Celebrate Nature, Art and Creativity in Maine.
Wendell Gilley delighted in helping others find connections with nature and creativity. Our Museum sustains his legacy through vibrant art exhibitions and a wide range of hands-on creative and educational programs for all ages.
Watch a video about Wendell Gilley.
Gilley Community Art Show 2020
We got creative in 2020, offering classes and workshops outside, via livestream, and on our website. And our community responded by getting creative, too. Scroll through our slideshow to see all the art, and click on individual photos to find out more about an individual piece. To submit a photo of something you created, email it to Melinda Rice-Schoon at mel@wendellgilleymuseum.org.
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Little Big Year: Chasing Acadia's Birds with Rich MacDonald
We are excited to welcome Bar Harbor naturalist and birding expert Rich MacDonald to the Gilley on Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 7pm (livestreamed on Facebook) to talk about "Little Big Year: Chasing Acadia's Birds," his first book. A combination of travelogue, nature essays and autobiography, it chronicles a year in his birding life as he seeks and finds birds in Acadia National Park and the rest of Hancock County, Maine. There is no charge for this event which will stream live on our Facebook page HERE.
Gilley to host Birds in Art in 2021
The Wendell Gilley Museum is honored to host Birds in Art from June 11 through Aug. 14, 2021. It will include a new piece by Maine artist Sherrie York, a friend of the Gilley who conducted a popular printmaking class here in 2020. An international juried show, the exhibition includes work by a wide range of accomplished contemporary artists, who offer their unique interpretations of the avian world in a variety of media. Birds in Art is organized by the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, and following its debut there, 60 artworks embark on a national tour to a select venues each year. This will be the third visit of Birds in Art to the Gilley and we cannot wait to share the exhibit with you.
Visit our online Activity Library
Visit our Learn & Do page for lots of fun and inspiring online art projects, created by local artists. You'll find videos about using clay, collage and collotype printmaking to create your own birds, as well as a download-able project to make mythological bird gods and goddesses. And there's a video by Ashley Bryan featuring his book "Beautiful Blackbird." We'll be adding more videos and projects during the fall and winter, so check back often.
Gilley launches Digital Scrapbook
The Gilley is excited to announce the creation of a Digital Scrapbook in honor of our artist-in-residence, Steve Valleau. Steve has been with the museum for more than 35 years, and a lot of people have taken classes with him over the years. Were you one of them? Did you take a class with him? Carve a bird you still have? Gained an insight or had some fun? We want to know about it, and we've created a special page on our website just for that purpose. Submit you memories, observations, or photos to the new page on our website HERE.
