SOLON MAINE, VIA CHINA AND ROME

On the first Sunday in November, the weather was gray and indifferent, not pleasant enough to encourage outside chores, not bad enough to stay inside with a book.   Even as I was contemplating this dilemma, knowing that outdoor chores were really the correct answer, the phone rang.   It was Sidekick, in much the same mood, wondering if I might be interested in a road trip 'up' to the Colby College Art Museum in Waterville (although actually due west a couple of hours, like all trips inland in Maine, it feels 'up').  Road trip with a favorite partner in crime or chores?  The decision took about 1.3 seconds.

On the outskirts of China, a Greek Revival farmhouse with beautiful Ionic columns

 

Further down the road, this handsome whitewashed brick Federal was once the summer home of Ellerton Jette, who was the chairman of the Hathaway Shirt Company, whose long defunct factory was once Waterville's major employer.  Here was housed much of the collection of American art that Jette later donated to  the Colby Art Museum.

For those too young to remember, 'The Man in The Hathaway Shirt' was one of the most successful ad campaigns of all time.  Hathaway was a small regional manufacturer when Ellerton Jette went to David Ogilvy, then arguably the most powerful man in advertising, with a tiny budget and convinced him to take on the Hathaway account.  The rest is history.  When the Dilettante was little, Dunham's of Waterville, with its rows of pastel oxford button downs was where we all got supplied with our Hathaway shirts and Bass Weejun loafers.

Not quite two hours later, after a drive through China, we arrived at Colby. The  campus is a handsome one, created in the 1930's.  It is a classic of its era, the creation of one Dr. Bixler, then the ambitious president of what the then small regional college.  Sitting on  Mayflower Hill, its Georgian buildings and quadrangles were inspired by the great early Universities, including Harvard and the University of Virginia.

The original 19th century Colby College Campu

The centerpiece is the Miller Library, a  Colonial Revival building with a whiff of Independence Hall in its architecture.  191 feet high, it was, until the 1970s the tallest building in Maine.  (Since you ask, the current tallest building is an apartment building in Portland.  At 203 feet, it ranks 46th or 47th---depending on how you interpret the Wikipedia information---among each State's tallest buildings.  Only Vermont, North Dakota, and Wyoming rank higher, I mean, lower.)

The Miller Library on the 'new' campus at Colby College, for years the tallest building in Maine.

We parked and strode to the museum entrance,  only to be confronted with a chain link fence with a sign that said 'Closed for Renovation until November 8th'.  We had checked the schedule online before leaving home, and on the museum's schedule page found no evidence that the museum was anything but open.  As it turned out, the closure was mentioned on the home page, but we had googled 'schedule', thus by-passing that page.  You'd think those smart people at the museum would have troubled to mention it on their schedule page also, wouldn't you?  Thank-you.  So would I.  Especially on the schedule page.  Really.

The museum was closed to prepare for the construction of the new Lunder Pavilion, to house a collection of artworks donated by the Lunder family, heirs to the Dexter Shoe fortune.  While I find it a handsome design, I question the agressive way in which it breaks scale with the surrounding buildings.

Colby's collection is well worth the visit.  Among the works we didn't see that day are:

John Singleton Copley
Mrs. Metcalf Bowler (Anne Fairchild), 1758-1759
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ellerton M. Jetté

Winslow Homer
The Trapper, 1870
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Harold T. Pulsifer

John Marin
Stonington, Maine, 1923
Watercolor and charcoal on paper
21 3/4 in. x 26 1/4 in.
Gift of John Marin, Jr. and Norma B. Marin

Fairfield Porter
Stephen and Kathy, 1963
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase from the Jere Abbott Acquisitions Fund

Regrouping, we decided to save the day by going through Rome---and then continuing on to South Solon and visit the South Solon meeting house, with its amazing frescoed walls, for our dose of art.  

In Norridgewock, on the banks of the Kennebec, this 18th century tavern hangs on, barely....

Hungry, we stopped for lunch in Skowhegan, an old mill town on the Kennebec,  where a few years ago HBO filmed 'Empire Falls', based on the novel of the same name by Richard Russo, about...an old mill town.  The first time I went to Skowhegan, decades ago, the last log drive was taking place on the Kennebec---millions of logs being floated downriver for processing.  Not environmentally sound, but a stirring sight nevertheless.

