NORWAY — Art and conservation are overlapping more brilliantly than ever at Shepard’s Farm Preserve with the opening of Georgina Grenier’s exhibit “Vibrancy.” The outdoor exhibit is hung on a fifteen foot clothesline on the universally accessible Detert Trail. Shepard’s Farm Preserve is located at 121 Crockett Ridge Road, Norway and is one of six preserves with trail systems managed by the Western Foothills Land Trust. The Trust permanently installed six large sculptures by Bernard Langlais at Shepard’s Farm in 2015. The Clothesline Project is providing a new opportunity for temporary exhibits to be hung on site.

Georgina Grenier of Otisfield is an artist and public school teacher in MSAD17. “Vibrancy,” her October exhibit on the clothesline, is inspired by the vibrant colors she observed at the Shepard’s Farm Preserve. Georgina captured these colors on billowing sheets of dye-painted silk suspended from the clothesline. Printed on one of the panels is an excerpt from Caro Poirier’s “Certainty,” part of a community writing project led by Georgina. In gold lettering the panel reads, “our human nature may be seen reflected in the natural world around us. This is why walking nature’s quiet paths and coming to stillness there, we may open all our sensory pathways and experience an exchange so deep that spontaneous healing may occur.“

Grenier is also exhibiting her work at the Matolcsy Art Center throughout October, with a reception at 5:30 p.m., October 4.  The Matolcsy exhibit, called “Half Certain,” involves digital illustrations and silkscreens also from the community writing project. Funded by a grant from the Onion Foundation, The Clothesline Project reminds us of local industrial heritage: the wooden clothespin industries of western Maine, in particular the Penley Corporation of West Paris. The clothesline Project also encourages us to use solar energy whenever possible in our day to day lives, and to enjoy the inherent beauty of clotheslines in our urban and rural landscapes.

The Folk Arts and Crafts Center at Fiber & Vine oversaw the application and selection process for the land trust. Four local artists, Don Best, Georgina Grenier, Judy Schneider, and Kristin Roy were selected by a remote juror from a range of applicants. Norway artist Don Best has a Langlais-esque bear cub climbing a clothesline post. The other artists were selected to hang their works on the line, one artist per month, October, November, and December. Experience the changing exhibits on the clothesline as you enjoy a stroll, a bike or a run on the gentle half mile Detert trail this fall. Shepard’s Farm Preserve is posted during hunting season.