Supporting The Flourishing Ogunquit Artist Community
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more about the ogunquit river paintersThe goal of Ogunquit River Painters is to honor our past while moving toward the future. Ogunquit has such a rich art history, dating at least back to the early 1900’s when Charles Woodbury started visiting Ogunquit and founded one of its first drawing and painting summer schools. Ever since, painters such as Henry Strater, who founded what is today the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, have found inspiration along Ogunquit’s rugged shoreline. This rich legacy helped establish Ogunquit as an arts community and still today set it apart from any other town on the Maine coast – but as Maine grows and changes, we fear we risk losing our connection to our arts past.
Ogunquit River Painters formed with the intent of re-establishing, or solidifying, a community whose work reflects the rich tradition and styles of those painters who came to Ogunquit over a century ago and founded a thriving art colony. We not only want to recognize the working artists here today but help encourage new art enthusiasts to the area by attracting, encouraging, and supporting artists of all types. We can do that by working collaboratively with the town leaders to initiate new programs to attract artists and art businesses to the town. While this is a work in progress, we have discussed issues like making it easier and more affordable for artists to park while they visit and paint for the day, by creating incentives for new art galleries to open, by bringing more art events to town to complement the already successful Plein Air Event in September. |