SevenArts Local Artisan Gallery opens in Ellsworth
Seven colors in the rainbow. Seven wonders of the ancient world. Seven samurai, seven dwarfs, and seven days of the week. Good things come in sevens. So when the SevenArts Local Artisan Gallery opened last weekend in the old Masonic Hall on Main Street in downtown Ellsworth, it made sense, numerologically and business-wise.
SevenArts is run by seven Down East artists and artisans who banded together to both sell their works and help build the creative community in Ellsworth, with its burgeoning art scene. Two heads are better than one — and seven is even better.
Dede Schmitt, Marko Schmitt, Julia Ventresco, Julie Havener, Michael Miller, Kim Walker, and Linda and Ken Perrin all share a similar outlook on art, though the mediums in which they work are all different. Dede Schmitt, a jeweler and metalsmith, and Marko Schmitt, a painter, got the idea for SevenArts after a trip to California last year.
“We visited Gallery Seven, a space run by the artist John Eagle in Laguna Beach,” said Dede Schmitt, who makes bold, earthy, silver-and-stone jewelry. “It’s run by seven artists who banded together to run a space. It’s a great business model for artists, especially if you don’t want to run a shop full time. None of us did. But we figured, if we got seven artists together and each worked one day, and divided up the expenses, it could work really well.”
Ads were placed in local newspapers, looking for five more artists and artisans who could commit to sharing the cost and working one day a week. Early signers-on included Julia Ventresco, an Ellsworth artist known for her one-of-a-kind bags and funky aprons made from recycled paper and fabrics, and Julia Havener, a fiber artist from Northeast Harbor who hand-makes unbelievably soft wool into hats, and fine and vintage fabrics into bags and clothing.
