I am still appreciative of some classic illustrators such as N.C. Wyeth, Arthur Rackham and distantly in that category, the pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones.

Kathleen Galligan
website: kathleengalligan.com
Kathleen is represented by a number of galleries including Greenhut Galleries in Maine. Click here for a full list as well as additional works, contact information and purchasing.

Ephemera #2, oil on canvas, 24″x 24″

Illuminations #3, oil on linen, 12″x 12″

And So It Begins, oil on linen, 30″x 32″

All images are courtesy of Kathleen Galligan

Traditional Woven Baskets From Maine

Katy Elliott — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:03:44 +0000

Spotted at the Common Ground Fair last fall beautiful woven baskets from Moose River Handcrafts; I’m kicking myself for not picking one up. The baskets are perfect for keeping potatoes and onions through the winter and for household organization. I called up Moose River this morning and asked if I could use the potato basket for kindling? They said I should be fine as long as I “don’t overload it”. I think the brown ash would be beautiful in my den and little different then the rush style baskets we’ve been seeing over and over.

Each basket is made by hand way up in Jackman, Maine on a first come basis specific to your needs. Many of the baskets are offered with wood or leather handles and can be ordered by mailing in an order form. The baskets do take time so order far an advance.

I have my eye on a few more including the picnic basket (leather handles!), laundry, car and pack baskets. The kindling basket is gorgeous with birch bark “weavers” but a little smaller then the potato basket. Maybe they can make my potato basket with birch too?

Moose River Handcrafts
PO Box 205
Jackman, Maine
mooseriverhandcrafts.com

Top photo by Katy Elliott, bottom photos courtesy of Moose River Handcrafts

The Marston House Antiques: Bed & Breakfast

Katy Elliott — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:43:39 +0000

Over the weekend we went up to Wiscasset, Maine to do some antiquing. Many of the shops close in early October and I was hoping to find some end of the season deals. We stayed at the Marston House part antique, part bed & breakfast run by design duo Sharon and Paul Mrozinski. Part antique shop, part bed & breakfast. Two beautiful rooms are available in the carriage house with fireplaces and full bathrooms. Breakfast is delivered each morning in a basket between 8-9 am. Greg and I felt so spoiled drinking delicious coffee, warm biscuits and granola with a fire going on Sunday morning. The rooms are quite affordable at $110 a night.

In the main house the shop includes two large rooms filled with antique linens, wares, and furniture the couple has picked up in France. Sharon and Paul spend the summer in Maine and winters in France searching for “antique homespun textiles and furnishings from the 18th and 19th century that are simple, useful and full of soul”. The couple also has three properties for rent in the south of France too.

I really enjoy their design aesthetic. The pieces selected are simple, uncomplicated and interesting. Nothing feels too fussy and the spaces they’ve created are enjoyable and welcoming. Below snapshots from the shop as well as our room in the carriage house.

Thanks to Sharon and Paul for having us! We’ll see you in France next!

The Marston House
Sharon & Paul Mrozinski
101 Main Street
Wiscasset, Maine
207.882.6010
marstonhouse.com

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Mill Tour of Brahms Mount in Maine

Katy Elliott — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:08:20 +0000

Sample closet of herringbone blankets and throws.

Maine has a long textile history dating back to the 1800’s, “when almost every family spun fine yarns from local flax and wool”. In the mid-1800’s textile mills popped up along the Saco, Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers. As I kid I can remember buying fabric with my Mom at the Cascade Woolen Mill outlet in Oakland. The mill was built in the 1880s and closed in the 1990s. Countless other mills in Maine have shared the same fate.

Brahms Mount has long captured my attention. Back in 2009 I wrote a short piece about the redesign of their website, the next day I got an e-mail from David Kaufman asking if he could call to thank me. We chatted for a few minutes as he explained he recently purchased the company and was working with the former owners to continue the tradition of creating heirloom quality blankets. I was completely blown away by his enthusiasm.

27-years-ago Claudia Brahms and Noel Mount purchased and renovated two historic buildings overlooking the Kennebec river in Hallowell, Maine. They came in search of open air and a large workspace to “make a mess”. “Antique shuttle looms, the backbone of Maine’s textile tradition, were readily available to equip the mill.” The couple trained artisans and designed a collection of heirloom quality linen and cotton blankets. Since the purchase in 2009, Claudia has continued on as the lead designer and Noel manages the manufacturing aspect of the business.

In late July, my mom and I headed up to Hallowell for a mill tour. Greeted by the charismatic David in flip flops and shorts (he was leaving for vacation in an hour), he introduced us to Claudia Brahms (founder and lead designer) working in her studio. We headed just a few steps from their offices to the mill. Antique shuttle looms banged moving up and down while hundreds of white fiber strands neatly found their way into the warper. Amidst this chaos David whirled us in and around the antique shuttle looms explaining the process and allowing me to snap as many photos as I liked.

We headed upstairs to watch artisans twisting fridge on their signature cotton herringbone throws. We followed David who has the energy of 20-year-old stopping every few steps to touch little bits of fiber. It’s hard not notice his passion. It’s not a pitch. Everything about this man is a pleasure. He’ll talk fiber construction with as much ease as his plans to grow the company and expand product lines. An infectious passion fills the mill as I absorb how each process meticulously handled by “artisans more than fifty times” becomes a beautiful blanket.

Maine has a long tradition of making things. Brahms Mount has built upon this creating simple and familiar textures adapted from classic designs. Brahms Mount is the only weaver of linen blankets in North America. They use the best linen and get their cotton out the Carolinas. Once you actually touch a Brahms Mount piece, you’ll be captivated. The hand and drape is out this world. The colors and design, timeless.

