Bruce McMillan – “Casco”
Jackie C. Walsh – “Dreamin”
There is no doubt these are trying times we live in from the political to the envronmental. How do we find hope in an uncertain time?
Twenty Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA) artists have created work that speaks to that topic that begins on Saturday, May 2nd and runs through May 29th at the Oak Street Lofts Gallery, 72 Oak Street, Portland. An artists reception is set for First Friday, May 1, 2026 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Gallery hours are 1 to 5 pm Saturdays and Sundays. Noted Maine artist Jane Dahmen was the juror for this show.
The artists have responded dynamically in charcoal, acryic and oil paints as well as photography, collage, sculpture and assemblage. All of the work in the show is either 8 x 8″ or smaller. These works celebrate the promise of new thoughts and dreams which agree with the poet Emily Dickinson that “Hope is a strange invention — a Patent of the Heart — in unremitting action — yet never wearing out –.”
Featured artists are Andre Benoit, Anne Fischer, Audrey Parker, Ave Meinick, Bradford Fuller, Bruce McMillan, Cheryl Cayer, Daryne Rockett, Gregg Harper, Jackie C. Walsh, Jim Kelly, Kethry Shagas, Kimberley Harding, Lisa Mossel, Kiz Kalloch, Mary Brooking, Norma Johnson, Robert Lockwood, Timothy Crawford Wilson and Wimberley Burton.
“It was a privilege to jury this show,” said Dahmen, “Hope is symbolic of new beginnings, as is spring in our part of the world. Perhaps the works in this show wil inspire viewers to animate new growth and embolden their respondes to whatever challenges they are facing. The best art fuels hearfelt sentiments and sometimes opens new pathways to understanding.”
The Union of Maine Visual Artists is a nonprofit organization and vital artist network of over 400 Maine artists and art lovers. Founded in 1975, the UMVA remains a statewide connector of Artists, Collectors and Art Lovers, fostering camaraderie and connection in interconnected, mutualy supportive, ever-growing state-wide community of visual artists and informed public that treasures and supports the arts and artists. To further enhance Maine Arts and Artists, UMVA publishes the Maine Arts Journal – a quarterly online Arts magazie, Maine Masters film series of artist profiles, often seen on PBS Television.
Dahmen, who moved to Maine in 2004, is a contemporary realist whose recent landscapes explore the trees, fields, rivers, streams and coastal regions of midcoast Maine. Dahmen’s work has been shown in solo and group shows both in the US and abroad. Dhamen was Maine Audubon’s signature artist in 2005, and was a featured artist in the September, 2009 issue of Maine Home + Design magazine and their Artists’ issue of 2011 and 2012. She was featured in the September 2014 issue of Old Port magazine. One of her paintings hung in the White House in Washington, DC in the 1980’s – 1990’s and several of her paintings were part of a show at the US Embassy in Bosnia Herzegovia in 2002. Graphique de France sold posters of her work all over the world during the 1990s and early 2000s.