Stop by the Southwest Harbor Public Library during February to view a joint exhibit of Paintings & Textures that will include fiber sculpture, weaving, mixed media and paper assemblages by Kate Russell Henry and landscape paintings and quilts by Tom Lee. Meet the artists at a reception on Sat. Feb 11 from 2-4 p.m. View the exhibit during library hours: Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9-5; Wed 9-8; Sat 9-1. 

Kate Russell Henry springs from a midwestern Iowan town having grown up in the fifties in an architect built house and born respecting all that was handmade. At the age of 13, her first real art class was watercolor painting, where her biggest memory was using a corn cob as a brush. Many hot summer afternoons were spent embroidering her newly made shift in her nana’s parlor or carving a staff to discover fields of wild grasses in her moccasins. After surviving the political turmoil of the 60’s and 70’s, Kate navigated through a women's college, an arts school, and a university to get her degree in the Arts which read ‘ceramics’ yet her path was fiber due to her last required course…’weaving’. 

“I wandered and investigated these beautiful United States, bringing me to coastal Maine in 1972 where my love of fiber grew through natural dyeing, spinning and weaving. Slowly and spontaneously new work emerged…with a hook or a frame loom taking a sculptural form. My art school designing and love of collecting paper found another venue…assemblages. And putting it all together, a mixed media result has combined fiber, paper, and other found materials using many tools and processes.”

Tom Lee is a retired New York City elementary school teacher. He is a graduate of Kean University in Union, NJ and the Bank Street College of Education, NY. For 20 years he taught first - third grades, as well as adjunct Art/Social Studies classes at Bank Street College. A long time MDI summer visitor Tom now calls Bass Harbor home. For many summers on MDI he worked as an art and writing teacher at The Summer Festival of the Arts. During these summers he would also sketch and paint the classic sights on MDI while hiking, biking and kayaking. Upon returning to New York at summer’s end he would build on his ‘plein-air’ sketches and photographs to create the pastel, wax and oil paintings on display. These paintings begin as a pastel sketch with oil paint-tinted wax that is softened
with heat and uses primarily a palette knife to apply multiple layers to paper or other painting substrates. Tom states: “In my paintings I strive to create an atmospheric, minimalist sense of the landscape.

“I hope that the work conveys the calm and meditative sense that I feel when I am sketching outside or working on them in my studio.”

Tom is now able to continue this work from his big, sunny home studio with great views of woods and wildlife. Also included in this exhibit are a few of his long, horizontal watercolor views of the MDI landscape.

Tom is a member of “Island Quilters” a chapter of Maine’s Pine Tree Quilters Guild. His “Birch Bark” quilt is also included here in the front room of our library. Since retiring Tom also volunteers at the Southwest Public Library with the children’s librarian.

For questions or for more information call the Library at 207-244-7065, or email exhibits@swhplibrary.org.