Archive / Maine

Maine: Portland & Falmouth

2012–2024 · Painting, teaching, and experimentation

Maine was Erin McGee Ferrell’s home base from 2012 to 2024. Working in Portland and Falmouth, she painted the city’s back alleys and fire escapes alongside plein-air views of the ocean. These years also encompassed exhibitions at Portland Art Gallery and other Maine galleries, the Whole Foods Market-sponsored Across Franklin urban garden project, a collaboration with Portland Ballet, a wine-label commission for Cellardoor Winery, museum leadership, and teaching and experiments connecting painting with science and technology.

The years brought her paintings into galleries and public settings across the state—from Portland and Falmouth to Cape Elizabeth, Freeport, and Ogunquit. Alongside city and coastal subjects, her work expanded to include interactive materials and questions about how paintings can invite participation.

Painting the city and coast

Portland’s back alleys and fire escapes were recurring subjects in Ferrell’s urban paintings. Along the coast, she worked outdoors, painting the ocean and its surroundings. Together, these bodies of work record her sustained attention to Maine’s built environment and coastal landscape.

She participated in Cape Elizabeth Land Trust’s Paint for Preservation for a number of years. Her CV also records the Castine Plein Air Painting Weekend in 2013 and the Boothbay Harbor Fest Quick Draw competition, where she received Best of Show in 2015.

Exhibitions including Portland Paintings at Thos. Moser in Freeport and Greenhut Galleries’ Portland and Maine landscape exhibitions situated this work within the region’s continuing conversation about place.

Selected paintings & photographs

Across Franklin — Whole Foods Market Urban Garden Project

In downtown Portland, Ferrell collaborated with Whole Foods Market on Across Franklin, an urban garden painting project sponsored by the company. Each month, she painted a garden within a refugee community and displayed the work in the Whole Foods coffee shop.

Following the garden as it grew, the project created an unfolding record of cultivation and seasonal change. The monthly display brought that observation of neighborhood life into an everyday public setting.

The project also had an educational dimension: in 2015, Ferrell developed and taught Sketching in the Salad, an art-and-science curriculum for Whole Foods. Her CV records a twelve-month Whole Foods Café installation in 2015 and her role as founder of the Urban Art/Food Initiative in 2015–2016.

Galleries, exhibitions, and commissions

Her Maine exhibition history included Elizabeth Moss Gallery in Falmouth, Portland Art Gallery, Venn and Maker, and The Maker’s Gallery in Portland, as well as Thos. Moser in Freeport and the Cliff House in Ogunquit. Her CV also records relationships with Gallery at the Grand in Kennebunkport and Simply Home Design Interiors in Falmouth. These are historical relationships documented for this period; current representation is listed on the About page.

At Portland Art Gallery, Convergence in 2017 was a two-person exhibition with Tim Beavis. Erin identifies this exhibition and her affiliations with Portland Art Gallery and Venn and Maker as significant parts of her Maine years.

Selected milestones from the artist’s CV:

2013 · Castine Plein Air Painting Weekend and Art Show — Castine

2014 · Elizabeth Moss Gallery exhibition — Falmouth

2014 · Portland Ballet Theater exhibition — Portland

2014–2015 · Palmina F. & Stephen S. Pace Galleries of Art exhibition — Maine

2015–2016 · Across Franklin, Whole Foods Market Urban Garden Project; monthly paintings and coffee-shop display — Portland

2015 · Boothbay Harbor Fest Quick Draw — Best of Show — Boothbay Harbor

2015 · Iron Gate wine-label artwork, Cellardoor Winery commission — Maine

2016 · Ocean House Gallery exhibition — Cape Elizabeth

2016 · Featured artist, MacPage Gallery, May–November — South Portland

2016 · Fleet on the Road, WEX, Inc. exhibition — Portland

2016 · Maine Historical Society featured commission, Portland Press Hotel — Portland

2017 · Convergence, with Tim Beavis, Portland Art Gallery — Portland

2017 · Selected artist, DownEast Magazine’s Gala of Giving — Maine

2018 · Portland Paintings, Thos. Moser Gallery — Freeport

2018 · Verge, Creative Portland — Portland

2019 · Garden Grow, Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center — Portland

2021 · Maine, the Painted State, Third Biennial Maine Landscape Show, Greenhut Galleries — Portland

2021 · Art of Narrative, Greenhut Galleries — Portland

2022 · Eleventh Biennial Portland Show, Greenhut Galleries — Portland

2022 · AIGA Maine Poster Show, Portland Public Library, August–October — Portland

2022 · Water, University of New England Art Gallery — Biddeford

2023 · Radical, University of New England — Maine

2023 · Resilience, Creative Portland — Portland

2024 · Fiftieth Anniversary Show, Thos. Moser — Freeport

Portland Ballet

Ferrell’s Maine years included a collaboration with Portland Ballet in Maine. Her CV lists a 2014 Portland Ballet Theater presentation among her solo exhibitions, alongside her growing connections with Portland-area galleries.

