Studio Audience Downtown artists open their door to reveal Bangor’s hidden art scene

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Kristborg Whitney sits in her bright sixth-floor studio overlooking downtown Bangor. Behind her, small tubes of acrylic paint, arranged by color, fill shelf after shelf. Vibrant, geometric wall hangings jump off the white walls and doors, while more subtle floor cloths are draped on dowels. Nine small canvases, depicting the folklore of her native Iceland, greet visitors by the door.

“Probably the roots for most of my work come from Iceland,” she said. “I know that’s not what Maine people want to hear, but you paint what you know. Most of my ideas come from the landscape – the weather, the cold.”

Whitney, who was born and raised in Iceland and spent time in Norway, loves the cold. But she and her husband, a naval officer, ended up settling in Virginia Beach, Va. When he retired in 1987, he promised Whitney they could move wherever she wanted.

“We’ve been here since,” she said.

In Bangor, Whitney has found not only the cool weather she craved, but also a creative climate that has fostered her love for painting. This weekend she will be among the 16 downtown artists participating in the fourth annual Open Studio Tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

The opening reception for the second annual Historic Downtown Photo Show will kick off the day at 10 a.m. in the foyer of City Hall. There will be a prize presentation and gallery talk by jurors Bob DeLong, Alan Stubbs and Bill Kuykendall, all local photographers.

“The photo contest seemed to be a natural add-on because it draws attention to the architecture downtown and attention to downtown period, which is the overall goal,” said Linda Packard, president of the nonprofit Bangor Center Corp,, or BCC.

BCC is dedicated to promoting the downtown area, fostering business growth and encouraging residential development. One way to do all three is to invest in the cultural offerings within the city, of which artists are an integral part.

“When the open studio tour first started, BCC had established that one of the goals was to help establish the downtown area as the arts and cultural center of the city, if not the region,” Packard said. “We knew there were a lot of artists working downtown and wanted to make the public aware of all the creative energy that was happening.”

There are artists’ studios above many downtown businesses, but you have to get beyond the first floor to see them. Once you walk upstairs, there’s a whole other world. The scent of linseed oil fills the air.

At Nina Jerome’s State Street studio, dozens of postcards of other artists’ work decorate the doorway. At Brad Finch’s studio, a few floors up, bright yellow paper – with Xeroxed images of angels and eyeballs – covers the windowed entrance.

“One of the things that happens when you get onto these upper floors is the whole view of downtown opens up,” Packard said.

Looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at Sarah’s Books, a sweeping second-floor space on Central Street, is like looking into the fishbowl that is downtown.

But the real excitement lies in a tiny, tidy studio tucked away in the back.

There, owner Sarah Faragher creates small oil landscapes and watercolor sketches inspired by the coast. This will be Faragher’s second year on the open studio tour.

She loves the fact that the tour gives people something to do in November, before the rush of the holidays. It’s a reason to come downtown, even if the weather is a little chilly, and it usually draws a creative crowd.

“The best part is having so many people come by who are excited about art,” she said. “Most of the people who come are either artists or teachers or involved in the arts in some way, and it seems like it’s a pretty vibrant community.”

Studio tour tickets cost $7 per person and are available at BookMarc’s bookstore, The Hop, and Lippincott Books, all in downtown Bangor. For information, call Linda Packard at 990-2774.

Participating artists

Theo Appel

Sally Lesko Bates

Deborah Rustin Cyr

Kristen Eckmann

Sarah Faragher

Brad Finch

Peggy Hanson

Ed Healy

Nina Jerome

John Kossowan

Nancy Leavitt

LeeAnne Mallonee

Edwin Martin

Jan Owen

Aquelidio Rodrigues

Kristborg Whitney

Photo contest entrants

Jeff Galvin

Buffy Parker

Spiros Polemis

Diana Porter

Mike Pullen

Kenton Williams