Abby Shahn
Abby Shahn chose to move to Maine from New York City in the late ’60s and has lived and worked in rural Maine ever since. Her main studio is a separate building in the field behind her house and is heated with wood and has no running water. She also keeps a small studio in her home in order to work when the weather doesn’t allow her to make the walk to her primary studio.
“I feel that the isolation from the ‘art world’ and from current trends in art has had both good and bad effects.... I’m more than glad to be free of the dictates of style and of the marketplace. I like my ideas to develop at their own pace. I love growing my garden, tending my fires, picking wild mushrooms, etc. At the same time, I feel fortunate to be part of a loose group of artists scattered around in the boondocks who have evolved in many different ways, sometimes overlapping with current ideas floating around the “big city”, sometimes veering off in crazy and unexpected directions. The artists that I’ve come to know here have been a constant source of inspiration to me.”
Read the Portland Press Herald article titled 50 Years of Abby Shahn