Iron Gate — Cellardoor Winery

Cellardoor Winery commissioned Ferrell to create the artwork for the label of Iron Gate in 2015. The commission brought her painting into another part of Maine’s cultural life, giving the artwork a continuing presence on a wine label.

View Iron Gate at Cellardoor Winery.

Museums and cultural service

In 2013, Ferrell served as president of the board of the African Museum of Art and Culture in Maine. Her CV also records her work entering the museum’s permanent collection in Portland that year.

Her relationship with the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine included visiting-artist work in 2014 and a collection placement recorded in the same year. These activities brought together her studio practice, teaching, and participation in Maine’s cultural institutions.

Teaching in Falmouth and at UNE

Teaching ran alongside Ferrell’s studio practice. She offered adult drawing classes at the Studio of St. Mary’s in Falmouth in 2013, followed by adult and youth art classes in 2014. Her local teaching included a preschool art workshop in Falmouth and professional artist mentoring through the University of Southern Maine in 2016. In 2017, she taught a nine-week adult painting class and participated in Falmouth High School’s career job-shadow program and an artist talk.

During 2020, she developed online youth art courses, including oil painting for teens, and facilitated online interactive art for Rett’s Roost. In 2021, she led a virtual art workshop for incoming Maine college students through the Mitchell Institute.

From 2020 to 2023, her CV records teaching two-dimensional design at the University of New England. A November 2023 UNE profile describes how she paired AI image exercises with drawing and painting assignments, asking students to explore visual ideas through both digital and physical processes.

She continued her own studies throughout these years, from Maine College of Art’s professional development series in 2012–2013 to color theory, portrait painting, and digital imaging workshops. From 2017 to 2019, she pursued continuing education in new media and the Adobe platform at Southern Maine Community College.

Art in health and community settings

In 2017, Ferrell received a Maine Arts Commission grant for Artist in Hospital Waiting Room. Her CV records a 2018 research project involving the commission and New England Cancer Specialists, as well as a presentation to the practice’s management and physicians in Portland.

In 2019, she published Effects of Live Art During Chemotherapy in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing. That year also included her work as author and designer of the Ms. Mastectomy: Pirate Crew Paper Doll Collection and a keynote presentation at the Witches Wear Pink breast cancer conference in Portland.

With Rett’s Roost, she led an interactive art-and-technology project in Maine in 2018 and later facilitated online art activities. Across these projects, painting and participation became part of her work with people in healthcare and community settings.

Painting, participation, and technology

Ferrell taught an Arduino interactive-art workshop at Portland Open Bench Maker Space in 2018 and spoke at the Maine International Arts Conference that year. In 2020, she presented at the University of New England’s Art and Science Symposium.

Her Cliff House programs included The Art of Intent in 2021 and an artist workshop and talk on Technology Embedded Art in 2022. A 2023 Maine workshop explored thermochromic pigments and technology embedded in painting; that year, she also spoke at UNE about artificial intelligence in the classroom.

These experiments continued through collaborations beyond Maine. In January 2024, UNE reported on her December 2023 Columbia University residency, describing her use of near-field communication, thermochromic pigments, and fluorescent powders in multimedia work. The residency took place in New York and belongs here as a connection developed during the Maine chapter.

Selected coverage

• Art professor Erin McGee Ferrell isn’t afraid of AI — yet — Alan Bennett, University of New England, November 30, 2023.

• UNE instructor explores cancer systems through art and science at Columbia University — Emme Demmendaal, University of New England, January 24, 2024.

Additional coverage recorded in the artist’s CV:

• “Cellardoor taps artists with Maine ties for wine labels,” Portland Press Herald, June 24, 2015.

• “On the Job: Urban painter at easel in the city,” Portland Press Herald, September 29, 2015.

• “Ones To Watch. Five Artists to Keep Your Eye On,” Maine Home + Design, January 2017.

• “A Healer While Healing,” Maine Sunday Telegram, April 7, 2019.

• Artwork featured in Maine Home + Design, May 2021, page 68.

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