The winter solstice is a beacon for me.

Yes, it is the darkest day of the year. But I struggle to feel energized when the temperatures drop and the daylight dwindles, and the solstice marks a turning point. Starting now, every day will be a little brighter than the last.

We still have long nights ahead of us until spring, but we also have art. We asked curators at six museums in Maine to choose a piece on view right now that embodies the darkness of this season.

Perhaps this time of year inspires introspection for you, or you just need a reason to venture out of the house. Either way, these works might light the way.

“Canning the Sunset #5” by Carly Glovinski

Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland

Curator Jane Bianco had the job of arranging these 89 jars on the shelves exactly as the artist instructed. She spent two days gently placing each one in the right spot and turning it to the right position.

“There was an opportunity to really gaze at them,” she said.

Carly Glovinski started this series during the COVID-19 pandemic. The artist colored the sand by hand and arranged it in recycled jars to capture the colors of the setting sun. The vessels remind Bianco of canning and preserving food, a task one might undertake before the long days of winter.

“These jars are read as both objects and souvenirs, attempting to catch a memory of place and time, as well as our surrender to the perpetual cycle of day and night,” Bianco said.

Bianco finds winter sunsets to be the most spectacular.

“They are more fleeting than ever, and perhaps that’s why they seem more profound to me,” Bianco said. “When I look at these jars, they’re very evocative. They make me think of those moments and, more broadly, the astronomical connections between the land and the air and beyond.”

The Farnsworth will close at 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve and is closed on Christmas Day. It is typically open Wednesdays through Mondays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Jan. 1, hours change for the season, and the museum will also be closed on Mondays. For more information, visit farnsworthmuseum.org or call 207-596-6457.

“Blue Night” by Byron Kim

Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville

In 1986, artist Byron Kim attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. “Blue Night” was inspired by his time walking in the Maine woods, looking up at the night sky and the tree canopy.

Elisa Germán, curator of works on paper and Whistler studies, said the unexpected perspective of this piece also offers a different approach to traditional depictions of landscapes. Kim, who is Korean American, often reflects on race and place in his work.

“You’re seeing it through his eyes,” Germán said. “It makes you go back and forth and question how American landscape has changed.”

“Blue Night” is on display through February in a new gallery of works on paper. Because these materials are extremely sensitive to light, Germán will rotate them every six months. Kim made this piece by shaping wet linen pulp, she said, which dried as a single smooth sheet of paper.

“It’s really hard to light,” she said. “It’s really hard to view in a frame. It challenges you to get up close, which is something I like about works on paper. You lose that distance that you sometimes have when something is on a pedestal.”

Colby College Museum of Art is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. On Thursdays, the galleries stay open until 9 p.m. The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve and closed on Christmas Day. For more information, visit museum.colby.edu or call 207-859-5600.

“An Untamed Yet Ancestral Howling” by Yowshien Kuo

Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston

This painting seems a scene out of a folk take, the kind in which critters make mischief in the night.

“It’s just very moody without being too ominous,” assistant curator Samantha Sigmon said. “There’s something fun there. There’s some humor there. It’s not taking dark in the way it might be depressing or upsetting.”

And folk painting is an important inspiration for artist Yowshien Kuo. “An Untamed Yet Ancestral Howling” is on view through March 15 as part of “Across Common Grounds: Contemporary Art Across the Center.” The show focuses on art made in rural places and outside of exclusive urban art centers. Kuo is Taiwanese American and lives in St. Louis, and Sigmon said his work often explores Asian American identity and Midwestern stereotypes.

“He’s playing off these folk tales of Americana, turning that in sometimes a darker and more humorous way,” she said.

This nocturnal scene is painted in deep blues, and gold leaf foil adds a glint of moonlight and magic.

“It evokes a dark whimsy that I think we might need when the times are very dark, literally or metaphorically,” Sigmon said.

Bates College Museum of Art is closed for winter break from Dec. 23 to Jan. 1. Normal hours are Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. F0r more information, visit bates.edu/museum or call 207-786-6158.

 

“Estaño Maldito (Cursed Tin)” by Alejandro Mario Yllanes

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick

As a boy, Alejandro Mario Yllanes worked in the tin mines of Bolivia. Years later, he studied law but decided he could bring about greater change as an artist. He often highlighted the exploitation of Indigenous workers, as he does in this painting.

“It clearly meditates on the darkness of the mines, the experience of being deep underground,” co-director Anne Goodyear said. “But I also love the way lighting functions in this painting. There is a vividness to the figures who are illuminated as though from within. I think there is a way in which Yllanes is determined to capture the dignity of individuals even as they may face these dire circumstances.”

Yllanes rose to prominence in his lifetime but disappeared in 1946 for reasons still unknown. This year, the Bowdoin College museum because the first U.S. institution to acquire one of his paintings.

“I hope that there will be a lot more work being done on him in the not-too-distant future, which is one of the reasons I thought he would be an exciting figure to bring forward at this moment as we begin to think not only about the shortening of the days, but their lengthening as well,” Goodyear said.

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. It will be closed from Dec. 23 to Jan. 6 for winter break. For more information, visit bowdoin.edu/art-museum or call 207-725-3275.

“Nevada Moonrise Metal Fold” by Letha Wilson

Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland

Artist Letha Wilson made this image while photographing the sunset in the Nevada wilderness.

“She turns around, and she sees the moonrise,” Hilary Schaffner, an independent curator who lives in Portland, said.

That image is the focus of this work, which is included in a solo exhibition titled “Cut, Bend, Burn” at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Schaffner said it is an example of the way Wilson experiments with material; the photograph is printed on a thin sheet of aluminum and bent in a geometric pattern.

“It’s beautifully sculptural, but it feels incredibly delicate,” Schaffner said. “It’s a great symbol of this line that we all walk with the natural environment, and how actually tenuous it all is.”

For Schaffner, the darkness of this season presents a challenge.

“I sometimes need to be told to slow down, and I appreciate that the seasons are guiding me in those ways,” she said. “For me, Letha’s work has a beautiful tension in it between light and dark, between the strength and the fragility of the material. That really mimics the way I feel about winter season coming, and it’s an excitement and a trepidation.”

“Cut, Bend, Burn” is on view at the CMCA through Jan. 12. The museum is open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed on Christmas Day. For more information, visit cmcanow.org or call  207-701-5005.

“Big Moon (Blue Night, Pink Glowing Trees, August, Cushing, 2021)” by Ann Craven

Portland Museum of Art

Ann Craven, who spends summers in Cushing, is a dedicated plein air painter.

“She’ll situate herself outside and in near total darkness,” said Ramey Mize, associate curator of American art. “She might have some candlelight to guide her, but she’s having to work from a palette largely from memory. There’s no light to pinpoint which pigment she’s using.”

In 1999, a fire destroyed Craven’s studio and much of her work, a devastating loss that Mize said still informs her work today. She often includes the time the painting was made in its title — in this case, August 2021 — which locates it in a particular moment. The moon, in all its phases, is a recurring subject.

Mize found herself drawn to the glow of the moon on the water in this painting in the same way she is drawn to the twinkle of holiday lights on these dark nights.

“With the sun being scarce, we can lean on the moon a little more,” Mize said.

The Portland Museum of Art is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with extended hours until 8 p.m. on Fridays. The museum is closed on Christmas Day. For more information, visit portlandmuseum.org or call 207-775-6148.

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