Head to Maine and see Wyeths by land and sea
“We were virtually standing in a Wyeth painting.”
We were bobbing in Linda Bean’s 42-foot lobster boat, surrounded by rocky Maine coast scenery. Seagulls screeched; halyards slapped against masts; boats rumbled back into the harbor. Rayette Hudon, our guide, directed our attention to two sights. A print of “Black Spruce Ledge’’ painted by Newell Convers (N.C.) Wyeth for Time Magazine in 1939, and the real Black Spruce Ledge landscape in front of us. It was literally unchanged. We were virtually standing in a Wyeth painting.
When our book group heard that there was a guided Wyeths by Water tour out of Port Clyde, Maine, and that the famed Olson house in Cushing, Maine, was open for tours, we shouted, “Girlfriend getaway!’’ We’d read “Christina’s World,’’ and a few in the group are amateur painters. The tour would take a look at the works and impact of three generations of talented Wyeths: N.C., son Andrew, and grandson Jamie.
As we motored out of pretty Herring Gut harbor, Captain Dennis Leight and Hudon pulled up a series of lobster traps — an exercise designed for the “from away’’ tourists on the boat. The members of our group had seen and hauled up their share of traps so this was less interesting but being out on the water on a dazzling summer day was great.
“This was the Wyeths’ canvas,’’ Hudon said with a sweep of her hand, as we passed the house N.C. bought as his summer retreat (and which the family still owns). We looked at a print of the “Bright and Fair — Eight Bells’’ painting of the house, created by N.C. in 1936. The house looks the same. The simple, white Cape, with an open farmer’s porch, sits atop a small hill overlooking the shoreline. It’s said that N.C. would sit on the porch for hours, studying the light over the sea and landscape.
Hudon told us that Andrew’s longtime model Helga Testorf stills resides in the house and “eats at the general store counter all the time.’’ Andrew created more than 240 sketches and paintings of Helga that were kept secret for years and are now owned by one lone collector.
We continued past Teels Island, where Andrew and his friend Walt fished and camped out, and Andrew would paint. As we looked at prints of Andrew’s paintings of the island — “Night Hauling,’’ “Lobster Pots,’’ “Off Teels Island’’ — we were again awed by how Andrew had captured the landscape. In these, the atmosphere is somber, almost bleak, without a lot of flashy color. “He did color in the beginning,’’ Hudon says, “but when he met Betsy [his wife], she convinced him that somber was better.’’ It created a clash between Betsy and N.C., but in the end, it was apparently good advice.
We putt-putted out to Allen and Benner islands, which Betsy now owns. “Betsy first bought Southern Island and refurbished the lighthouse, which appears in many of Andrew and Jamie Wyeth’s paintings,’’ Hudon said. “Later she bought Allen and Benner.’’ Betsy built her home on Benner where she still resides during the summer.
Andrew Wyeth’s, Christina’s World.
On our way back to Port Clyde, we had distant views of Monhegan Island and passed the lighthouse on Southern Island. Back on land, picking up snacks and beverages at the general store, we kept our eyes out for Helga and Jamie. No sightings.
Our next stop was the Olson house, a farmhouse once owned by Christina Olson and her brother, Alvaro, and the setting for many of Andrew’s paintings and sketches, including “Christina’s World.’’ It was Betsy who introduced Andrew to the Olsons, and she worried that he would balk at their simple, subsistence living. “He didn’t blink an eye,’’ says Hudon. “He thought it was the real Maine and returned again and again.’’ Andrew drew the house in about 300 works, and several prints are displayed around the farmhouse.
Though most of the original furnishings are gone, the weathered farmhouse remains nearly unchanged from the time the Olsons lived there. There are layers of wallpaper and faded paint, but pots of fresh-planted geraniums were set in the kitchen window (“Geraniums,’’ Andrew Wyeth, 1960), and a table placed to signify where Christina would sit and look down the road. The blue door is here (“Blue Door,’’ Andrew Wyeth, 1952), and the small room at the top of the stairs where Andrew painted nearly every day during the summer, including “Christina’s World.’’ “As the story goes, Andrew saw her struggling up the hill from this window and went home to sketch it,’’ Virginia Betts, our guide told us. “He came back to paint it here.’’
We walked out through the hilly field of grasses to the spot where the Olsons and Andrew are buried in a small family cemetery. As we walked back up the golden, sun-bleached pasture, we could visualize Christina crawling up the hill to the farmhouse and could almost picture Andrew painting in the upstairs window.
That evening we stayed at the Samoset Resort in nearby Rockland, set on 230 acres overlooking Penobscot Bay. There were views everywhere, from our rooms and private decks, from the lobby with its massive, old granary timbers and wood block floor, from the open lounge and restaurant areas. Some of us (OK, all of us) took advantage of the spa, enjoying treatments like the deep tissue massage and the ocean-inspired, algae-based body scrub. Later, we met for an al fresco dinner on the terrace overlooking the ocean, dining on chilled shellfish; scampi-style lobster and shrimp; wood-fired pizza with wild mushrooms, truffle oil, and arugula; Gulf of Maine salmon; and a selection of desserts that included lemon ricotta cheesecake and wild Maine blueberry pie. All the while, planning our next girlfriend getaway.
Wyeths by Water, 207-372-6600, www.lindabeansperfectmaine.com/perfect-maine/wyeth; Mon.-Fri., $42. Olson house, 207-596-6457, www.farnsworthmuseum.org; Wed.-Sun., noon-5 p.m., tours on the hour, $10. Samoset Resort, 800-341-1650, www.samosetresort.com;
Sept.-Oct. rates start at $179
