PORTLAND — Lois Dodd is best known for painting the world around her, from her apartment windows in New York City to the woods and gardens of Maine and New Jersey. The Portland Museum of Art opens a new exhibition, “Lois Dodd: Catching the Light,” next week that explores the career of the painter and […]

Be prepared for a powerful rendition of the African-American experience.

Summer is for reading, but Maine winters seem particularly hospitable for ordering our thoughts and committing them to paper. It’s a season of staying home, stoking the fire and accomplishing some serious writing. The Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance gives us incentive to sharpen our pencils this winter with summer reading in mind. The alliance […]

Even with Oscar nominees, movie goers seem more and more to be leaving the theater confused and/or frustrated.

Art “Between Past and Present: The Homer Studio Photographic Project,” contemporary photography made with historic processes, Portland Museum of Art. portlandmuseum.org. Through Feb. 17. “The Portland Society of Art and Winslow Homer’s Legacy in Maine,” exploring the artistic relationship between Homer and the architect John Calvin Stevens and the early years of the Portland Society […]

“Maine Women Pioneers III: Homage” is a fascinating show for myriad reasons. For starters, it not only gives a preview of Lois Dodd (born 1927) before her major solo show opens at the Portland Museum of Art later this month, it puts Dodd in the context of some of her finest contemporaries — 12 other […]