The Maine Art Gallery was humming with “good vibes,” as many said, from the art and music last Saturday at the opening reception of “Song of the Wild: Honoring the Natural Beauty and Wildlife of Maine.” One couple walked around the upstairs room and said they felt “as if they were in nature.”

The 10 artists in the show – painters, sculptors, and a photographer – have filled the spacious two-floor gallery with 90 works representing the forests, waters, and wildlife of Maine. Eric Hopkins, whose iconic large-scale paintings of the ocean vibrate with lush color, remarked to the crowd that he had first come to the gallery as a boy in the 1960s and that “this  show is full of great art, wild art, wild artists! Just what it should be."

Alice Smith Duncan, an Alna resident also familiar with the gallery’s earliest days from her mother’s involvement, said, "The gallery founder, Miss Mildred Burrage, would have been thrilled to see her vision still being so excitingly fulfilled."

The 10 artists are: Jane Dahmen, also well-known for her large-scale paintings mostly of her favorite trees, birches; Matt Barter, painter and sculptor of Maine’s beautiful bogs and wetlands; Barbara Sullivan, 3D fresco artist of Midcoast mammals; Katherine Shagas whose abstract paintings reveal elemental energies; Sara Farragher, impressionistic painter of glimmering waters; Lesia Sochor, sculptor of 3D animals made of birch bark; Liv Kristin Robinson, photographer of backyard insects; Emily Sabino, whose visionary naturalist paintings depict healing plants and night pollination; and Joy Vaughan, abstract painter of her South Bristol landscape; Eric Hopkins,  Dahmen and her daughter Emily Sabino are co-curators of the exhibit.

Barter, a professor of art at Bowdoin who has shown at the gallery before, said, "How could any artist turn down a request to show work about their favorite biome? These walls are vibrating with life." Sochor was so thrilled she had sold two of her bark sculptures, a barred owl and a turtle, that she wrote a poem she read to the crowd about the two creatures and nature’s interdependence. 

Another big hit with the crowd was the music of The Flying Seeds, a folk and Peruvian music-inspired duo of Sabino and her husband Lenin who played everything from a gigantic pan flute to a charango. Cindy McGurl, an artist who has shown at MAG, said the music was “uniquely beautiful." Eenor’s Sonic Wallpaper also played some fascinating electronic and acoustic music. 

The exhibit can be seen through July 26. Related events are a talk by Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust’s Community Science Director Sara Gladu on “The Impact of Air” on July 11, 4:30 - 6 p.m., and on July 16 a panel discussion titled “Nature as Muse.” The gallery will be open late on Thursday, June 25 for Wiscasset Art Walk. 

Maine Art Gallery is located at 15 Warren St. in Wiscasset. Visit https://www.maineartgallerywiscasset.org/ for more information about the gallery and upcoming 2026 shows.  The gallery is located at 15 Warren Street, Wiscasset. Hours are Thursday through Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m 

The gallery is thankful to Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust for its sponsorship of the exhibition, to Sherri Dunbar of Tim Dunham Realty, season sponsor, and Ames True Value Hardware, capital sponsor..