Talent: This new department will introduce you to some of our best local artists and craftspeople

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A Note from the Editor-in-Chief
Welcome to a new department at ACCENT featuring the region’s most valuable natural resource: our local artists and craftsmen. According to Rebecca Lawrence, director of the the NH State Council on the Arts, “More and more political leaders are recognizing what has been apparent to the arts community for decades. When artists congregate in a community, economic prosperity for that community follows. Artists bring creativity and vibrancy to downtowns and village greens.… The result: communities where people want to live, play and work.”  

Each issue we will introduce you to a fresh array of people from various disciplines. We hope you will join us in supporting these and others whose creative efforts make the region the vibrant place it is to live.     

Printed cottons; batiks; upholstery fabrics; swatches of organza, silk and metallics fill Drummond’s home studio. Given her preference for small scenes, she tends to buy quarter-yards and bolt ends in diverse array. Commission pieces are particularly satisfying because, Sarah says, “It’s wonderful to work on a piece that depicts a family’s property, perhaps the view from their home. For an heirloom pillow, I can incorporate a piece of treasured fabric, like an old blanket, or a date and photo of someone special to them.”

Sarah Drummond
Kittery Point, Maine
207 439-8357
sgdrummond@hotmail.com

Pricing: 
$160 to $500 for framed collages, 11" x 11" to 16" x 22". $75 to $150 for pillows (3 sizes)
Shown: Wentworth Coolidge Mansion, $400

2007 Shows:
N.W. Barrett Gallery, Portsmouth, NH
Exeter Fine Crafts, Exeter, NH
Kittery Art Association Group Show
League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s Fair, Mt. Sunapee, NH

Tim Beavis paints beaches in the darkest hours of the night. The stillness of his Beach Series reflects a peace he finds at the shore but also the solitude of painting in his studio from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Surprisingly, there are no scenes of his splendid daytime view of Pepperrell Cove and Portsmouth Harbor. But like the forms and colors that infuse his images of sand and vegetation leading to the ocean, the ever-changing coastal light is captured in his work, which leans toward the abstract. Says Beavis, “What you see is my attempt to capture what the seashore means to me.”

With a wallpaper knife, Beavis applies gesso-soaked paper onto wood in a process that makes it archival. When the paper dries, he begins to work graphite into the surface, then varying thicknesses of oil paint, and often more gesso-infused paper, accentuating movement in the painting. Finally, he adds pencil lines, and sometimes metallic paint,
creating beachscapes that evoke the calm found on quiet walks.    

Pricing: 
$400 (8" x 8") to $3,000 (60" x 72")
Shown: bs-443-06, 48" x 60"w, $2,600

Recent exhibits:
Nahcotta Gallery, Portsmouth, NH
The Burlingame Gallery, Exeter, NH
Mack B Gallery, Sarasota, FL
CG Gallery, Ltd., Princeton, NJ

Peter Turner learned to make fine furniture while on the job, asking questions, seeing different ways to approach a single task. “In fine furniture, you can clearly see a reflection of the person in the work they create. My pieces are all my own design but flavored by my past, the antiques I grew up with, the people I learned from.” Over time, he began writing for Woodworking, which led to a faculty post at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, in Rockport, Maine. His work is featured in four books and has been exhibited from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Carlisle, England. Some day, he aims to teach one-on-one in his shop at home. Like his sister, (right) Turner grew up in Kittery Point, Maine.

Turner works primarily on commissions. “The making of a piece is a process. That process is important but designing is the most fun, seeing how shapes relate to one another, especially chairs. Comfort, beauty and strength all need to work together. With commissions, I try to create something I love and that people will enjoy even more than they expected.”  

Peter Turner
South Portland, Maine
207 799-5503
petersturner@hotmail.com
petersturner.com

Pricing: 
$200 (hour glass) to $20,000 (large, intricate hutch)
Shown: White Bench (custom, call for price)

2007 Shows:
Center for Furniture Craftsmen Faculty Show, Rockport, Maine (June 29 – September 6)
Mount Desert Island annual crafts show (Tentative: last weekend in July)

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Wendy Turner’s watercolors are alive with Appledore Island’s clear, sharp light in fall and spring, its hazy light in summer; the splash of ocean, the contours of rocks that characterize Maine’s shoreline so well that those familiar with the southern coast can identify a painting’s precise location. “I grew up in Kittery, on Cutts Island, and I’ve lived here most of my life,” she says. “Somehow that comes through in my paintings.”

Turner’s watercolors and pastels hang in numerous corporate and private collections, including the permanent collection of the Ogunquit Museum of Art. Despite forays to paint in Nova Scotia and midcoast Maine, like her brother, furniture maker Peter Turner, she is happiest working close to home—hers is an alpaca farm or in her boat house studio on Pepperrell Cove where she can devote up to 60 hours to complete a large painting. She recently began working in oil, exploring the effects of weather on trees living close to the water.

Wendy Turner
Kittery Point, Maine
wendyturnerart@comcast.net
wendyturnerart.com

Summer workshops:
sml.cornell.edu/adult_ed/pa-paint.htm  

Pricing:
Watercolors - $3,000 to $24,000 (24" x 30" to 40" x 60") Oils - $600 to $2,400 (9" x 12" to 20" x 24")
Shown: Ocean 1, 32" x 52"w, $8,000

2007 Shows:
Thos. Moser, Freeport, ME and Boston, MA
George Marshall Store Gallery, York, ME
Mary McGown Fine Arts, Concord, NH
Francisca Anderson Fine Arts, Lexington, MA
Kennedy Studios, Portsmouth, NH (prints)