Vacationland, Central Coast of Maine~July 2009

I was getting that feeling when planning this trip to Maine that a week would not be enough & without a doubt I was correct. In all we traveled 16 days, 9 in Maine & another 7 to & from, stopping to visit family, see sights & eat local fare.

For someone who has spent little to no time in New England, I was mesmerized with Maine. Being near the sea is calming, comforting & music to my soul. We did everything a visitor to Maine for the first time could possibly do. I couldn't get enough. My two favorite places I would like to return & just dig roots for more time to explore would be Acadia & Monhegan Island; two worlds unto themselves.

With the death of Andrew Wyeth earlier this year Maine was teaming with glorious exhibitions celebrating his life & art. The Portland Museum & The Farnsworth in Rockland had the two best retrospectives, both were a delight & a surprise. The surprise came in finding such well-rounded collections of art, not just the Wyeth's' but Old Masters, modern photograph, Mid-Century & an impressive array of arts who have been drawn to Maine's coastline for over a hundred years. Stunning!

Our cottage just happened to be a stones throw & a hop & a skip on the back roads to Cushing. If you happen to be a Wyeth fan you know exactly what this means. Cushing is where Andrew & Besty spent their earliest of years together & continued doing so into the present. Cushing is where Andrew meet up with the Olson Family & their home. Cushings is what put Andrew on the map of true American Artists when he painted Christina Olson in 1948 with the finished product being the ever so famous Christina's World. We were staying in Wyeth Country North & did not even know it when we decided on our cottage, what a gift. Another gift was finding out Andrew Wyeth wanted to be buried next to Christina Olson in Cushing in her family graveyard on Olson property. There it was Andrew Wyeth's bright headstone standing out amongst a few old weathered ones tucked up there in the trees with an ocean breeze blowing through. What a lovely spot to rest. The graveyard must be exactly where Christina was crawling on that lawn looking up at her home that would be forever memorialized on canvas & sitting in the Museum of Modern Art, NYC.