Ars Longa Vita Brevis

I hope the Summer Solstice has found all readers safe and healthy. I am a little late with the blog this month. It has been a little hectic.

The hurly-burly started In late May when I rented a U-Haul van and packed up 30 watercolors for a June show at the public library in Blue Hill, Maine. This event was the product of a Down East conspiracy hatched by my friend Bob.

Blue Hill lies in a lovely stretch of the Maine coast near Acadia National Park and the Bar Harbor area. Longtime Foreign Service friends Bob and Jane Sargent live in nearby (and eponymous) Sargentville.

Remembering Dinner When Bourguiba Fell

Our connection goes back 35 years, to when the Sargents and the Pearces both happened to be serving at the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia. Bob, a 1958 alumnus of Bowdoin College, was a senior political officer at the embassy. I, 14 years his junior and a member of the Class of 1972, was in Tunisia studying at the Foreign Service Institute's Arabic Field School in preparation for an assignment to Kuwait. Bob reminded me that the Sargents and Pearces were sharing dinner on Nov. 7, 1987 when then-President Habib Bourguiba was overthrown in a bloodless coup. We stayed in touch over the years as we both found our separate ways back to Maine.

Bob first floated the idea of a Blue Hill show with me about a year ago. He cross-fertilized the thought with his friends at the Library, they reached out, and I agreed. I hadn't done a solo show before. The prospect was enticing, but I underestimated the time and effort involved.

Thankfully, though, I had help.

Hanging Hardware, Wall Labels and a Measuring Stick

First, the staff at the Blue Hill library welcomed me for a reconnaissance visit in mid-May, showing me around the space, familiarizing me with their wall-hanging system, and leaving a key for me to get in after-hours for the setup.

Next, my good friends at the Thos. Moser showroom and gallery in Freeport, who have steadfastly supported my work for several years now, not only agreed to release five paintings on display there but also coached me on how to hang both paintings and wall labels. More than that, they printed up the wall labels for me and gave me a long measuring-stick to help with placement!

Bowdoin Beata, our Dear Alma Mater

Additional synergy came from an unexpected quarter, my 50th Reunion at Bowdoin College. This fell just a few days after the opening of the Blue Hill exhibit. In the runup, even as I was pulling the show together, I discovered that my Bowdoin classmate and friend Callie Curtis was on the board of the Blue Hill Public Library. She and her husband Randy, also a 1972 Bowdoin classmate and friend, had moved to Blue Hill from the Washington D.C. area in 2017. From them I discovered still more Bowdoin friends, classmates and connections in nearby Bar Harbor, Hancock Point, and Stockton Springs.

Best of all, both Callie and Randy showed up at the library, on Memorial Day no less, to help me in my after-hours unpacking and hanging of the 30 paintings. This truly cut my work time in half. 

Don't Touch the Brown-Tail Caterpillars!

After the setup and May 31 soft opening, I came back to Blue Hill on June 11 to do a talk and tour of the exhibit, followed by a reception in the garden of the nearby Blue Hill Inn. I was excited because my daughter, an executive at Southern California Edison, had flown in from California to accompany me. About halfway through the two-hour drive to Blue Hill, we exited the Maine Turnpike onto Route 3 and put the top down on my Miata. Quality father-daughter time! There was also a learning moment when we stopped for lunch at Lake St. George only to find brown-tail moth caterpillars all over the lakeside picnic tables. Drawing on the experience of my lost youth, I explained that the hairs on the caterpillars were toxic and not to be touched. In the end we found a table in an open area that seemed free of them. Then on to the Blue Hill Inn.

Family members came up from Portland and my sister-in-law's cousin joined from Prospect Harbor. Callie and Randy rallied Bowdoin friends and alumni, as did Bob and Jane Sargent. The result was a standing-room only talk and tour. I fielded a lot of savvy questions not only about the paintings but also about Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine and other foreign policy matters. The talk then shifted to a garden party reception at the Blue Hill Inn for two more hours.

Exhibit Extended through July 29

Meanwhile, the Library contacted me to ask if I could extend the exhibit from the end of June to the end of July. I agreed, and it will remain in place until July 29.

This was a modest enough show but I learned a lot planning and putting all the moving pieces together. A few paintings and prints sold right away and judging from comments and informal feedback so far, I'm hoping more will follow. One of the best aspects of this solo show was that it proved to be a great occasion to rekindle connections with a good number of valued old friends and meet new ones as well. In addition, on the Maine level at least, I managed a bit of profile-raising. I worked with the Blue Hill Public Library staff to conjure up a fairly detailed press release, and included with it digital images of several paintings. This put this out to their media contacts and resulted in excellent write-ups in two of Maine's premier newspapers, the Ellsworth American and the Bangor Daily News.

All in all, well worth the effort.

***** 

If you can't get to Blue Hill, here's a four-minute video tour of the exhibit:"At Home Abroad" -- Video Tour of Exhibit

Other links:

Ellsworth American: "At Home Abroad -- Longtime diplomat's Foreign Journey Captured in Watercolor", "At Home Abroad - Longtime Diplomat's Foreign Journey Captured in Watercolors"

Bangor Daily News "At Home Abroad -- the Watercolors of David D. Pearce", "At Home Abroad -- the Watercolors of David D. Pearce"

Events notice on D D Pearce Fine Art website: "At Home Abroad -- the Watercolors of David D. Pearce", "At Home Abroad - the Watercolors of David D. Pearce"