Museum offers ‘Living on the Land’ exhibit

ORONO – A Boston photographer who spent nine years interviewing and photographing Maine women who have created a sense of place, community and commitment living off the land is bringing her exhibit to the University of Maine’s Hudson Museum March 29-May 6.

“Maine Women: Living on the Land” will open with a reception and film presentation by Lauren Shaw, Emerson College associate professor in visual and media arts, at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, in the Bodwell Lounge, Maine Center for the Arts.

The opening will include a book signing. The exhibit is free and features women who harvest blueberries, lobsters, potatoes, medicinal herbs and maple syrup, and raise sheep, goats and beef.

Shaw, who has taught photography at Emerson since 1972 and heads the department, said she undertook the photographic project to present the stories, images and voices of 10 Maine women as a way to “celebrate the relationship between land and home.” She has spent decades telling people’s stories by “mapping” personal territories, backyards and gardens, and augmenting her photography with recorded oral histories, now an interactive DVD.

The photographer chose Maine women who have worked on the land as subjects because of her affinity for the state and desire to illuminate “the tenacity and integrity, not only of these 10 women, but also those individuals who have lived their lives in a similar fashion,” she said.

Shaw has summered in the Belgrade Lakes region for more than 25 years. She developed a network of contacts simply by driving around the state, visiting public places, explaining her project and asking for ideas. The suggestions and subsequent introductions and interviews were many, she said, and she selected 10 for her final presentation.

“I have tried to capture their varied territories with a cartographer’s sensibility,” she said. The exhibit includes black and white portraits of the women and topographic maps of the areas in which they live, along with a DVD that allows viewers to meet her subjects through interviews and photographic images.

“By looking at other people’s landscapes, we can begin to ask questions about where we live and how our space affects us, and consequently those around us,” she said.

The women featured vary in age and have spent most of their lives extracting a living from their land.

“The stories these remarkable women share … have a common thread in their sense of community and legacy of family traditions of work,” Shaw said. “It is my objective to bring to a broader audience these women’s joy and satisfaction that has come from a life lived on and from the land.”

Shaw’s multimedia portraits include:

. Raquel Boehmer of Monhegan Island, who, with her husband, built a home and lived without electricity for many years, grows and prepares whole foods and is the author of “A Foraging Vacation, Edibles from Maine’s Sea and Shore.”

. Sylvia Holbrook of New Vineyard, who has been producing 8,000 pounds of butter a year for more than 60 years, and tends strawberry, potato and vegetable plots.

. Leitha Kelly of Allagash, a hunting and fishing guide who owns Two Rivers Lunch and hosts dog sled races.

. Deb Soule of Rockport, who founded Avena Botanicals herbal apothecary in 1985 and is an herbalist, gardener and crafter.

. Mary Philbrook of Presque Isle, the first female Micmac chief who now is responsible for the return of tribal land taken by the U.S. government.

. State Rep. Jackie Lundeen of Mars Hill, whose family has been harvesting potatoes for three generations and is one of the biggest producers in Maine.

. Gail Edwards of Athens, founder of Blessed Maine Herb Farms, where she grows more than an acre of medicinal herbs, offers apprenticeships and classes, and makes her garden available to the public.

. Jenny Cirone of South Addison, the daughter of a lighthouse keeper and a lobster fisherman for more than 75 years, who also breeds sheep for wool on Nash and Little Nash islands.

. Betty Weir of Cumberland, a diversified organic farmer who owns Pleasant Valley Acres, raises goats, beef and produces maple syrup.

. Carol Varin of Beddington, a blueberry farmer who designs and sells Christmas and decorative wreaths and grows perennial and cut flower bouquets for a farmers market.

Hudson Museum Director Gretchen Faulkner said she was pleased to host Shaw’s traveling exhibit as part of UM’s celebration of Women’s History Month. For information about the exhibit and programming, call 581-1901 or visit www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum.