by Chris Cart | American
The “official” photo journalist of the mural project was Joe Phelan #77, who works for Central Maine Papers. He documented the entire mural process from the early days of mostly blank canvas through the final installation.
You can see his beautiful photo-journal article about the mural at CentralMaine.com.
You can always tell a Phelan photograph by the power of the composition and style of photo journalism. Joe is also a great neighbor.
artist, Chris Cart
Bob Ladd #76, is shown in a blue ballcap with the Hallowell Food Pantry Logo.
Hallowell Food Pantry is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides valuable nutrition support to those in need.
Our goal is to help individuals and families maintain their independence and dignity by providing them with access to healthy and nutritious food.
The Food Pantry gave over 81,000 pounds of healthy food to local residents in need last year.
Brothers Joshua Violette #75, and Levi Violette #74, died during the years of the creation of the mural. They are included in the mural as a memory for their parents who were major donors for the mural project. The brothers were much loved in the area.
Gary Violette was a huge supporter of the mural and I painted the well beloved brothers by a way of a small thank you.
artist, Chris Cart
In 2023 the 700 square foot public mural, created by Chris Cart for Hallowell, Maine was unveiled to much fanfare with a flag guard of the American Legion and speeches by Maine’s Governor Mills, Representative Dan Shagoury and our Mayor George Lapointe.
In 2021 Cart was accepted as a Signature Member to the National Watercolor Society.
In 2019 Cart began a many year collaboration with mural master John Gable initially to create two large murals for a venue in the outskirts of Washington D.C. Since that time they have worked together on many more projects, including two more large murals for Gainesville, VA.
Chris Cart has had several pieces chosen for the annual Painting the Figure Now exhibits at the beautiful Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art WMOCA.
Another public commission was a large painting for the new Lithgow Library in Augusta, Maine, Stories from the Mezzanine.
In 2016 ompleted a 21 foot mural for the City of Bath, Maine. The theme is the “Spirit of Bath” which, of course, wraps around the history of shipbuilding in this City of Ships.
In 2015 he finished a public mural for the new Capital Judicial Center in Maine’s capital at Augusta. This 14 x 40-foot mural, a Maine Percent for Art project, called Kennebec is a maritime history of the Kennebec River with people, ships, history.
Over the years Cart has illustrated over 30 books and book covers.
He has had numerous one-man gallery shows and exhibited in galleries across Maine, in Seattle, Washington, New York City and Guadalajara, Mexico.
With a pencil or brush in hand I can create worlds within the canvas frame. The figures are my players and the canvas my stage. However, I am no fantasy artist. Reality creates the spark. My eyes open, I find things that need to be in my paintings.
I have exhibited in galleries and exhibitions in Maine, Seattle and New York City. As an illustrator I have worked for Hearst Books, William Morrow, Greenwillow Books, Random House and DownEast Books of Maine. And creating sets and playbills for theater is a thrill.
Born in Maine, I can claim that much coveted ‘native’ status but in truth I lived away a lot. My bones are solid New England stock but my blood carries the dusts of years in Mexico…and a bit of rust from the Pacific Northwest as well.
Back in my bohemian days I sold paintings at street shows and at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Today I enjoy the luxury of having my work in a great gallery, but there is an excitement, a rawness to selling art on the street.
I currently live with my wife and fellow painter, Jen Greta Cart, in Hallowell, Maine.
Hallowell has been a cultural center since its early days, attracting artists from all over the region.
To the left, in the bow tie, is Alger V. Currier #104, (1862-1911) a well known Hallowell artist of the mid 19th century. His fine oil portrait of his wife Catherine #103, the woman in the yellow dress, can be seen today at the Hubbard Free Library in Hallowell, a building, incidentally, designed by Alexander Currier, Alger’s father.
The Currier portrait of his wife at the Hubbard library is well worth a trip to see. An fine piece of portraiture.
artist, Chris Cart
Lee Weeks #102, is the renowned Marvel and DC Comic artist. Weeks grew up on Lincoln Street in the center of Hallowell.
Perhaps best known for his art for the Daredevil series for Marvel, his work bringing Batman to life for DC Comics is also iconic.
Weeks has won numerous awards for his art. Weeks is shown here as a drawing, drawing Batman.
Most people ask me, “Why is Batman in the mural?”. The simple answer? Lee Weeks, the renowned D.C. and Marvel comic artist is from Hallowell. I drew Lee, himself as a drawing, drawing Batman. I mean, how could I not include Batman?
artist, Chris Cart
Bruce Mayo #101, is shown here in two of his many roles or guises in town. He is a fine artist, owner of Easy Street Lounge in Hallowell and most years the leader of the Mardi Gras parade.
it is always wonderful to run into Bruce in town.
artist, Chris Cart
Helene Farrar #106, has taught and worked in the visual arts for twenty years while actively exhibiting in commercial, nonprofit and university galleries in New England, New York City, Pennsylvania, Italy, and England. Farrar has a BA in Studio Art from the University of Maine and a Masters of Fine Art Degree in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in Vermont. Helene was director of the Harlow Gallery of Hallowell for many years.
Mark Poirier #107, shown in the blue ballcap with brushes, is known for his beautiful paintings of Hallowell.
Paola Buentello #105, of Mexican descent, had an art gallery, shop first in Hallowell, then in Gardiner where she exhibited some of her beautiful, very personal work.
Jane Burke #93, painter and muralist has many colorful murals across Maine. Jane is shown in the mural dancing with the musicians with her signature hair. Jane Burke murals
Andrea Dorak #117, is a talented easel painter, interior designer and dancer extraordinaire.
Ellen Parkman Vaughan #100, of the prominent Vaughan family in Hallowell, in the lower right, was known for her watercolors and in her youth intrepid painting trips to the wilds of Maine in a canoe with paints, an easel and a guide.
The Vaughan Homestead has many of Ellen Vaughan’s drawings and watercolors from her treks to the north woods.
artist, Chris Cart
One beloved Hallowell artist from the 20th century was Ray Skolfield #95, . He spent much of his later years in Hallowell drawing local people. Ray is the figure in the back presented as a drawing with his sketchpad—with one of his signature styles of simple line with snags of intense line color.
In his early days in the 1930’s Skolfield was a “New Deal” artist, one of the many WPA Project artists prior to WW2.
Ray was drawing and painting constantly, and giving his work away. I can’t count how many people I know who own one of more of Ray’s creations. I included him in the section of the mural with all the musicians because he spent so much time drawing our local bands.
artist, Chris Cart
Shown here in the witch costume is Jen Greta Cart #67, . She has been painting since she moved to Hallowell in the early 1990’s. She also has been known for your many roles in Gaslight Theater.
Also, Jen launched the “Hallowell Hexen” a troupe of Hallowell “witches” who get dressed as witches to dance in the annual Hallowell Hallowe’en Parade.
artist, Chris Cart
In 2023 Chris Cart #110, completed the 650 square foot public Hallowell mural for Hallowell, Maine. The mural was officially unveiled to much fanfare with a flag guard of the American Legion and speeches by Maine’s Governor Mills, Representative Dan Shagoury and our Mayor George Lapointe.
Cart has over dozen murals across Maine in Washington D.C. and Seattle. F
You can read a full bio here.
I added myself in the lower left, still finishing up part of the mural. There was a while with several setbacks, including COVID that I thought the mural project would go on forever. There was always more to add.
artist, Chris Cart
Deb Fahy #108, of Hallowell has been central to any and all support for artists in the Hallowell area for many decades. She was Executive Director of the Harlow Gallery for 14 years transforming it from a local art club to a gallery of note with shows reviewed by Maine’s best newspapers.
Since her time with the Harlow gallery she has moved on to spearhead the official city Arts & Cultural Committee and the creation of Vision Hallowell, our Hallowell’s 501c3 which promotes arts in our area.
Deb was key to getting the Hallowell Mural project going and keeping the fundraising alive so the artist could complete this vast project.
Deb has been no end of help to me and my career as an artist.
artist, Chris Cart
Blacksmiths were crucial to Hallowell society and industry. The blacksmith’s skills were needed, as with any other community, for shoeing horses, creating nails, repairing wagon wheels, etc., However, the blacksmith was crucial for the granite industry to keep the granite cutting and carving tools sharp and in form. One source states one blacksmith was required for every three stone cutters to ensure the tools were ready for the days work in the quarries or stone yard.
Note how thin the neck of the handle is on the hand hammer. Tony Masciadri told me this is so the impact of the hammer hitting the chisel and the hard granite does not telegraph up the handle–to relieve stress on the cutters hand after a day of chiseling granite.
artist, Chris Cart
The granite tools here include a Point, Chisel, Hand Plug Drill and a Hand Hammer.
Michael Frett #61 of Hallowell posed as the blacksmith in the mural.
Over the centuries Hallowell has been known for its makers—its artists, musicians, potters, chairmakers, shipcarvers…
Malley Weber #60, is one of our contemporary makers in town. She has run a pottery shop and classes for many years.
…loved watching Malley make a simple pitcher. seeing such confident hands is a joy.
artist, Chris Cart
One locally well known maker was John “Johnny” Stringer. He died in 1848 but many Hallowell residents today take pride in owning one of his well crafted chairs. One can be seen at the Hubbard Free Library as well.
