192 Main Street
in the Maine Grind Building
Ellsworth, ME 04605
207.667.1968
Open Daily, 10-5

Ellsworth American
Thursday, 3/30

Sorrento silversmith Dede Schmitt heard about some California artists who jointly rented a gallery. They divvied up the cost and time involved in running the place. When an airy space opened up at Ellsworth’s Maine Grind, she put the word out and found six other like-minded professional artists eager to pool their talents and resources. Calling themselves SevenArts, Schmitt, her artist husband Marko, Ellsworth recycling artist Julia Ventresco, Northeast Harbor fiber artist Julie Havener, Ellsworth glass artist Linda Perrin, Franklin ceramist Kim Walker and Ellsworth wood artist Michael Miller invite the public to join them at a reception celebrating their new initiative from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, March 22. SevenArts plan to feature visiting artisans on a monthly basis. For more information, call Julia Ventresco at 667-4472 (julia@onewomanstudio.com)
or Dede Schmitt at 664-9146/dede@sorrentosilver.com.

Magnificent 7
Fortified by a shared vision - and the sheer strength of numbers - a cadre of artists launches a new  arts destination in Ellsworth

By Emily Burnham
OF THE NEWS STAFF

Source:  Bangor Daily News
Saturday,March 29, 2008
Edition: all, Section: c, Page 7

7 colors in the rainbow.  Seven wonders of the ancient world.  Seven samurai,  seven dwarfs, and  seven days of the week. Good things come in sevens. So when the SevenArts Local Artisan Gallery opened last weekend in the old Masonic Hall on Main Street in downtown Ellsworth, it made sense, numerologically and businesswise.

SevenArts is run by seven Down East artists and artisans who banded together to both sell their works and help build the creative community in Ellsworth, with its burgeoning art scene. Two heads are better than one - and  seven is even better.

Dede Schmitt, Marko Schmitt, Julia Ventresco, Julie Havener, Michael Miller, Kim Walker, and Linda and Ken Perrin all share a similar outlook on art, though the mediums in which they work are all different. Dede Schmitt, a jeweler and metalsmith, and Marko Schmitt, a painter, got the idea for SevenArts after a trip to California last year.

"We visited Gallery  Seven, a space run by the artist John Eagle in Laguna Beach," said Dede Schmitt, who makes bold, earthy, silver-and-stone jewelry.
"It's run by  seven artists who banded together to run a space. It's a great business model for artists, especially if you don't want to run a shop full time. None of us did. But we figured, if we got  seven artists together and each worked one day, and divided up the expenses, it could work really well."

Ads were placed in local newspapers, looking for five more artists and artisans who could commit to sharing the cost and working one day a week.
Early signers-on included Julia Ventresco, an Ellsworth artist known for her one-of-a-kind bags and funky aprons made from recycled paper and fabrics, and Julia Havener, a fiber artist from Northeast Harbor who hand-makes unbelievably soft wool into hats, and fine and vintage fabrics into bags and clothing.

"We shook out a group of people who are like-minded. We all get along really well and share similar visions," said Marko Schmitt, a painter and sculptor whose warmly impressionistic landscapes and still lifes are on sale at the gallery. "And to be able to speak intelligently about each other's work is a big thing. We didn't want to have too many people, or else we wouldn't be so informed about what we all do individually."

Tile-maker Kim Walker of Franklin-based Heirloom Tileworks, glassmakers Linda and Ken Perrin of Atlantic Art Glass in Ellsworth, and woodworker Michael Miller, also of Ellsworth, came on board a short time later. The group had found a perfect location - the Masonic Hall on Main Street.

The Masonic Hall, over the past few years, has become a hub of downtown commerce and movement, with Leslie Harlow and Peter Rogers' opening The Maine Grind coffee shop in mid-2006, and other businesses moving in soon after. The building is now home to The Maine Grind, the It's a Maine Thing gift shop, the Jazzercise studio, and music promoter Joel Raymond's soon-to-be-open Shangri-La performance venue on the second floor.

"There's such a cool energy in this building," said Dede Schmitt. "I think it has something to do with the caffeine."

"Ellsworth is a natural place for people to gather, as the county seat. And a coffee shop is such a classic place for people to be, that to enliven it with the art shop seemed like a really good fit," said Linda Perrin, who, with Ken, runs a studio space on Pine Street, where they make their vibrant art glass. "There seemed like there was already a momentum for it being there, and for people being creative and connecting in one space."

