The term “power of place” is a nice variation on “sense of place,” that term used to evoke an individual’s special connection to a pond, a town, an island. “The Power of Place: Three Views of Maine” at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor features the work of a painter, Robert Pollien, and two photographers, Gifford Ewing and Frank Hallam Day, each of whom creates images that, to various degrees, capture the inherent intensity of Maine coast motifs.
Pollien, from Bar Harbor, first started painting on Mount Desert Island as an artist in residence at Acadia National Park some 15 years ago. His small oils focus on the ironbound edges of his home island. He eschews the cliché landmark panoramas in favor of more discreet sites: a pyramid-shaped rock buffeted by the sea, a section of cliff silhouetted against the sky. “It is not my goal to portray the land in an overly picturesque manner,” he notes in a statement for the show, and these canvases bear him out. His often-dark palette is infused with light, be it the rich reddish brown of Champlain Mountain after a snow or warm gray fog blanketing Otter Cove.
The power in long-time Sorrento resident Gifford Ewing’s photographs often lies in the weather captured in his handsome silver gelatin fiber prints. December Storm, Frenchman Bay is full of drama, recalling Thomas Cole’s famous “after the squall” painting inspired by a similar meteorological event in this same setting. Ewing also loves islands. In a photograph of Little Calf Island on Frenchman Bay, sun breaks through low-lying clouds to spotlight the spruce-topped islet, which is connected to the land by a zigzag bar.
The third part of this power trio is Frank Hallam Day, a Washington-based photographer who over the past years has been working his way up the East Coast, his cameras at hand. He made it to Maine two years ago, discovering a place where, much to his pleasure, the traditional working waterfront “is still visible.” Last year he was awarded an Acadia National Park artist residency, which led to the work in this show.
Day works large scale; a view of Southwest Harbor measures 44 by 72 inches. He uses 8 by 10 and 12 by 20 cameras, producing archival black-and-white pigment prints. The power in his places is a bit subtler than that of Pollien or Ewing. A yard filled with boats wrapped in taut white plastic is somewhat surreal–motors stilled for the winter, under cover, awaiting the water. Another photograph, of empty boat slings in a Southwest Harbor boatyard, is all about absence.
The Abbe Museum is known for its permanent and traveling exhibitions devoted to Native American history, art and culture. While not related directly to its mission, “Power of Place” evokes that special kinship artists may establish with the land–a vision that carries us deeper into the world. q
“The Power of Place: Three Views of Maine” runs through Nov. 4, 2007, at the Abbe Museum, 26 Mount Desert Street, Bar Harbor. The museum is open seven days a week, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 288-3519 or visit www.abbemuseum.org to confirm times and dates.