Ogunquit, A Beautiful Place

In May, we went on a few short getaways, all were within New England to three neighboring states. I've written about the first two, Boston, MA and Woodstock, VT, in previous posts. The most recent trip was to Ogunquit, Maine, a coastal town that''s been called the prettiest in the state.

Legend has it that Ogunquit (pronounced /o-gun-quit/) received its name from the Native American Abenaki tribe and translates to "beautiful place by the sea." 

First settled in 1641, Ogunquit is a town on Maine’s southern coast. Ogunquit Beach, a 3-mile long, sandy peninsula with grassy dunes, lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ogunquit River. 

Our lodging offered a view of the Ogunquit River beach. We had a panoramic view of the Ogunquit River and watched the tide come in at evening and out in early morning.

Nearby, Marginal Way is a cliff walk that offers coastal views, benches and a lighthouse. This 1-1/4 mile paved walking path draws visitors from the U.S. and worldwide. It has eight pedestrian access points along the route from Shore Road in Ogunquit to Perkins Cove. aBenches are provided to folks to sit and enjoy the views. (More on this popular walkway in another post.)

The Ogunquit Playhouse summer theater is one of New England's historic summer-stock theaters. Built in 1937, it continues to be a showcase for top-rate musical productions. It has hosted the out-of-town premieres of many new productions. 

Many Broadway performers have been known to leave the heat of NYC to perform in the playhouse during summer months. The theatre lobby is lined with the legendary actors who have performed on its stage including Anthony Quinn, Helen Hayes and Bette Davis. 

We attended a performance of Smokey Joe's Cafe, a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards, featuring rock and roll and rhythm and blues songs written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Some of their well-known tunes include: Ruby Baby, Poison Ivy, Love Potion #9, Dance With Me, Charlie Brown, and Hound Dog, and Yakkety-Yak.

The Ogunquit Museum of American Art is known for its sculptures and works mostly by Maine or New England artists. This small museum has a permanent collection of more than 1,600 pieces, including paintings, photography, and sculpture. It's the only Maine museum dedicated solely to American art. 

The permanent collection includes paintings, sculptures, photography, and graphics. I didn't take photos inside the museum during. During my visit, the main exhibit, Studio Light, featured 37 paintings by artist Steve Hawley, who lives and works in MA.

It was a beautiful day and I spent time outdoors exploring the gardens and appreciating the ocean views visible from inside and outside the museum. Here's a samplings of a few of the outside sculptures. I don't know the names of these works or the artists.

Here's a few more in the collection, some are more whimsical, of course I had to include a frog sculpture. I failed to get the names of these works or the artists as well. Perhaps I should have kept the museum's printed guide.

These pieces in the outdoor collection were eclectic, amusing and very large. The artist really had a sense of humor and playfulness.

I enjoyed seeing these whimsical wooden compositions so much and and wanted to learn more about the artist. Bernard Langlais, a Maine native, was formerly a well-known modernist painter. He studied in Maine and New York and was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to study abroad. Langlais worked in NYC in the 1950s where he developed a style that featured bold colors in landscapes and still life. He also experimented with abstraction and expressionism.

In the mid-1950s, while renovating a summer cottage in Cushing, ME, Langlais started working with wood scraps, not surprising as his father had been a carpenter. He arranged them into mosaic abstract wood reliefs he labelled "painting with wood" and subsequently left oil painting to develop this new medium. His new works were featured in several NY galleries and shows including one at the Whitney Museum of Art.

In the mid-1960s, Langlais wanted to work on a larger scale and relocated permanently to the farmhouse in his native state. In the last 11 years of his life, he constructed more than 65 monumental wood sculptures on the 80-acre River Road property. The wooden carved and carpentered menagerie included lions, bears, rhinos, and elephants as well as a statue of former President Richard Nixon flashing a victory sign. The property was recognized from the large Trojan horse sculpture on its front lawn. Langlais was only 56 when he died in 1977 of congestive heart failure.

One of his best-known commissions, dubbed the World's Tallest Indian, is in Skowhegan, ME, where Langlais attended art school. The sculpture, erected in 1969, is dedicated to Maine's Abnaki Indians. After weathering years of the elements, the work was in need of repair. After a year long project, restoration was completed in 2014. There's more information and a partial photo on the a Visit Maine site. It's on our "to-see" list for a future road trip.

For more information on the art of Bernard Langlais than presented in this post, I watched several online videos, including this one narrated by the Colby College curator for his estate. In 2010, Colby College in Waterville, ME received a large collection of artworks by Bernard “Blackie” Langlais from the artist’s widow, Helen Langlais, and the 90-acre property in Cushing, where the couple lived from 1966 to 1977. 

The 11-minute video shows some of the massive works on the estate grounds. It also describes and shows conservation efforts to restore and preserve many of them in a joint effort by the Colby College Museum of Art, The Kohler Foundation, Inc. and the Georges River Land Trust.