Homes
Influenced by Nature
Charles Eliot was a noted landscape architect who helped create the land trust model that led to the formation of Acadia National Park. Sailing vacations to Maine with his family when he was young helped inspire his later work.
Joel Babb's Real World
Painter Joel Babb is a consummate realist. His landscapes of Boston, sometimes based on photographs and sketches made from the air or tall buildings, are considered among the finest achievements of their kind. In recent years, he has turned this same attention to detail onto natural settings in Maine.
Home as a Tent
Moss Tents was formed by Bill Moss to manufacture and market his designs for the high-end camping and residential canopy markets. But there is much more to the story. He was an artist whose creations revolutionized fabric architecture.
The Shakers
The 2014-2015 Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland’s exhibit “The Shakers: From Mount Lebanon to the World,” featured works from the Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon, the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, and several major museums. Some 200 objects were on display, including the minimalist furniture, boxes, and other household items for which the Shakers are renowned.
Make Way for Quail
Wendy Rackliff plays a role in the preservation of rare heritage breeds of poultry with her island-based business, Coastal Creek Enterprises. She ships quail eggs to breeders all over the country.
In the Garden
With blooms on stalks that can grow up to six feet tall, mullein can be an attractive plant for a cultivated garden. It also has a number of medicinal uses. For example, its broad, fuzzy leaves can be dried and used in teas to relieve congestion.
I Should Have Named Her Serendipity
Who doesn’t want an exact model of their boat? A besotted Concordia owner describes how he was able to track down a miniature replica of his yawl, built by one of the country’s finest model makers, Rob Eddy.
At Home in Port
In addition to building fine boats, three Maine boatbuilders have separately branched out into home construction—waterborne homes, that is. Foy Brown on North Haven, Steve White of Brooklin Boat Yard, and Robinhood Marine’s Andy Vavolotis all built themselves houseboats.
Ode to the Stones
Maine, with its vast fields of subterranean rubble left by retreating glaciers, has some of the most wonderful rock gardens to be found anywhere, and some of the most creative gardeners. Rock gardeners utilize every crack, fissure, crevice, and pothole to their advantage.
Lettercutters
As letter carvers, the bulk of the work of the father-daughter team of Douglas M. Coffin Lettercutter is creating headstones—beautiful, hand-carved life markers with letters that flow into each other, creating words that call out to be read. They consider their work to be among the most caring of human endeavors.
