She’s making a list, checking it twice. And it would seem Collette King has been awfully nice.

Santa and Mrs. Claus – played, in this instance, by Gov. John Baldacci and his wife, Karen – have come to town early this year for King. The Stetson-based artist has long dreamed of having her work appear on the Blaine House holiday card, and the Baldaccis have made that dream a reality.

“I just loved it,” Karen Baldacci said of King’s snowy portrayal of the governor’s residence in Augusta. “It’s a beautiful scene. It’s in keeping with the Blaine House [tradition].”

King is a self-taught artist whose detailed paintings have a warm, folk-art feel. She’s well-known in the Queen City for her “collages” of historically significant buildings – one of which hangs in the governor’s office, a gift from the first lady. When Karen Baldacci saw King’s Blaine House painting, which features the front entrance of the home, lights aglow on a snowy day, she knew it was the right choice.

“It has probably more meaning for us because of the Bangor connection,” Karen Baldacci said. “She really captured the essence of the Blaine House for us, and it’s a great way to honor the work she’s done.”

It is customary for Maine’s first families to design and send a holiday card that reflects their personal taste. On average, between 1,000 and 2,000 people receive the cards, including every state’s governor, members of the Legislature, the president and vice president of the United States and heads of state from countries the governor has visited on trade missions. Karen Baldacci stressed that these cards are printed and mailed at private – not taxpayer – expense. This is the fourth time the Baldaccis have chosen a Maine artist’s work.

King couldn’t be happier that her painting made the cut.

“I like to do winter scenes,” King said recently at the converted pony barn on her property that serves as her studio. “It’s more romantic; it has a softer look.”

Though King submitted her Blaine House painting on speculation, she is no stranger to commissions. In her Stetson home, she paints homes, historic buildings and local landmarks in her signature, detailed style. For the last three years, her work has been chosen for the city of Bangor holiday card. The 2007 version features a skating scene with the Morse covered bridge, which once crossed the Kenduskeag Stream, in the foreground.

In her spare time, King works at the Bangor gift shop Rebecca’s, and the painting was inspired by her co-worker’s stories of ice skating near the bridge.

“I was painting it through her memories,” King, 48, said. “I’ve heard such great stories – people have told me, ‘I had my first kiss on that bridge.'”

Stories and scenes like these imbue King’s work with a sense of nostalgia, a yearning for days gone by, that is not unlike Norman Rockwell’s paintings. In Eastern Maine, King’s work has become iconic in its own right. Her painting of West Market Square, “Downtown Memories,” appears on cards and framed prints throughout the region, and there’s a reason why the city of Bangor has chosen a King painting for its holiday card for three consecutive years.

“We like her work because she usually does a Bangor-related scene and it’s always appropriate for this season,” said Jane Robbins-Teel, the administrative assistant to the city manager, who is in charge of picking out the design. “We do like to support local artists.”

For years, King did original paintings for the popular Fernwood of Maine line – collectible wood blocks printed with scenes of local businesses, churches, schools and landmarks. In her rendition of The Coffee Pot, the Bangor sandwich shop, you can see the owner, Skip, through the store window. When he asked her why she bothered to include him, she answered, “It wouldn’t be the Coffee Pot without you there.”

As much as King loves the people and places she paints, her true inspiration lies in the process itself. She works every single day – her larger pieces take hundreds of hours to complete – and she often stays up until the wee hours, paintbrush in hand, working until she can no longer see straight.

“I just love detail,” King said. “I’ll work on something hours longer than I need to, but people know me for that.”

King has been painting as long as she can remember. As a girl in Bangor, her nickname was “the artist.” Though her work is collected by several high-profile Mainers, she points to a framed certificate on the wall over her matting and framing table as her greatest achievement. It is an award from Ronald Sands, her art teacher at Fifth Street Middle School – the first such honor the school ever gave.

“That means more than anything to me,” she said.

As a young mother, King’s talent for art allowed her to work and still be home when her daughter, Angela, came home from school. When she and her husband divorced, she tried a “normal job,” but she felt like a fish out of water. Fortunately, she had built up a reputation and a clientele, and she hoped she’d be able to make a living primarily as an artist.

“I pretty much work every day, every night, every weekend,” she said. “I would rather work all the time than not be able to do it.”

These days, she works a few days a week at Rebecca’s, and she also does matting and framing to supplement her income, but she is – and always will be – an artist at heart.

“As long as my hands and my eyes hold up, although it probably doesn’t matter about the hands because I’d paint with my teeth if I had to, I’m so lucky,” King said, smiling and looking out the window of her studio to the snow-covered field beyond. “I can paint until the day I die. Look at Grandma Moses.”

Collette King’s work is on view at Rebecca’s, Patrick’s Hallmark and My Maine Bag in Bangor.

kandresen@bangordailynews.net

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It’s in the cards

Maine’s governors and their families historically select holiday card designs that fit their taste. The Baldaccis have chosen to feature original works by Maine artists, with one exception. Here are the designs of the five cards they’ve sent since Gov. John Baldacci took office.

. 2003: When Baldacci first took office, the family adapted a rendering of the Blaine House originally sent by Gov. Lewis O. Barrows, who served from 1937 to 1941.

. 2004: Ken Kantro of Lovell Designs incorporated the pine cone and tassel, an image taken from the silver service aboard the USS Maine when it sank in Havana Harbor in 1898.

. 2005: Karen Baldacci commissioned this springtime scene of the Blaine House by Paul Plumer of Hallowell.

. 2006: This year, the Baldaccis issued a challenge to Maine College of Art students to design a holiday card that was modern and whimsical. This computer-generated image by Sarah Lomba of Bath fit the bill.

. 2007: Collette King, a Bangor native who lives in Stetson, gave the original Blaine House painting to the governor as a gift. She also has painted the State House, and hopes to capture a different view of the Blaine House in the summer.

Source: www.maine.gov/firstlady/firstfamily/holidaycards.html