Monthly Archives: August 2015

Whoopie Pies & Other Maine Things

You can plan and plan, but sometimes you stumble on to a place by accident that simply demands that you stop and “be there”.  Fryeburg, Maine, was just a dot on a blue highway map, on the way to Somewhere Else, until we actually got there.  It was nearly lunchtime, and the driver was getting sleepy, so we pulled over at the farm stand and parked in the shade of an enormous old maple.  There was a convenient picnic area on the lawn in front of the store, so I sketched the barn and store, while my husband went sound asleep in the car.

sketch of farm stand

“Whoopie Pie”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

I left the foreground blank, thinking I would find a peach or something inside to add later.  Nope, no peaches in Maine in early August, BUT they did have baskets of intriguing little homemade treats called Whoopie Pies.  The young clerk explained that they were made from, “… like, um, cupcake tops, with, um, you know, stuff in the middle…”  Icing?  Frosting?  “Well, yeah, kinda but different.  They’re a Maine Thing.”  I have always thought that the whole point of a cupcake was the icing – in fact, when my kids were in school, I maintained that I could have re-used the same set of cupcakes for 10 years because kids only ever licked off the icing and threw away the actual cake.  Maybe these Mainers were on to something!  Taking off the saran wrap took some doing, but eventually we succeeded.  Whoopie!  It was like having a giant soft Oreo only with triple cream cheese filling, so you twisted it open, licked off the filling, and tossed the cake bits, which were stale anyway.  I never did figure out the “pie” reference, sorta like Eskimo Pie I guess… but it was the perfect pre-lunch post-nap snack.

The store had a lot of “Maine things” on the shelves; the ubiquitous maple syrup in little jugs that wouldn’t be allowed on the plane home in a carry-on bag, adorable knit baby socks and thick mittens that I have absolutely no need for, and much, much more.  I finally opted to photograph some of the unique produce and paint it later – who ever heard of yellow-eyed peas, or canned fiddle-head ferns?

sketch of canned goods and dry beans

“Maine Things”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

The pickled cauliflower sounded yucky, to be honest, but whoever prepared it had the good sense to stick a red pepper in the jar for visual appeal, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been…  It took me three weeks to get around to it, but here are my slightly-wonky-perspective sketches from my photos.

On the checkout counter at the farm stand I had seen a donation box labeled, “Save Our Spire”.  A good idea, because we had noticed far too many little villages like this where the famous New England church spires were missing, leaving squatty little churches decaying by the roadside.  We left the store and looped back to the main street, where I had spotted the 302 Smokehouse Tavern.  It was a lively place, and a good lunch, and I was pleased to discover that the spire repairs were indeed underway across the parking lot!

FryeburgMaineSpireRepairSketch

“Fryeburg’s Steeple Repair”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

I read in a newspaper article that the community and church had raised $33,000 so far of the $186,000 necessary for the job – ouch.  I wish them luck – maybe Donald Trump will stop by in a generous mood…

Too Hot – Vamanos to the Libraries!

When it’s NOT hot, which is pretty rare lately, this is how I spend my afternoons.  Working from my photos or a still life like this bowl of fruit from my neighbor, I sit at my dining room table and draw and paint, getting up at regular intervals to let my demented old cat in/out/in/out/in because she’s pretty sure I haven’t fed her lately, the full kibble dish in the kitchen notwithstanding…

But most days this summer, it’s just too hot.  So rather than fry, I put the kitty and her bowls out back under the fir tree, and pack up my Art Bag and go someplace cool.  This last week I went to three libraries and a wine bar:  OSU Valley Library is the largest and seems to be the one with the oldest art books; Corvallis downtown, by far the most populous; and LBCC, which was small but has an interesting assortment of art books.  I didn’t want to drag my heavy old computer along, so I grabbed a random book from whatever was on the shelves, flipped to an interesting page, and pulled out my paints.  Since school’s out and there weren’t any students around, nobody seemed to mind or even notice.

The portrait of the long-necked lady was inspired by a painting in a book (I wrote the credits on the page).  My sketching friends (mostly from Sketchbook Skool – it’s a great online community) and I have been discussing online the relative merits and various approaches to learning from the masters – this painting was shown in a black and white photograph, so it left lots of room for color interpretation.  The Ansel Adams portrait was from a black and white photo taken by one of his friends – another opportunity for interpretation.

After the LBCC library, we stopped to see the birdhouse I painted last spring for them – it really is a nice concept, with a little book inside where people passing by have written poems or drawn pictures.  It was shady there in the quad, but not cool, so on to Albany.  The wine bar was in a historic brick building that was lovely and air-conditioned to the “just right” mark on the thermometer.  We chose a table that had a good angle on a mirror.  Since I had my gear spread all over the table, it was difficult to finish unnoticed.  Our server put the word out, so I had several admirers, and the owner wanted a photo when I finished – very kind and flattering folks.

Maybe it will cool off and I’ll be able to focus this next week and finish the travel journal sketches from New England, but if it doesn’t, at least I know that I can always hole up in the libraries to beat the heat… I knew there was a good reason for all those taxes we pay!

Herring from Heaven… in Maine

Our recent New England trip took us to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Schenectady NY, and for one afternoon to Massachusetts. We drove like we were playing hopscotch on the blue highways to the Back of Beyond.  Good thing I had picked up a map from our local AAA office before we left because GPS coverage was spotty, and T-Moible coverage was non-existent.  So there we were a couple of weeks ago, strolling along the trail around Mac Worth Island, just off the coast of Portland, Maine… when a live fish fell out of the sky.  Whoa.  Not sure who was the most surprised, us or the fish.

 

"Herring from Heaven", mixed media by Kerry McFall, copyright 2015

“Herring from Heaven”, mixed media by Kerry McFall, copyright 2015

Moments earlier, a shadow had skimmed through the maples and pines above us.  Griff wondered aloud what kind of bird would make such a big shadow.  Three steps further, and there was a 12-inch fish gasping in the middle of the trail, a brilliant red puncture just behind its gills.  The trail was on a cliff, at least 20 feet above the ocean, and we were at least 10 yards from the edge of the cliff, so no way did it jump out of the ocean.  If we had been a few seconds earlier, we could have been conked on the head!

Another hiker appeared with his dog, and we all stood there puzzling over the wet, silvery creature.  No fish hook or injured mouth.  Beautiful blue and silver scales.  (I learned several days later that it was an Atlantic Herring.)  “An eagle must have dropped it,” the hiker suggested.  That would explain the shrieking we heard after the shadow passed, maybe an adolescent Osprey cursing his bad luck.  We left the fish there, thinking the bird might double back to retrieve its lunch.  A little later, past the fairy houses (read on, that’s in the next paragraph!) and at the end of the island, sure enough there was an osprey repeatedly diving into the ocean, but coming up with empty talons.  Glorious to see those dives, though!

So about the fairies… this island was clearly enchanted.  All along the eastern edge, there were tiny dwellings tucked into every nook in the forest.  Paths paved with snail shells, walls built from bark strips, elaborate woven twig roofs, each one unique and built of only natural materials.  You had to be sharp-eyed to spot them, but once we started really looking, we discovered dozens!  These were works of arts in themselves:

We met that hiker and his dog again as we finished the loop – he said he’d returned to where the fish was, but it had vanished…  herring for lunch after all?