WATERVILLE — The 26th annual Maine Open Juried Art Show opened Sunday at Waterville Public Library to accolades from viewers.
“It’s really a very nice exhibit,” said Mark Berlinger, a sculptor from Belgrade Lakes. “I’m glad to see it’s not just water color and oil. There’s a wood carving here and encaustic and oil.”
Berlinger, 64, was referring to a small wood carving of flowers and leaves by South China artist Marcia Berkall, set inside a mahogany colored frame and titled “Sweeter Than the Roses.” He also pointed to a piece done in oil and encaustic, a combination of hot wax and pigment, by Vassalboro artist Ann E. Rhinehardt called “Snow Moon,” featuring deep blue hues.
“Encaustic and oil is a technique where you use wax and the etching process,” Berlinger said. “It’s definitely a hands-on type technique.”
Berlinger for the last few years has visited the show, which draws artists from all over the state and is presented by the Waterville Area Art Society and Waterville Main Street.
More than 100 works are on display on the library’s first floor in a space referred to as the fireplace room. The show features oils, watercolors, pastels, acrylics and other media which were judged Saturday. A show opening is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. Tuesday including a reception in the fireplace room. An awards ceremony will be held in the large reading room on the library’s fourth floor.
The Art Society will hand out a Judges Choice Award in the amount of $200 and The Marilyn Dwelley Realistic Landscape Award for $500. First, second and third place awards and two honorable mentions will be given in each of five media categories. First, second and third place winners get ribbons and cash. Honorable mention winners receive certificates. Awards are funded mostly through sponsorship donations from the Art Society, Colby College Museum of Art, The Framemakers, Kennebec Savings Bank, Maine State Credit Union and other organizations, according to Art Society President Amy Cyrway, who co-owns The Framemakers with her husband, Brian Vigue. Both are artists.
The library opened at 1 p.m. Sunday and art enthusiasts flocked to the show on its first day.
“We will get more people the first weekday that it’s open,” said library assistant Tia Brickett, who was working on the first floor Sunday.
Brickett said she enjoys working near the art exhibit, which draws interesting people into the library and has a lot more variety this year.
“It kind of livens up the room a little bit for about a month,” she said.
The exhibit includes a small, whimsical watercolor featuring two adults drawn in silhouette and carrying a red pail on the beach with silhouettes of children on a nearby reef in the ocean water. The piece was done by Kay Morris, wife of John Morris, commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety.
“DaVinci,” by Daniel Paulding of Parsonsfield, is a classical still life done in oil and featuring a bottle of Da Vinci wine, green apples, grapes and a plate standing upright with exquisite blue lines marking its surface. “School Recital,” by Kevin Mizner, is a realistic piece done in oil and uses plays of light in its depiction of students and their teacher in an old Maine classroom with a wood stove and desks.
Wellington artist Bernie Beckman’s watercolor, “Madison Avenue, Skowhegan,” uses bold yellows, greens and blues to highlight the avenue from the vantage point of a driver sitting inside his vehicle. The steering wheel and console meet the viewer’s eye front and center.
Berlinger, the Belgrade Lakes artist, strolled through the exhibit Sunday taking in each piece and scrutinizing the workmanship.
“It’s a real good cross-section of talent,” he said.
Berlinger, describing himself as a “totally unknown” sculptor, works mostly in carbon steel, he said.
“I also do wood and whatever I can find — whatever appeals to me — and if I can see a pleasing assembly, that’s what I’ll use.”
He sculpted one work from a piece of square tubing that he turned into a totem pole. He created an owl, beaver and other animals, using tines from a rake to use as their claws.
“It’s very satisfying to be able to make that image in my mind into a reality,” he said of his works.
Berlinger exhibited his works for a while, but now his gallery is his front lawn.
“It’s more of a hobby,” he said. “I got into it and I got out of it. To produce pieces for a show, they typically need to be less than two years old, and I often don’t have pieces that are that young. I got into it late — at 35 or 40. It was a thing where I didn’t know that I could do it.”
A fitter for Cives Steel in Augusta, Berlinger recalled meeting Roger Majorowicz, the artist who created “Ticonic,” a sculpture on The Concourse. Majorowicz died in 2014. Berlinger visited Majorowicz’s studio in Whitefield a few years ago and found him and his work fascinating.
“The first thing he told me was ‘Nobody can make a living doing art,'” Berlinger recalled.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.