BRIDGTON — Gallery 302 welcomes milliner Nancy Corcoran-Murphy to its cooperative gallery at 112 Main St.

The Bridgton Collection is inspired by the women in her family, rooting back to the early 1900s when her grandmother and sister attended Bridgton Academy. Her family summered in Waterford, at their camp on Bear Pond for many years, according to a news release from the gallery.

Corcoran-Murphy and her husband recently found their way back to Bridgton and bought a home. She has always been a lover of hats and other ornaments worn in one’s hair. During her online detective work to locate a lost hat, she discovered a woman in Wilmington, North Carolina, who taught millinery lessons. And that was the beginning of her training.

She knew that millinery was much more prevalent in Europe and Australia, but in the U.S. women and hats had become a fashion of the past. She worked with her new friend for several months and learned vital lessons in hat-making. Since then, she has studied millinery at the School of Fashion Design in Boston, gone to workshops in England, sponsored a milliner from Australia at her home, and spent time in Paris and the South of France working with trained professionals in the art of Millinery.

Corcoran-Murphy is trained to work with most anything that can be shaped into a headpiece.

For The Bridgton Collection she decided on a fun, wool-felted project that could be worn après-ski or simply to keep warm when out and about.

For more information, call 207-647-2787 or visit gallery302.com.