Hallowell historian Ron Kley recounts a story of teh connection of Hallowell to our ship USS Contitution, “Old Ironsides”# 57 & 111:
We found a 1796 letter among the Charles Vaughan papers at Bowdoin (Charles was Benjamin Vaughan’s #6 younger brother ) that had been written to Charles, in Boston, from John Sheppard in Hallowell. (Sheppard was a British expatriate who managed a brewery, a warehouse, a wharf and probably a distillery for Charles, all in Hallowell.
This letter reported among other things that “the mast for the frigate” was ready for shipment.
There were six frigates then under construction for the navy at various shipyards, and we had no clue as to which one “the mast” might be intended for.
Several years later I attended a museum conference that was also attended by Anne Grimes Rand, the director of the USS Constitution Museum, whom I knew from work that I had done for that museum years earlier. I asked her if she had any knowledge of where the masts for the Constitution had come from. She didn’t, but said that she would pass the inquiry along to the museum’s historian.,
I had a call from the historian just a day or two later, telling me that the museum had records of the navy having purchased both the mainmast and the bowsprit of the Constitution from somebody named Charles Vaughan.
We have no proof as to just where the trees were cut, but the odds are that if they were awaiting shipment from Hallowell, they would not have been hauled very far to Vaughan’s wharf on what’s still known as Sheppard’s or Shepard’s Point, just south of the confluence of Vaughan Brook and the Kennebec, There’s a good likelihood, if not a probability, that the trees were cut in Hallowell, and perhaps even on the Vaughans’ land, including the present Vaughan Woods, from which it would have been downhill all the way to the Vaughan wharf.
I showed the thick base of a huge eastern white pine and had the top of the tree showing at the top of the mural.
artist, Chris Cart
I’ve been a sailing ship buff since I was a kid building scratch models of sailing ships. This was good enough for me. How could I not include “Old Ironsides” in our Hallowell mural.
artist, Chris Cart
The eastern white pine was a very valuable tree in the early days of the new nation. The eastern white pine is a very tough and tall tree that was early prized for its use a tall straight masts for ships.
It is said that early precolonial forests contained eastern white pines that grew to more than 70 meters or 230 feet in height.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, tall white pines in the Thirteen Colonies became known as “mast pines”. Marked by agents of the Crown with the broad arrow, a mast pine was reserved for the British Royal Navy. Special barge-like vessels were built to ship tall white pines to England.
By 1719, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, had become the hub of pine logging and shipping. Portsmouth shipped 199 masts to England that year. In all, about 4500 masts were sent to England.
The eastern white pine played a significant role in the events leading to the American Revolution. Marking of large white pines by the Crown had become controversial in the colonies by the first third of the 18th century. In 1734, the King’s men were assaulted and beaten in Exeter, New Hampshire, in what was to be called the Mast Tree Riot. Colonel David Dunbar had been in the town investigating a stock pile of white pine in a pond and the ownership of the local timber mill before caning two townspeople. In 1772, the sheriff of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, was sent to the town of Weare to arrest mill owners for the illegal possession of large white pines. That night, as the sheriff slept at the Pine Tree Tavern, he was attacked and nearly killed by an angry mob of colonists. This act of rebellion, later to become known as the Pine Tree Riot, may have fueled the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
After the Revolutionary War, the fledgling United States used large white pines to build out its own navy. The masts of the USS Constitution were originally made of eastern white pine. The original masts were single trees, but were later replaced by laminated spars to better withstand cannonballs.
In colonial times, an unusually large, lone, white pine was found in coastal South Carolina along the Black River, far east of its southernmost normal range.[citation needed] The king’s mark was carved into it, giving rise to the town of Kingstree.
excerpt from Wikipedia about Pinus Strobus, the eastern white Pine.
Many called Hallowell, Maine the “antiques capital of the world and for over 5 decades, was certainly the antiques capital of Maine, boasting more than two dozen antique shops along Water Street.
John Merrill #59 still runs a bookshop on Water Street, with rare and collectible books.
Rebecca Perry #58, the young woman with the glasses, loves books and is shown representing all those who have frequented Hallowell bookshops.
As a kid growing up in Phippsburg in the ’60’s and 70’s, I remember occasional drives when we headed up to Hallowell to poke around the various antique shops and antiquarian book shops.
artist, Chris Cart
Today antiques can still be acquired at our thriving antique mall at the southern end of town on Water Street, boasting fascinating antiques from dozens of vendorts.
The international COVID epidemic hit during the period when artist Chris Cart was painting the mural.
Several of the medical workers who kept us as safe as possible are included in the mural:
Dr. Emmy Liscord #71, , Dr. Kieran Kammerer #72, and nurse Tina Netten #73.
Covid gave us a new dark piece of history we lived through while I was working on the mural. It seemed important to include some reference. This was one of several things I added to the original design of the mural, which shook things up, painting-wise, necessitating redesign of parts of the mural.
artist, Chris Cart