I believe in supporting American-based companies and artisans who continue local traditions. To me it makes a difference to know artisans who love their craft made the blankets that I will cover my family with every night. To me that is worth investing in and spending a bit more for. Below photos from my mill visit. To learn more about Brahms Mount visit brahmsmount.com.

Brahms Mount
19 Central Street
Hallowell, Maine
brahmsmount.com

A sample of the Herringbone blanket I ordered in white/misty blue.

Herringbone and ticking stripe blankets.

A Creel that holds up to 600 combs to make the weft. Learn more about this process and view a video on their blog.

All 600 combs are hand thread into the warper. The warp is the vertical fiber in a textile. Watch a video from the Brahms Mount team explaining this process.

The warper with the creel in the background.

Brahms Mount team working on the warp.

Bobbins being thread.

John Smith “Master Weaver” oversees the antique shuttle looms.

100% cotton herringbone throw in melon on the loom. Are you drooling? Gorgeous, right?

Bobbins for weft.

The warp threaded on the loom.

100% cotton rib weave in white on loom. One of my favorites!

A detail of the weft on the loom.

David showing me a cotton herringbone throw with their signature fringe.

I ordered a 50% cotton and 50% linen ombre day blanket.

I picked up two 100% linen body towels in a ticking stripe.

Brahms Mount from Maine Office of Tourism on Vimeo.

Tide Out At Crescent Beach

Katy Elliott — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:37:06 +0000

We spent the weekend with my nieces at my sister’s beach house rental in Owls Head overlooking Crescent Beach. From my bedroom window I could hear the waves crashing and watch the tide go in and out. I snapped a hundred photos of this one view when the tide went out to reveal green and brown seaweed covered rocks. The tones and colors were magical against a blue summer sky and pointy green pine trees in the distance.

Making Wildflower Bouquets

Katy Elliott — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:52:24 +0000

Collecting wildflowers is one of my favorite summer rituals. Just before bedtime we took a long walk collecting queen anne’s lace, golden rod and pink beach peas from the roadside. My nieces created two adorable bouquets with great texture and composition, so cute! Below snapshots from our walk in Maine.

Lobster Dinner at the Cod End in Tenants Harbor

Katy Elliott — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:07:35 +0000

Tenants Harbor, Maine.

We spent the weekend up in Maine eating lobsters, paddleboarding and hanging out at the beach. Our first night we had lobster dinner at the Cod End in Tenants Harbor. The view from the deck can’t get any better; looking out at a scenic harbor dotted with working lobster boats and a pine tree horizon in the distance. At the Cod End all the fish, lobster and clams are local. Greg ordered the Shore Dinner (a mix of lobster, clams and mussels) and I got a lobster roll. A fog bank rolled into the harbor while we were eating filling the air with a cold, dewy, salty mist.

Inside the Cod End market.

Lobsters arranged by size in the market.

You should always boil your lobsters in sea water or use sea salt.

Dinner!

Greg enjoying clams. Check out the biscuit that came with dinner, delicious!

View of Cod End from the dock.

Beautiful boats tied up at the docks.

Lobster traps.

Snug Harbor Farm

Katy Elliott — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:28:58 +0000

I took the day off on Wednesday and headed up to Maine to hang out with Michael Penny and his lovely wife Sara. He’s an editor at Canadian House & Home and writes a great blog too.

We spent the morning scouring the booths at Antiques USA in Arundel and then headed down to Snug Harbor Farm in Kennebunk. We spent at least 2 hours looking at all the different plants, poking in and out of greenhouses and enjoying the beautiful scenery. It’s such a special place!

I picked up a few new perennials—even though I have no room in my garden—and a beautiful succulent to place on my desk. Below snapshots I took on my visit.

Snug Harbor Farm
87 Western Avenue
Kennebunk, ME 04043
(207) 967-2414
snugharborfarm.com

Father’s Day

Katy Elliott — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 17:08:13 +0000

Happy Father’s Day Dad! We miss you. Above a photo of me and my Dad at Snow Pond in Maine when I was four.

Handmade Products from Maine at Common Ground

Katy Elliott — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:43:48 +0000

One more quick post about the Common Ground Fair. I finally got all my photos and business cards organized and thought a would share a few of my favorites. Above a gorgeous display of baskets from Maine Indian Basket Weavers Alliance’s table showcasing basketry made from ash and sweetgrass. Gorgeous, right?

I’m a wool blanket fanatic. I first met Nan at the Portland Flower show in 2009. She creates gorgeous seacolor yarns she makes into blankets, sweaters, hats, and mittens. The wool blankets are beautiful and the stripes are in the most amazing variegated colors.
getwool.com

Woven baskets from Moose River Handcrafts from Jackman, Maine are beautiful and affordable. I had my eye on the potato basket made from brown ash in the middle. I was this close to buying it but decided to wait till my house renovation moves along a little further. I really like that the baskets are offered with leather or wood handles.
mooseriverhandcrafts.com

I saw the most amazing hand turned wood bowls I have ever seen by David Lancaster. I didn’t take the greatest shot of the bowls because there was so many people in the booth – sorry. His bowls are outstanding and heirloom quality. Adding to my must-get list once my kitchen is done.
heirloombowls.com

I scored some yarn from Bartlett Yarns for the afghan I’ve been brainstorming. I really wanted wool in natural colors. Bartlett’s yarns were beautiful and reasonably priced. I got all the yarn needed for project (not all yarn is shown) for around $90 —which sounds expensive but the most affordable option I found when pricing out natural bulky wool.
bartlettyarns.com