Dozens of local artists displayed paintings, jewelry, handmade bags and even carved wooden pickle forks at the third annual Gorham Art Fair on Sunday. The event was held in the Shaw Gym in the back of the municipal center on South St. and lasted all day, running from 9a.m. to 4p.m.
Carson Lynch, the proprietor of hip local coffee shop the Gorham Grind, organizes the annual event in collaboration with his friend Jeremy Greene, the owner of the Art Guru, a nearby art supplies store. Lynch serves as the master of ceremonies, walking around in a red and black striped top hat, making sure that everything is taken care of.
Before they began holding the fair, “We saw so many people who needed a place to show,” said Lynch. “So we said, ‘Let’s put on a show. We’ll start small and grow it.'” The first year, they had 27 artists in a smaller space. Now there are around 40 spread out across an entire gymnasium. While Lynch sometimes thinks about growing it further and possibly making it more than one day long, he says it will probably stay at this size for the next few years.
Lynch and Greene do not jury the show. “We’ve found that folks who say they’re ready usually are,” he said. Whereas many other art shows in the area draw strong lines between crafts and fine art or only present work from professionals, Lynch said his goal is to present as wide a variety as possible. The only requirement is that it be original. “Even if you’re working with a pre-made pattern,” he said, “you’ve got to make it your own.”
As gentle jazz music flowed through the air, a mix of people from the Gorham area ambled through the rows of display tables, munching on homemade cookies from the bakesale along the back of the gym. Behind each display table stood a temporary white wall adorned with the artist’s work. “We pride ourselves on offering a ready-made situation for the artist,” said Lynch. “We want it to be as easy and standardized as possible for people to set up.”
USM Junior Melly Ford, an Education Major with a focus on Art, shared a table with her sister Kristin who came up from Boston to attend the event. While both sisters paint, each has a unique style. Kristin displayed a series of small paintings of rocks, which she created using thick dabs of oil paint, sometimes modifying her surfaces with string to better hold the paint.
Melly, unlike her sister, has only recently begun painting and said that the paintings in the display were some of her first. After spending years working with charcoal and pen, she began experimenting with acrylic paints just a few months ago. Although her work varies more than her sister’s, it shows a strong grasp of composition and a careful eye for color. Looking at her paintings of lupines, it was hard to believe she’d only been painting for a few months.
Although several of the artists reported that sales were slow, Lynch was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who came to the fair and said that it was the largest attendance yet. Sabrina Thiemke-Greene, a painter, textile artist and the wife of event co-organizer Jeremy Greene, said that she was pleased with the amount of interest she had received on the hand-stitched bags she was selling. “We get really good feedback every year,” she said. “Gorham is a really art accepting community.”