The last log drive on the Kennebec.  In places, one sees the Kennebec as it appeared 240 years earlier, when Benedict Arnold led his troops upriver to Quebec during the American Revolution

The 'Empire Grill',  the old diner from the movie, had closed, and a sports bar offered no sustenance.  On the strip heading out of town, we found a family restaurant, in what appeared to be a converted Pizza Hut---the architecture is unmistakeable.  Perhaps here I should mention that a friend refers to the road out of Skowhegan as 'the driveway to Quebec', and one definitely senses the French Canadian influence in the area culture. 

For these two hungry tourists, the defining moment was when we spotted Poutine on the menu.   Somehow, in a lifetime of trying all foods bad for me, this one had eluded me, a Canadian logger favorite of French Fries covered with brown gravy (ever the effete elitist, I was about to type 'sauce', but in fact, it was gravy) and melted cheese curd, and in our case, crumbled bacon.  Appalling in concept, delicious in execution.

Poutine.  Okay, so it wasn't Lutece, but trust me, we licked the plate clean.

We reached Solon in the mid-afternoon bellies full, arteries clogged (did I mention that we also had the restaurant's home-made meatloaf sandwich, well prepared and delicious---comfort food on a crisp fall day,on the largest slices of bread I have ever, ever, ever seen?  It was a sandwich for Brobdinagians).  Solon is an old town, its streets lined with handsome buildings that have see better days.  In this part of Maine, the way of life is often hard, employment scarce, and the smug pleasures of the coast, romanticized and ordered to the satisfaction of the well to do, are far behind.

Up in the middle of nowhere:  the Solon hotel anchors the town.  A friend said 'Oh yeah, the Solon hotel.  R.E.M. played there'.  One learns to expect the unexpected in rural Maine.

As in most of early 19th century Maine villages in more prosperous times, the evidence of talented builders using Asher Benjamin's pattern books for inspiration can be found.  This lovely little Greek Revival doorway, complete with triglyphs and metopes (however oddly spaced in the apex of the pediment) can be found on a Cape on Solon's Main Street.  In this part of Maine, tin roofs are the norm

Across the street, this oddly shallow 19th century house, not even 12 feet deep,  is irresistable.

The road to South Solon

A handful of early 19th century farmhouses survive on this high ridge--this example has escaped modernization, and has yet another lovely pattern book door surround.   It sometimes seems that the early builders could do no wrong.

At the meeting house, we spent a happy hour marveling at the 1950's frescoes in the late afternoon fall light.  While there, we were charmed by the appearance of a young man who had grown up in the neighborhood and had brought his son to see the murals and the pew where his father had sat when he was a boy.   For a full account of the Meeting House and its frescoes, please click HERE

We decided to go home by way of Athens, and mapped out our trip, only to find that the road petered out to a single dirt lane.   With the light waning, we decided this was not the day to be lost driving about the woods of Maine, and turned around and head down to I-95.   All was not lost, though, for we were rewarded on that back road by this view of Saddleback Mountain and the Rangeley hills an hour distant.

Leaving the Meeting House, a rainbow illuminated a sky that echoed that of the frescoes within

The view from a field near Athens. 

(Skowhegan was also the home town of Maine's estimable Senator, Margaret Chase Smith. In this season of really silly presidential hopefuls, here story is worth recounting.  Click HERE for the Dilettante on Mrs. Chase)

The Frescoes of South Solon Maine

The Dilettante's curiosity frequently diverts him from his intended path.  This was the case a couple of Sundays ago, as I was returning from Newport, Rhode Island, where I'd viewed an exhibit of Gothic art in the opulence of Marble House.   It was a grayish day, with more than a hint of late fall, but as I reached Fairfield, Maine, the sun broke through, and I decided to veer off I-95 and head up to see the South Solon Meeting House, a place I'd known about for 45 years, and had always wanted to see, and on this day I decided the time had come.

To get to South Solon takes some perseverance.  One drives up Rte. 102 to Skowhegan, and then up Lakewood Avenue and out of town, on the path for Canada.   The convenience stores and car lots of outer Skowhegan rapidly give way to open country----hardscrabble farmland, fewer houses, more forests.  It's a wilder, poorer, remoter Maine than the one on the south, coastal, side of Interstate 95.   As I approached Solon, I kept watching for some sign that I was there---I knew I was south of Solon village proper, and logic dictated that I must be in South Solon now, but nothing, almost literally nothing, was to be seen to give a clue.

