Artist’s Reception: Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade

Join artists Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade for a reception and preview of the exhibit Peninsula – Waiting for Twilight, opening in the gallery room at Boothbay Region Land Trust’s Oak Point Farm on Thursday, June 4 from 4-6pm. The artist team’s works, both on paper and dye painted quilts, include landscapes with familiar BRLT trails and shoreline combined with related patterns.

“We walk trails along the shore at the end of the day when the color drains from the landscape leaving only contrast, awaiting the dome of the night sky.”

Peninsula will remain on display through the summer and fall of 2026 during visitor center hours, Monday through Friday from 9:30 am – 4:30 pm. A percentage of the sales from this show will benefit BRLT’s land conservation and public access.

More information on the artists can be found on their website: fraasslade.com

Artists’ Bio

Collaborating artists Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade’s work explore the relationship of ornamental surface and the portrayal of landscape in quest of a sense beyond place. Recognized for developing techniques for printing and painting with dye on fabric; other media includes works on paper, wood and metal. Their collaborative dialogue has been continuous since the mid 1970’s.

Fraas-Slade’s work has been selected for some of the defining touring exhibitions in the field of Art Quilts: “The New American Quilt,” originating at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, NYC., “The Art Quilt,” opening at the Los Angeles Municipal Museum and “Six Continents of Quilts: the Permanent Collection of the Museum of Art and Design,” NYC.

The artist team has been the recipients of two Maine Visual Artist Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts/ New England Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship.

Collections: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Museum of Art and Design, NYC, International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska, and Elmira College. Corporate collections: Fidelity Investments, Nuveen Inc., and the Hilton Corporation. Public collections in Maine : Portland Public Library, Department of Marine Resources Boothbay Harbor, St. Andrews’s Urgent Care-Boothbay Harbor, University of Maine/Orono and the Maine State Museum.

Several books where work is featured: Maine Quilts: 250 Years of Comfort and Community by Laureen Labar, Paintings of Maine by Carl Little, American Quilts: the Democratic Art 1780-2007 by Robert Shaw, The Art Quilt by Penny McMorris and Michael Kile, and Art to Wear by Julie Shaffler Dale.

The artist team has been the recipients of two Maine Visual Artist Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts/ New England Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship.

Artists’ Statement

For a long time, we’ve been painting places. It is from the specifics of a site that meaning and perceptions are engendered. Places are stories told through the remnants of history and the experiences of residents, through the luxury of wealth, the struggle for existence and the endurance of nature. Symbolic and ornamental elements respond to information gleaned from the history, geology, and culture specific to that place, functioning as visual prompts that by association give meaning to the whole.

Our work combines the tools and materials of folk art, applied and fine arts. Works are informed by textile design, medieval manuscript illumination, the Hudson River School’s reverence for the ideal and the graphic language of flags.

Our collaboration is for the most part conceptual. Pieces are conceived and executed by either one of us or as a team. It is the content, intent, and meaning of the work that we share. Each piece continues our visual conversation.

“No places is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends or monuments. Fictions serve as well as fact.”
–Wallace Stegner

–Gayle Fraas & Duncan W. Slade

Look for the Artists’ Work this Fall at The Maine State Museum:

A related quilt by Fraas·Slade the Point (featuring a view at the Cross River Preserve) was acquired by the Maine State Museum and will be on exhibit in – Maine Quilts: 250 Years of Comfort and Community opening October 24, 2026 when the Museum re-opens after a significant renovation.

Each Quilt is a specific geographic location, the night sky above is the specific latitude and longitude – on a meaningful day and time. We ponder the journey from – earth to the heavens, the physical to the metaphysical.