Though it's not the first time a group of Maine artists have opened a space together, SevenArts is unique in that it will be open year-round, and will feature a new artist every month, to give more creative local people a platform in which to display their work and gain notice.

The first featured artist has not yet been announced, but plans are in the works to begin hosting one in the late spring.

The new space has also already inspired some collaboration between the seven artists. Marko Schmitt and Michael Miller are working on a series of lampshades, which Miller will carve in the traditional Japanese style he has studied for years, and Schmitt will paint on fine paper using sumi brushes.

The addition of places like SevenArts, Shangri-La, the Courthouse Gallery and many more businesses and organizations only add to the economic and artistic vitality that's creeping into Ellsworth. Might it be that it's becoming the new  arts destination town for eastern Maine?

"We're just waiting to see what happens," said Marko Schmitt. "It's so much fun to be a part of a new community, and to watch it grow."

SevenArts Local Artisans Gallery is located at 192 Main St. in downtown Ellsworth. For more, call 667-4472, or visit www.sevenartsandcrafts.com.
Emily Burnham may be reached at eburnham@bangordailynews.net.

Creative Scene Evolving in Ellsworth
By Jennifer Osborn
Ellsworth is evolving from a hub to stock up on groceries and buy gas to a happening place to visit and buy art.

Key to that evolution have been two businesses, which opened downtown two years ago. Karin Wilkes opened the Courthouse Gallery. Leslie Harlow and Myles P. Rogers opened The Maine Grind.
The Courthouse Gallery is one of the largest art galleries in Maine at 3,500 square feet and is located at 6 Court St. at the triangle of Bucksport Road (Route 1) and the Surry Road (Route 172). Ellsworth’s central location has been a major factor in the gallery’s success.

“The artists will get more exposure at our gallery because we’re going to draw from all five regions,” said Wilkes. “Ellsworth is strategically positioned for that.”

Wilkes explained that until now, artists in Northeast Harbor might get seen by Mount Desert Island visitors and likewise for artists at Deer Isle galleries or at Schoodic Peninsula galleries.
“You’d have little pockets all over,” said Wilkes. The Courthouse Gallery is a 30-minute drive from several downeast regions and “we have a huge variety of work.”

A change in the demographic of summer visitors contributes too. Twenty years ago, Wilkes says two- to three-night stays by tourists was more common. Today, there are more summer residents, she said. “There’s a different market, I think.”

The Maine Grind, at 192 Main St., is a four-story building bustling with energy — both of the caffeinated and artistic variety. There is the coffee house on the main floor, full of leather club chairs and sofas for dawdling over coffee and pastries. The building is wi-fi accessible and has a magazine and newspaper stand. A performing arts center — Shangri-La — opened this spring in the top floor of the Grind.
Concert promoter Joel Raymond opened Shangri-La to feature concerts, movies and theater.

A Sorrento silversmith opened a gallery at the Grind called SevenArtists in January. Dede Schmitt, founded SevenArts as “an exciting, supportive way for Hancock County artisans to sell and show their own work in an affordable, cooperative, retail setting.” SevenArts showcases the work of seven local artisans and artists besides Schmitt, including fiber artist Julie Havener, Julia Ventresco, an artistic recycling artist; Michael Miller, who creates woodwork and shoji screens; glass artist Linda Perrin, whose Atlantic Artglass Studio is just a couple blocks away at 25 Pine St.; Kim Walker, a tiles and ceramics artist; and oil painter Marko Schmitt, who also creates small sculptures.

Bruce Brown, the former curator for the Maine Center of Contemporary Art, is curating a show at the Courthouse Gallery, which opens June 29 and runs through the month of July. “Betwixt and Between: Color Line and Texture will debut 30 previously unseen artists,” Wilkes said.
“That’s important, I think, that he’s coming to Ellsworth to curate a show,” said Wilkes. “Until we were here I don’t think that’s something that would have happened. We’re just getting started, we’ve only been open a year and a half.”

“Even if you’re not a buying customer, there’s an opportunity to see museum quality artwork in Ellsworth,” said Wilkes.
Before the July show, the Courthouse Gallery will have a show opening May 22 titled “Maine Flora: A Celebration.” This show features 30 artists.