In this beginner-friendly two-hour class, you’ll learn the basic techniques of decorative woodburning and will create an image of a feather to take home. Using a pen-like burning tool, you'll start by practicing mark-making techniques to explore options and possibilities with the wood burner.  Then you will create an image of a feather by copying a design from nature or making up your own design. All materials provided. Students must be at least 8 years old.

Learn basic skills in wood carving and woodburning in this two-hour class to create a small piece of avian art you can finish during the workshop and take home with you. Registration is required and class sizes are limited. Participants must be at least 11 years old.

Sherrie York evokes nature – birds in particular – in award-winning hand-pulled linocuts from her home studio in Bristol, Maine. Her prints have been featured in national and international exhibitions. And now she is going to be at the Wendell Gilley Museum in person to explore with us that special place where nature and art intersect as the museum’s People-Nature-Art presenter for June. There will be a 6 p.m. artist’s reception followed by her presentation at 7 p.m. which will be in person and simultaneously livecast. Both in-person and online attendance are free, but registration is required.

In her linocuts, she strives to represent the interactions of living things both as a moment in time and as a reflection of the wider experience of life on earth. “Human relationships with wild lands and wild creatures are as individual as we are,” she says. “When an image I create sparks a question or reflects an experience familiar to the viewer, it provides an opportunity to share our stories and understand each other’s perspective. Through these stories we celebrate the beauty found in nature, and find common ground to address larger issues of environmental and cultural stewardship.”

People-Nature-Art is a free monthly series that brings artists, writers, carvers, and creative types of all kinds to the Gilley to explore how nature and art interact in their work, and how their art impacts their own approach to nature. It is sponsored in part by our friends at Bar Harbor Bank & Trust.

Expert needle-felter and storyteller Hillary Dow of Binding Tales will lead this workshop at the Gilley, guiding participants through the process of creating a felted landscape with 3-D elements including trees. All materials and tools will be supplied; all of the wool we will use is sourced from Maine fiber farms, fairs and festivals.  Born and raised in the western mountains of Maine, she now lives with her family in Hampden. She creates children's books that are illustrated with her own unique works of art created by needle felting.