Creative Deposits
We’re back from a beautiful September week on Mt. Desert Island. It’s hard to beat the natural beauty of Acadia, especially surrounded by the light that defines the cusp of autumn in Maine. It wasn’t a vacation designed as an art trip per se, but doesn’t every journey become an art trip in one way or another?
Bar Harbor ©2026 Elizabeth Fram, Acrylic wash with Neocolor, 5.5 × 7 in.
One can’t help but soak up every drop of the sights and sounds, the colors and the textures of MDI. Every detail is money in the creative bank, ready and waiting for future withdrawals.
For instance:
The variety of greens in the trees, moss and lichen
Glorious blue skies with billowing clouds weighed down by their deep lavender undersides
A collar of rocks hugging the shoreline, fringed with lace-like rock weed
Chenille-soft inland grasses, offset by flaming leaves and the staccato march of a distant stand of birches
The view from atop Cadillac Mountain, looking down on the aptly named Porcupine Islands as they seemingly waddle across Frenchman Bay
An iconic pink granite trail with footholds placed so thoughtfully that they feel as though they occurred naturally
And finally, there is always room for humor… doesn’t the mossy base of this tree look like a giant chicken’s foot?
There was very little time for making art in the moment, but all is never lost. Inspiration can’t help but resurface in one form or another at some later time, if not right away.
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We got a bit of a two-fer with a spur of the moment detour to the Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor. The mission of this tidy little museum is to foster artistic creativity and engagement with the natural world on MDI, while honoring the legacy of noted local bird carver, Wendell Gilley. Coincidentally, during our visit there was a class underway for bird-carving students who were learning to paint their creations.
Demons of Boat Building, © Siri Beckman, Wood Engraving Please forgive the reflections of my shirt in the glass.
It was an unexpected delight to discover the wood engravings and woodcuts of Siri Beckman in a temporary exhibit alongside the permanent collection of Gilley’s carvings. Most of Beckman’s prints were quite modest in size, but the variety and scope of her marks draws the viewer into a textural wonderland of minute and exquisite detail which is remarkably evocative of weather, season and place.
The Crossing © Siri Beckman, Wood Engraving
By the way, I wasn’t familiar with the difference is between a woodcut and a wood engraving. You may be interested to learn as well — “The difference between the two techniques is the type of wood used and the tools. Wood engraving is done on the endgrain of hard woods like boxwood, maple and some fruit woods (cherry or pear). Density (due to slow growth) makes a wood suitable for engraving and makes it possible to cut fine detail. Cutting on the ingrain allows a fluidity not present in woodcut which is done on the plank side of the wood with wood gouges.”
