You would be well-challenged to name another art museum anywhere in the world blessed with the beauty of location possessed by the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (OMAA). This absolute jewel of a museum is so strategically positioned on such a picturesque piece of coastal Maine property that visitors are often torn between whether to continue mindfully appreciating the exhibited art or allow their senses to be irretrievably seduced by the beguiling kaleidoscope of coastline magnificence surrounding that art. Sun glinting off of salt water. Slick and craggy rocks. Lobster boats entering and leaving Perkins Cove. Stone-strewn and rugged coastal ravines where effervescent waves splash, sizzle and gurgle. All of this natural splendor — and more — is part and parcel of the experience of visiting the OMAA. Indeed, the Southern Maine coastline is an extension of the museum property itself … [Read more...] about VISUALLY ARRESTING, PROFOUNDLY CONTEMPLATIVE

Jennifer Jean Okumura is a lot like her paintings: inviting, precise and composed of a soft power. We speak one sunny morning in her Harrison Avenue studio, where she has been creating art for the past 10 years. Across the room from a few of her dreamy works, we launch into conversation about the artist’s earliest influences. Though a visiting artist during her junior year of high school offered a decisive push to pursue art, from a young age she was compelled to create. When her mother decided the backs of math tests were not adequate surfaces for her daughter’s doodles, she hung large sheets of paper on the wall for Okumura to mark with drawings. There must be tens of them, rolled up, still in her childhood home outside Philadelphia. Okumura has always been an observer and an explorer, unafraid of (and perhaps drawn to) the unknown. As a teen she spent many afternoons venturing … [Read more...] about TRANSMIT. TRANSCRIBE. TRANSFORM.