Artist in Residence
The Bauman Artist-in-Residence program provides an annual opportunity for local artists to create works that reflect the diverse history and cultures of Kennebunk through various art forms.
Each Artist-in-Residence holds the position for three months, during which they are expected to create a Final Project—a work of art, play, music, or other creative piece— to be added to the Museum’s collection. Additionally, the artist will offer at least one public program, such as a workshop or artist talk, sharing their expertise with the community. Throughout the residency, the artist will also contribute to the Museum’s Artist Blog on its website.
The Museum’s focus on the history, art, and cultures of Kennebunk, Maine, encourages artists to create work inspired by the town, drawing from the Museum’s collections and embracing a variety of mediums, including photography, printmaking, sculpture, video, drawings, educational works, and new media.
The Bauman Artist-in-Residence is funded by the generous support of the Bauman Family Foundation.
About the Program
Eligibility: All local artists of any medium are invited to apply, including (but not limited to): paint, illustration, writing, sculpture, performance, music, etc.
Length of Project: The Museum offers a 3-month “residency” on site at the Museum (housing is not provided, but workspace is).
To apply: Please submit an Artist Application (options below), your Artist Bio & CV, and a one-page project proposal with a realistic end goal that demonstrates your vision and how you will utilize the Museum’s collections in your work.
Expectations:
The Brick Store Museum is focused on the history, art and cultures of Kennebunk, Maine. Artists should create their work to focus on the town, using the Museum’s collections as inspiration. This can be done through all mediums of art ( including but not limited to photographs, printmaking, sculpture, videos, educational works, drawings, and other new media). The Artist is expected to produce produce a “tangible” result to be used at the Museum, for instance, a new artwork; performance; play; interpretive writing; etc. The Artist will lead a presentation of their resulting work, such as an artist talk, performance, tour, etc.
Prior to acceptance to the Program, staff and potential Resident will meet to discuss specifics of the project and the Museum’s expectations. The Artist will work with Museum staff for help with artifacts and access; and supplies that may be needed.
Benefits
1) Artist will receive a stipend after the completion of their work.
2) Artist’s work will be included in the Museum’s collections once complete.
3) Artist has opportunity to sell reproductions of their work(s) in Museum Store (or via programming tickets, if applicable) for commission, as described in Residency Agreement.
2026 Artist-in-Residence
Applications are now being accepted for the 2026 Artist-in-Residence. Please use the buttons below to submit your application digitally or via mail by the due date of April 30, 2026.
Support the Artist-in-Residence Fund
This program was launched thanks to the support of the Bauman Family Foundation in 2021. To build this Fund into the future, please consider supporting the Fund by clicking below.
Recent Artists-in-Residence
Joshua Lee Lennon, Winter 2026 Artist-in-Residence
Joshua Lee Lennon is a multidisciplinary artist from
Kennebunk, Maine, whose work spans collage, film, and mail art. He earned his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2022, and his short film Two Weeks After was featured at the Maine International Film Festival that same year.
Lennon’s artistic practice has taken him internationally. In 2023, he traveled through Israel and Morocco creating and distributing original postcard works before relocating to Athens, Greece, where he presented his first solo exhibition, COLLAGEWORKS, at o.art.ath. His second solo exhibition, POSTCARDS: 36 FEB 3026, followed in 2024 at Phoenix Athens Gallery. His work has also been featured in a mail art exhibition at MERZ Gallery in Scotland. In 2025, he completed a European tour personally delivering artworks to collectors, with showcases in Madrid and Lisbon, and a month-long residency at Prisma Estúdios.
As the Brick Store Museum’s Winter Artist in Residence, Lennon returned to Kennebunk to complete A Love Letter to Kennebunk, an atmospheric Super 8 film capturing the town as it existed in the summer of 2025. Approaching the project as both a lifelong resident and a returning observer, he allowed everyday moments and chance encounters to shape the film. The soundtrack was developed alongside the imagery and features field recordings, original songs, and compositions created in collaboration with local musicians Sam Vaccaro and Mike O’Hehir.
