Super Sunday- Part Two

After the visit to the Gallery in Wiscasset we headed up the coast to find two new (2 years old) wineries in Union, Maine. TWO! This was all the signage for the first, Sweetgrass Winery. They produce fruit wines as well as gin and homemade vanilla. Wish I'd taken a picture of the beautiful copper still from Portugal. No tasting here because we were all tasted out from our first stop here:

Wine from hardy grapes. After tasting wine from 7 different bottles, I was SO HAPPY! It just sneaks up on you, those little tastes of wine. So the sun wasn't out, but it didn't even matter! And because I was so happy and maybe a LITTLE BIT less reserved, I did something I would never do under normal circumstances, but proved to be one of the biggest gifts of the day. We passed a beautiful old center chimney cape I've admired forever, and the shed door was open, (as if saying, please come in...) and in the center of the shed, visible from the road, was a dress form with a beautiful white dress on it. So, of course, I had to stop and intrude on this home. I just walked right up there and the man came out, who it turned out was the seashell artist from Maine, Brian White, and the dress was actually made of seashells. Sound ugly? Like something you might find in a tacky tourist trap? Not even close. No picture of the whole dress, but I did get this picture of one of his new works, a series of lobstermen...shirts.

Copper strips and cut shells, over a wire form. He uses found objects like shells to create ingenious pieces that are stunning in their complexity. Next time you're in Rockland Maine, the main entrance of the Farnsworth Museum has one of his incredible stylized dresses.

No full view, (too much sun), but this is the 'skirt' of the dress. Copper again, with shells. And a close-up.

The center of the flowers are small periwinkle shells cut in half. And that leaf is made of two different colored shells. Brian will be having an exhibit of his work at Ten High Street in Camden, Maine this September for the whole month if you happen to be around.