The next day was the opening of hunting season, a serious event in this part of Maine, and in the village, I stopped to ask how to find South Solon and the meeting house at a convenience store adorned with a huge banner welcoming the hunters who would be arriving the next day.   The nice guy at the store directed me 'a mile back down the road, turn at the Quonset hut, and go about two miles'.  He said the road would get 'wicked curvy', and he did not lie.  It also went relentlessly uphill on its winding way, and after passing a certain elevation, I found myself driving on the first snow covered ground of the season, past evergreens and stone walls frosted with fresh snow.   At the crossroads, where once a little village had prospered, there now remained only a couple of old farmhouses, and the object of my quest, the 1842 meeting house.  It sat on its corner, a spartan little early clapboard structure in the beautiful, unlikey, mix of Gothic and Greek revivals that is often seen in New England Churches, a wonderful contrast to the Gothic and classical splendors I'd just seen in Newport.  The sun had disappeared again, and I went inside, to view the wonder of South Solon Maine.

The South Solon Meeting house interior has been barely altered since construction, with only original coats of paint on what few surfaces ever were painted.   The interior is spartan, no more than is needed, with the box pew of an earlier age, and a high pulpit reached by double staircase, from which each Sunday the parson would endeavor to save his flock from eternal damnation.

Ah, but are you still with me?  As beautiful as I find all of this, it alone would not be enough to take me so far out of my way late on a chilly afternoon.  No, the real astonishment of this isolated structure is a series of frescoes covering  the walls and ceilings of the entire interior, executed in the 1950's by students at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.   The Sistine Chapel it isn't, and in fact the overall effect is both odd and beautiful, but the story of how this unexpected New England evocation of an Italian hill church came to be is fascinating.

As I was walking toward this section, the pew door quietly and slowly swung open.  It happened to be Halloween

The Skowhegan School was founded in 1946, concurrent with the rise of the New York School,  by portraitist Willard Cummings, muralist Henry Varnum Poor, stone sculptor Charles Cutler, and Sidney Simon.  It was, and remains, an art school governed by artists, and has been an influential presence in the American art scene since its inception.

A faculty seminar at the Skowhegan School in 1967

L-R:  Robert Mangold, Philip Pearlstein, James McGarrell, Sidney Hurwitz, Henry Varnum Poor, Ann Poor, and Ben Shahn (Skowhegan School Archives Photograph)

 In 1951,  Margaret Blake, a trustee of the Chicago Art Institute, who had been visiting the Skowhegan School, was driving on the back roads and came upon the Meeting House.  Moved by its shabby, untouched interior, she had the idea of a cooperative art project between the school and the church.  Working with the school, Mrs. Blake set up the 'Margaret Blake Fellowships For Decoration in True Fresco of the South Solon Meeting House'. A further statement was made that while there were to be no limitations in subject matter, the religious character of the non-sectarian building should be considered, and should have meaning for those whose worshiped there.  A national competition was held, and 11 artists were chosen.  The work was completed five years later, in 1956.

Frescoes on a convex wall in the narrow vestibule show the story of the meeting house, from original building to dedication of the paintings, with Mrs. Blake holding a bouquet of roses

The wall behind the pulpit, by William King.  The ceiling fresco is by Edwin Brooks

Sidney Hurwitz applying plaster to the wall for his fresco (Photograph by Paul Cordes, Down East Magazine Nov. 1957)

Michiline Beaumont and Philip Bornath transferring a design to the wall (Cordes, Down East(

The curved wall at the rear depicts the Gospel of St. Mark, painted by Ashley Bryan

The choir loft above is the work of John Wallace, Judith Shuman and Sigmund Abeles

(Unfortunately, it was a gray afternoon just before dusk, and this wall defied either available light or flash)

 One of Sidney Hurwitz's frescoes, flanking the Bryan mural.

Detail from a fresco at the top of the winding stair to the choir loft

A sprig of scented geranium, mysteriously and touchingly attached to a bench in the choir loft

View from the choir loft.  The frescoes on the right, by Thomas Mikkelson, depict scenes from the New Testament

Choir Loft Fresco

Another view of the Mikkelson mural

A 19th century pump organ is the newest furnishing in the Meeting House

View from choir loft to fresco depicting the trials of Job and the story of Abraham and Isaac by Alfred Blaustein

 In recent years, with the aid of grants, considerable funds have been expended on the conservation of the frescoes, now in the care of the South Solon Historical Society.  In 2007, a grant from the Maine Humanities Council supported the return of several of the artists, to discuss their work on the Meeting House.

Ashley Bryan working on his fresco on the curved rear wall

50 odd years later, Bryan returns to South Solon to discuss his part in the fresco project, and his subsequent career as an illustrator. (Garrett-Young photograph, Maine Humanities Council)

The South Solon Free Meeting House, never locked, is open year round.  Heat is not an option in cooler weather.

The Dilettante is indebted to an article by Lew Dietz, in Down East Magazine for Nov-Jan. 1957 for much of the information in this post.