Emerging artists to be showcased at Hawthorne House Art Show and Sale

A very special showcase of local artists and artisans is coming to one of southern Maine’s most beloved and cherished venues, the newly refurbished Hawthorne House, located at 40 Hawthorne Road in Raymond.

Local artists will be featured at an Art Show and Sale next
weekend at the Hawthorne House, 40 Hawthorne Road in
Raymond. SUBMITTED PHOTO

The show will begin with an Opening Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday Aug. 2, which will offer a chance to meet the artists whose work will be displayed at the event. Thereafter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Boyhood Home will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 3 and Aug. 4, with all art available for viewing and sale.

The three-day event is free with donations accepted for the continuing maintenance of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Boyhood Home gratefully accepted.

“We’re excited to have the opportunity to open up the newly restored Hawthorne House and give local, emerging artists an opportunity to show and sell their work there,” said Sylvia Sullivan, a long-time member of the Hawthorne Community Association who is coordinating the event. “We’re especially pleased to be showcasing such a wide range of local artistic talent, including painters, photographers, sculptors, and more.”

Among the artists showing their work at the event will be Diane Dunton (landscape painting); Kathleen Gerdes (nature watercolors); Kalee Charette (landscapes and creatures in pen-and-ink); Cole Phillips (wet-plate photography); Bruce Small (landscape and wildlife photography); Elizabeth Lachance (paper-mache sculptures); Trish Kohler (bird watercolors); Cathy Dodge (acrylics, watercolors, and mixed media); Steve Hobson (photography); Kelly Zinckgraf (showing her late father’s work); Mel Mowry (landscape watercolors); and Linda Kranich (pastels).

A portion of some of the artists’ sales will be donated for the preservation of the boyhood home of this great American author.

The Hawthorne House is the boyhood home in Raymond of the legendary author of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables and has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1969.

Author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, a descendant of William Hathorne, a Puritan who emigrated with his family from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hawthorne’s grandfather John Hathorne was a judge who presided over some of the Salem Witch Trials.

Hawthorne’s mother was widowed when he was age 4 and after living for 10 years with relatives in Salem, the family moved to a home near Sebago Lake in Raymond built for them by Hawthorne’s uncles Richard and Robert Manning in 1816. He lived there with his family for three years until being sent to boarding school in 1819, but later in life, said Hawthorne was quoted as saying that the time he spent at his home in Raymond was the happiest period of his entire life.

For more information about the upcoming Art Show and Sale, please contact Sylvia Sullivan at rsssm@maine.rr.com or 207-239-6010. <