A floral arrangement by Chelsy Gilroy sits below an acrylic painting by Annie McLain titled “Star Girl #4” in an exhibition at Merrill Memorial Library in Yarmouth, called “Love Unfolded.” Nick Ressel / For The Forecaster
February in Maine can often feel bleak, lacking a certain vibrancy and fervor that seems to bountifully fill other months of the year. But inside Yarmouth’s Merrill Memorial Library Art Gallery, the current group art exhibition – titled “Love Unfolded” – emits a sharp burst of life within the doldrums of winter, offering an emotive exploration into how love can blossom and reveal itself over time.
For three years, the Yarmouth Arts Alliance has hosted a show centered around Valentine’s Day and the theme of love, inviting both visual artists and florists to display their work. This year, the show carried the same theme with a slightly new lens: to investigate what it means for love to unfold.
Emily Blaschke, co-chair of the YAA Gallery Committee and artist in the exhibition, said that she wanted to do something different with this year’s theme to open up and expand the scope of the show.
“We had a comic artist, photographer and a stitcher who also does printmaking … it was a little more mixed this year than just painting,” she noted.
During the show’s conception, Blaschke explained that she was inspired to combine visual and floral art by the “Art in Bloom” event at the Portland Museum of Art, an annual display where artists design floral installations inspired by a piece in the museum’s collection.
Running from early January until the end of March, the exhibit features 12 visual artists and five floral bouquet designers. On Feb. 10, the YAA held a reception to celebrate and showcase the artists’ work to the public.
Filling the gallery’s two rooms, paintings, photographs and fiber arts hang affixed to the wall while brimming bouquets sit below or beside the artwork, creating a vibrant experience where petals and blossoms are put into conversation with acrylics on canvas or expansive collages.
While the collection of art offers a range of insights into this year’s theme, a placard at the exhibit explains “‘Love Unfolding’ is a poetic or metaphorical expression that can imply the gradual revelation or blossoming of love over time. It suggests that love, like a flower, opens up or becomes more apparent as time passes, revealing deeper layers, emotions, or understanding.”
Jill Thomas, one of the exhibit’s floral artists, is a longtime Yarmouth resident and has participated in the show since its first year. Thomas, who owns the business Timber and Moss Floral, said the show was a great platform to promote her floral enterprise during its infancy and has been an excellent way to connect with a network of local artists.
“It is just such a great community event,” she said.
She noted, “When you think of flowers, you do not think of black and white,” but this year Thomas designed a monochromatic bouquet to complement a similar theme in Annie Witte’s ink illustrations, a fellow artist and friend to her.
While the bouquets are only at the gallery for the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, the rest of the art will be remain on display and available for purchase until the show wraps up at the end of March. The exhibit is open to the public during regular hours at Merrill Memorial Library.
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