To celebrate the completion of the residency, the Museum will host a special take-home dinner and film viewing in February 2026.
Laura Dauphinais , Fall 2025 Artist-in-Residence
Laura, a lifelong photographer based on the south coast of Maine, specializing in landscape and wildlife photography. While she enjoys exploring a variety of genres, she is especially drawn to dramatic monochrome imagery, which first sparked her deeper interest in photography. Working in both black-and-white and color, Laura continues to sharpen her skills through a mix of hands-on field experience and ongoing learning with local and online photography experts, though she remains predominantly self-taught.
After spending much of her life behind the camera, Laura has embraced photography even more fully in retirement, finding joy in expanding her technical knowledge and creative practice. Prior to retiring, she built a 32-year career in engineering and later worked in career development at a local community college. She considers her greatest accomplishment to be raising her two sons. Her puggle, Zoey, is often by her side and has joined her on countless photography walks.
Laura currently uses her photography skills to support nonprofit organizations through event coverage, special projects, artifact photography, and the donation of framed work for fundraising auctions. Her images have appeared in books, catalogs, and both print and online media. In 2025, she held her first public exhibition in her hometown, featuring a collection of her favorite black-and-white photographs.
During her residency at the Brick Store Museum, Laura will develop a new exhibition titled Everyone’s a Photographer, opening in spring 2026. The exhibition will explore photography’s evolution from early cameras to today’s digital and AI-driven image culture, drawing from the Museum’s own archives and photography collection.
Paul Wells, Summer 2025 Artist-in-Residence
Paul F. Wells is a folklorist and musicologist who has had a lifetime of involvement with folk and popular music. He is the foundin
g director (emeritus) of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, one of the country’s largest and most respected music archives and research centers. He has published extensively in both the academic and popular presses and been active in numerous scholarly and professional organizations. He has produced more than 20 sound recordings (three of which were nominated for Grammy Awards); curated exhibits; produced concerts and radio programs; and organized regional and national conferences. With his wife, Sally Sommers Smith, he teaches a course on American folk music traditions at Boston University. He is a semi-professional musician, playing fiddle and guitar.
Since retiring to Kennebunk in 2010, Wells has enjoyed active involvement with the Brick Store Museum. The museum is co-publisher of his book, The Maine Musical Compendium, a collection of fiddle tunes from the era of Maine statehood. He and Sommers Smith co-produce the popular “Concerts in West K!” series for the museum. The monthly series has brought a mix of regionally-, nationally-, and internationally-known performers to Kennebunk.
For his residency, Wells plans to compose a musical work tentatively titled “The Village,” a suite of short pieces that evoke different aspects of life in a typical New England village in the antebellum era. Kennebunk serves as the model for the village, in an idealized, rather than literal, depiction of the town in its regional context. The music will be a combination of extant pieces, or quotes from them, and wholly new ones. All the elements will crafted together into an original whole. A public performance of the work, using local musicians, would be a desirable future outcome.
Diane Lent, 2024 Artist-in-Residence
During Diane Lent’s residency, she researched, wrote and performed Resonance of Passion: From Battlefield to the Sea. Lent used collections of letters between husbands and wives in the 19th century, now housed in the Museum’s archives, to bring the play to life.
Diane Lent is an artist, practicing in both the visual arts and the performance arts where she has always been a storyteller. When she paints, she challenges herself to capture the story in someone’s face for a portrait or the love the client has for that special place or pet. When she performs, she strives to touch the viewers heart so they feel the personality of character and have the audience understand the times the character lived in.
Diane’s love for history goes back to childhood and her family’s heritage. She was born in New Paltz NY which boasts having the oldest street in America with the original homes still on it. It was settled in 1678 by French Huguenots and she is related to all the original settlers. Because of her heritage she was a tour guide in those houses through high school. Back then they did not care as much about the exact history “just give them a good story” and Diane could tell a good story.
