Art, Engines and Schooners

Camden, Maine isn’t called the ‘Jewel of the Mid-Coast’ for nothing. The town, the picturesque harbor and the gracious old houses, many now converted to B&Bs or inns, are charming without overkill. There are numerous restaurants of every type and for every budget. And then there are the nearby museums.

In 1940, Andrew Wyeth married Betsy James in Maine. Through Betsy, he met Christina Olson, the model for his painting, Christina’s World, which hangs in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.  The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, ME, has work by many artists but the big deal is their Wyeth collection, part of which hangs in an adjacent church that is now sort of a museum annex. The whole shebang is terrific. I found the Olson House in Cushing, ME,  where Christina and her brother, Alvarao, lived even more fascinating because it’s so personal.

Christina's World --the painting

In Wyeth’s painting, Christina lies towards the bottom of a large hillside looking towards her house. The picture omits the huge lilac bushes in the yard as well as Christina’s flower garden and the sense of scale is very different. In reality, the yard is next to the house, small and flat. (Christina had a never-really-diagnosed neuromuscular disease that, over time, left her unable to walk. A true Mainer, she mostly refused a wheelchair.)

Olson House--the real thing

Today, the house has been very carefully ‘brought back’; not restored in the traditional sense but the layers of grime on the walls have been removed and falling-apart floorboards replaced. Christina’s stove shines brightly which, according to the docent, it did not do when in use. Geraniums still sit in the windows as they do in one of the Wyeth paintings and the front door opens onto stencils of leaves on the floor, painted either by Betsy Wyeth herself or at her instigation, to  indicate leaves the wind would bring in.

Geraniums in Christina's Kitchen

Nearby is  the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum in—you guessed it—Owl’s Head, ME. It  displays old cars including a large MG collection;  aircraft like the Kitty Hawk Flyer and something called an ornithopter, technically an aircraft that moves by flapping its wings. This ornithopter has wings made of feathers, a tad too close to the Icarus thing for me. There are also old bicycles, fire engines, engines to make machinery function and a ‘gift shop’ where I passed on a aviator hat because it made me look too much like Snoopy minus the scarf.

Old Fire Engine, Owl's Head Transportation Museum

In addition to viewing, a lot of time was also given to sailing on Penobscot Bay in a schooner captained by the man who built her and eating–orange and lobster salad, cioppino, crab sandwiches, blueberry pancakes, stuffed lobster…

Making cioppino isn’t the work of a moment but it’s a great party dish if you want to go to the effort. Of course, you could order it in Maine (or at a good seafood restaurant anywhere–or in San Francisco where it may have originated.)

A Bowl of Cioppino