Working Waterfront

Pretty wood, pretty tones— Peter Gallant builds violins with unusual woods

WOOLWICH – Peter Gallant didn’t grow up in a musical household in Lawrence, Mass., but the electrical designer remembers going into music stores and staring at the stringed instruments. There was a variety in how guitars looked, he noticed, but the violins all looked the same. Today, Gallant, 57, is… SEE MORE

This untitled photograph by Kosti Ruohomaa shows Andrew Wyeth and Alvaro Olson at a hayrack.

Working Waterfront

Andy and Kosti meet again

By Carl Little The Andy in the title of the exhibition "Andy and Kosti" at the Farnsworth Art Museum (through Nov. 1) is Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), one of America's foremost realist painters who found his muse along Maine's Midcoast. Kosti is Kosti Ruohomaa (1913-1961), the photojournalist who gained renown… SEE MORE

A barber trims hair aboard a vessel out of Thomaston

Working Waterfront

Statewide photo album includes Swan’s Island, Monhegan

By Laurie Schreiber On Swan's Island, Mary L. (Mamie) Torrey was an inquisitive and determined soul. Born in 1876, her mother died when she was 9. Unable to attend more than three years of school, she was homeschooled by her father, a mariner who lost a leg in an accident… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The faces of My Island tell their stories

Patrisha McLean's My Island is a celebration of summer and year-round Maine island children, with more than 100 duotone portraits. The 160-page book—five years and countless ferry rides in the making, she says—is distributed by Islandport Press and is a follow-up to Maine Street, the award-winning 2010 book celebrating the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Colors from the sea enliven ‘artifact art’

Nine years ago, a man who had no background or any interest in creating art became an artist. Not instantaneously, of course. Swimming along the bottom of Wiscasset harbor, 30 feet under water, bottle hunter Rick Carney, his Kevlar gloves digging in the muck, was hit with an idea that… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Re-inventing the world, one island at a time

The Innovators How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution By Walter Isaacson New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014 I lived through the digital revolution—or thought I had until I read this book. Being a child of the 1950s and '60s, I had assumed that computers,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

No need for selfies: Photographer captures islanders in ‘We Are Swan’s Island’ project

SWAN'S ISLAND — Whether it's a wedding, reunion or holiday celebration, photographers often struggle to get all the key family members in their shots. Imagine how hard it was for Miranda Battiste to capture the family that is the island's year-round population. By most measures, Batiste succeeded. Not only are… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island life seeps into Judy Weber’s poems

MONHEGAN PLANTATION — It's a cliché fantasy we've all heard, maybe even indulged in ourselves—move to an island year-round, soak up the rhythm of the seasons, the quiet, the isolation, and write the great American novel. Judy Weber—who writes under the name Judith Ponturo, her maiden name—moved to Monhegan year-round… SEE MORE