She went on to college majoring in both Art and Theater and balances those still today. She does a great deal of commission work that come from all over the country of people, homes, and pets plus she is currently working on the mural that frames the model train set in the Seashore Trolley Museum’s new exhibit. She has been featured in DownEast Homes addition in 2022 and named maker of the year in Kennebunk in 2023. She does Ghost tours down in Kennebunkport in the summer, plays Harriet Revere at the Paul Revere House in Boston and has played other historical characters throughout New England. You may remember her from characters she has played for the Brick store Museum like Anne Walker Curtis, Sarah Barry on the “All Souls Walk” and reading Love Letters from Charles Barry on different occasions. Diane’s website is www.mainehomeportraitartist were you can view some of her past work, see her process and read a blog or two. Her work is affordable and makes great gifts. You can contact her through her website if you have questions.
Elizabeth Winter, 2023 Artist-in-Residence
Elizabeth Winter is a painter and mixed media artist in southern Maine. Elizabeth received her BA in Studio Art from Keene State College and a MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Elizabeth currently resides in Kennebunk, Maine where she is an active maker that creates in her own studio practice along side providing art education for all ages. Finding a deep joy in assisting others to find their own voice in art mediums. Elizabeth is also a jewelry designer, visual merchandiser and currently working on illustrating a children’s book that her mother authored.
Elizabeth’s own body of work has developed over the years. As technical confidence and her own original concepts developed her work became further layered and complex. Her approach to creating highlights the process of research and making is just as important and layered as the finished work. The material usage has developed by building her own canvases from vintage clothing, found/discarded materials and wood collage. The materials used to create her work speak just as loud as the finished piece. Elizabeth’s work for the past 20 years focuses on place and space.
Elizabeth’s residency focused on The Dwellings Project. The project explored the visual impact of everyday place and space within the borders of the Kennebunk community, focusing primarily on the architectural history of insignificant significant dwellings. There are so many questions that generate from just one shed, farm house, barn or new construction build. These buildings have created the visual fabric of our town and contribute to the energy of our everyday life. Oftentimes being overlooked.
Further she explored the visual evolution and impact that has been experienced with the sell off of large land tracts and development of new construction. The project focused primarily with the founding of the town in 1820 to present day. What will the future footprint of Kennebunk look like? What have we lost and what have we gained over the years through our places and spaces? What stories do the historic dwellings that still stand today share about the past and what can they teach us about our future?
Installment of finished work will included a 2024 gallery showing inspired by the architectural history of Kennebunk. All work was constructed from materials past and present that tell the story of that space. Work depicted abstract blue prints of dwellings and the land they inhabit. Work presented was in 2D and 3D formats.
Beth Crowe, 2022 Inaugural Artist-in-Residence
Beth lives in Kennebunk with her family. She is an oral storyteller who likes to take bits of history and a vivid imagination and create stories that resonate with audiences of all ages. During her Residency series, she presented three glimpses into Kennebunk history. The first story, “The Great Cannonball Caper,” took place in the summer of 1950 and follows the adventures of two best friends growing up in Kennebunk.
After each storytelling session, audiences were encouraged to work with Beth to learn the simple art of needle felting and add their work to the finished pieces she created to retell the story visually. Don’t think you can? Nonsense! Beth says, “ If you can color in a coloring book, you can needle felt! If you can draw a tree, a house, or a bike, you can design.”
The finished community felt-work mural is now in the Collection of the Brick Store Museum.
You may also be interested in…
Bauman Gallery
The Museum’s Patsy Bauman Gallery is a gallery space set aside to highlight contemporary local arts & artists. Open April through December, the Museum invites local artists to apply to showcase their work, and welcomes visitors to explore new Maine artists. (Learn more…)
Collections
Explore the work that the Museum undertakes to preserve 55,000 objects relating to Kennebunk’s art and history. (Learn more…)
Exhibitions
See what’s ahead on the Museum’s ever-changing schedule of exhibitions. (Learn more…)
Exhibitions
Education
