"Elixir of the Sea" is PMM's bi-annual fundraising event. The proceeds from the event help us continue our programming, maintain our campus, care for our collections, and create our exhibits. Please consider purchasing tickets to the event or making a donation in support of the work we do.

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McKenna and Her Camera

The Midcoast Maine Art Scene: 1987 - 2002

On exhibit at Waterfall Arts in Belfast through September 2nd

By Kevin Johnson, Photo Archivist

The first significant exhibit of Peggy McKenna photographs opened on June 27th at Waterfall Arts in Belfast. McKenna and her Camera: The Midcoast Art Scene 1987-2002 showcases her portraits of artists, each paired with an original piece of artwork by the artists depicted. The exhibit will be on display through Labor Day Weekend. An accompanying catalog has also been published. The catalog, designed by Norma Whitman, includes an in depth introduction by Maine art writer, Carl Little. Order your copy today! 

Peggy McKenna's archive of photos arrived at PMM in 2015 and is the museum's largest photograph collection with more than 250,000 negatives, slides and prints. Since its arrival, volunteers Betty Schopmeyer, Margo Davis and Wendy Rowland (seasonally) have spent each Wednesday morning organizing the collection and creating a finding aid. It finally became time to share some of Peggy's work and the idea for this exhibit was born. While there are many themes to explore in the collection, her artist portraits gave us an opportunity to collaborate with Waterfall Arts. In addition to Betty, Margo and Wendy, we recruited some more of Peggy's friends to help including Norma Whitman, Jay Davis, Alan and Lorna Crichton and Daniel Rowland. Waterfall Arts program director, Amy Tingle, also played a big role.

It was a great pleasure to work with such a dedicated and creative group and this exhibit could not have been pulled off without their help! I'd like to personally thank Team McKenna and all the generous sponsors who supported this effort!

Kosti Ruohomaa Collection: June 2024 Rollout

By Matt Wheeler, Digital Collections Curator

© Black Star

It was five years ago that we formally started digitizing the master collection of Kosti Ruohomaa’s photographs. That process is winding down, as our contract photographer snaps her way through the final boxes of film negatives (best practice for digitizing photos is to photograph them with a high-resolution digital camera). As of today, our digital archive of his work includes almost 42,000 images.

Watch the retrospective slideshow at our Kosti Ruohomaa site.

By Cipperly Good, Richard Saltonstall Jr. Curator of Maritime History

1936 proved to be a year of innovation for strategies to preserve Maine’s maritime heritage. In that year, the Penobscot Marine Museum came into being to collect material culture and documents from area residents’ endeavors at sea. Also that year, Frank Swift started offering windjammer cruises to preserve cargo schooners that otherwise would have been tied up or scrapped as the sailing cargo trade was breathing its last breath. Eighty-eight years later, the Museum has amassed a collection of items, photographs, and archives related to Frank Swift’s Maine Windjammer Cruises. 

Penobscot Marine Museum strives to have digitized images of all its object collections available in its online collections database. Thanks to volunteers, we have been photographing the collections. Now we need someone with photo editing experience to process the images so they can be upload to the online collections database. If you or someone you know has experience using Photoshop and its tools for photomerging different exposures, please contact Cippery Good at [email protected].

This season PMM has a series of exhibits focused on Searsport native Joanna Colcord in celebration of the 100th anniversary of her publication Roll and Go: Songs of American Sailormen. Joanna was born at sea, traveled extensively aboard ship with her family, and documented her experiences in photographs and writing. We wanted to share an essay with you from our collections that Joanna wrote as a college student. Enjoy her vivid and atmospheric recounting of a storm at sea.

One of PMM's photos graced the cover of the July/August issue of Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors with an accompanying article about the Parker "Pack" Dodge photo collection. View the article here.