Oh, the glory days of summer! Don't let them pass you by without stopping in at the Museum! As you'll read below, we have several all-new exhibitions on view to enchant, educate, and inspire! Plus, our Museum Shop has some new exhibition-related merchandise and publications to tantalize you. Help make this our best summer yet! See you soon!
Sincerely,
The Brick Store Museum | |
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Live Little! 
Where else can you see a log cabin, a general store, a houseboat, a church, a Victorian mansion, a woodworking shop, several homes, and more all under one roof? In miniature at the Brick Store Museum's newest exhibition, of course!
These are just a few of the not-so-small wonders from the Museum and on loan from private collections that will fascinate you as part of Living Little: A Selection of Dollhouses and Architectural Models. On view through the end of 2008, this exhibition just opened on July 20 but has already welcomed hundreds of visitors--from toddlers to architects to miniatures enthusiasts of all ages! Especially fun is an "I Spy..."scavenger hunt activity that challenges kids to locate certain items within the various scenes.  You'll see dollhouses and models as hobbies, as forms of collecting, and as catalysts for compelling stories that transcend generations. Accompanying many of the dollhouses are sequences of photographs. Artistic in their own right, the images also serve to spotlight specific details and show aspects or vantage points that might otherwise not be readily apparent. With no comparative sense of scale in these engaging photographs, the rooms depicted are easily mistaken as full-size, and it's not much of a leap to envision yourself in the scene!
So, enter a miniature world where everything is just as you like it. For a time, try "living little."
This exhibition is made possible by the Museum's proud business partners: Jeffrey A. Bonney, CFP®, Captain Lord Mansion and Ocean Bank. |
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History Campers' Vintage Vacation Creations  On July 19, the museum was one very busy place because of our 5th annual History Camp! Developed by the Museum's Education Committee, this year's camp for kids ages 8 to 13 was made possible by the Dorothy Fish Fund for Furthering Edith Barry's Legacy.
With the theme of "Vintage Vacation Creations," all of the activities had a connection with our exhibitions underway this season. For example, the kids learned about the history of decorative hand-held fans and then made their own fans to complement our current History Showcase: Fanfare for Summer. They even invented and wrote exhibition labels on their fans' respective histories. Then they created oversized postcards as a prelude to our upcoming postcard exhibition to be entitled, Mailed from Maine. The final project of the day was a direct tie-in with the new Living Little exhibition showcasing dollhouses and architectural models. Using fine stationery boxes generously supplied by our proud Business Partner, William Arthur, Inc., the children created with remarkable ingenuity their very own museum galleries in miniature. The final touch was to place scale cut-outs of themselves in their museums as either visitors or directors!
Literally hundreds of people saw the kids' projects as they were left on view in the Museum for the week after the camp. |
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Salon Style  If you haven't ventured to our second-floor gallery in a while, you're in for a treat! At the beginning of July, we installed Salon Style, so named for the artistic display format made popular by private collectors of the 18th and 19th centuries to showcase their holdings.
 For our very own "salon," we have selected 32 paintings--including many that have not been on public view in years--to create an impressive cavalcade of primarily American art from the 1830s to the 1920s. Stunning still lifes, idyllic landscapes, and heroic seascapes are interspersed among genre paintings and portraiture of early Kennebunk notables. Featured artists include Josef Arentz (1903-1969), Thomas Badger (1792-1868), Abbott Fuller Graves (1859-1936), E. L. Ipsen (1869-1951), W. L. Metcalf (1858-1925), Hannah Brown Skeele (1829-1901), and D. A. Teupken (1828-1859).
This ongoing exhibition is made possible by the Museum's proud business partners: Jeffrey A. Bonney, CFP®, Captain Lord Mansion and Ocean Bank. | |
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Business Partners Support Museum
Join us in welcoming Richard G. Roy Masonry & Excavating as an all-new, proud Business Partner of the Museum. We're also pleased to welcome back the Captain Jefferds Inn, which has renewed as a Business Partner for 2008-2009. We truly appreciate these businesses' valuable support for our mission and year-round operations; let them know that you do, too! We look forward to continuing these relationships and hope others will join the ranks as proud Business Partners.
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The Brick Store Museum is located at 117 Main Street in the heart of Kennebunk's National Register Historic District. For more than 70 years, the Museum has been dedicated to preserving the Kennebunks' rich cultural and artistic heritage. Its galleries and research archives are open year-round (closed holidays), Tuesdays-Fridays, 10-4:30 and Saturdays, 10-1. Admission is by donation; suggested $5/person. For more information, check us out at www.brickstoremuseum.org, or give us a call at 207.985.4802. | |
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Plan a "Stay-cation" 
Adventures lie just outside your front door! With traffic and fuel costs these days, remaining close to home and planning a "Stay-cation" can be a fun alternative to distance travel.
Here's an itinerary that makes downtown Kennebunk your playground for an upcoming weekday:
- 10-11:30AM - Visit the Brick Store Museum to see the Living Little and Salon Style exhibits. Test your powers of observation with the "I Spy" scavenger hunt.
- 11:30 -11:45AM- Walk to one of the local eateries and order lunch "to go."
- 11:45AM-1PM - Bring your food back to the Museum's courtyard (see photo) and enjoy a picnic lunch, surrounded by history and unique architecture.
- 1-2:30PM - Take a guided walking tour of Kennebunk's National Register Historic District, available through the Museum. (Please call 985-4802 first to reserve a time.)
- 2:30-4PM - Leisurely stroll down Main Street to shop in the quaint stores and maybe even enjoy an ice cream cone!
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Upcoming...
Mailed from Maine exhibition
September 27, 2008
Smithsonian Museum Day
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. . .that our copy of the September 13, 1850, issue of The Union newspaper of Saco is among the only ones still in existence?
Because of this, our copy was sought out by the Early American Newspapers Project, a joint venture of the American Antiquarian Society and Readex.
A representative came to the Museum in June to temporarily borrow this document for digital scanning and microfilming at a special facility in Vermont. Thereafter, it will be added to a massive database of early American newspapers, where it will be even more broadly available to researchers. |
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Check out our "artifact of the month"
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E-Newsletter Sponsored by our Proud Business Partners:
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