5733-R2_CIC_June2018_Calendar_Web

Marty’s Memories: Martha Hamilton, Chebeague Community Artist by Marty Trower

As I was gobbling up the years, striving to just keep things going, meeting obligations, and balancing work and play, I don’t think I ever stopped to notice and appreciate how community members were influencing me. Then, a few weeks ago, Michael Hamilton showed up at my door with a box of random art supplies that had belonged to his mother, Martha Hamilton, and before that, to her artist father, Fred KomLosy. I was touched by this gesture and so very honored. After he left, I sat for hours on my kitchen floor picking through the dust-covered vessels of exquisite tools for making marks and swipes of color. I touched each of them slowly, thinking. I moved through a pile of papers, feeling the nap of watercolor paper, seeing the transparency of tracing paper and imagined possibilities of the blank canvas boards, and held my breath in awe. I don’t know whether I am the one to do justice to these treasured gifts; my confidence has always been lagging. Yet somehow, through the years Martha showed me how to lead an artistic life within a community. It wasn’t about producing works for a show and making a living from making art. It was more about relating to the people, the place, and the goings on in our unique island setting. And creating art.

Making posters, designing sets for plays, doing art projects with the schoolchildren, illustrating what needed to be done—the new Town of Chebeague Island seal, the library’s seagull logo—these skills poured continuously from Martha the way words flow from writers. I benefitted from many bits of advice Martha offered from her years of experimenting with every type of material she touched. Now, when I gather pottery shards on the beach I remember Martha’s words to me. “You must soak the pieces in a pan of some bleach and more water,” she’d warned, “otherwise the salt will leach out later and spoil your drawing. “Well, I never do draw on those surfaces, but Martha did, tiny black and white scenes on those smooth white shapes that became jewels at craft fairs. Around the time of what would turn out to be the last Christmas season for Martha, I asked her to come to the school and give her popular workshop on paper snowflake cutting to the children. She willingly came and wielded scissors like a pro, and like magic, unfolding cascades of intricate white shapes appeared in front of the gaping mouths of already charged holiday-anticipating kids. Martha never seemed to lose her enthusiasm for making art nor of imparting the joys of making it to others.

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JUNE 2018 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR