Category: Events

Portland, Maine’s First Friday Art Walk is always a fun event. Buskers take to the streets, spontaneously performing for crowds of people. Stores stay open a bit later for art walkers. Dozens of local artists have the chance to share their work with some wicked awesome Mainahs. The FFAW is a great event for locals to get out and experience Portland in a unique way, but this June 6th, PacaNaturals is kicking it up one more notch!

Our featured artist is Kenneth Oliver, a well-traveled photographer who likes to capture the simple beauty all around us. The art he’ll share on Friday is a series titled “Natural Beauty”. These photos are of peaceful and serene nature, “images of calm” Oliver calls them. It’s a stunning collection that’s worth stopping by to see, but that’s not all we’ll have…

We’ve invited Falling Star Farm to join us that evening. Sheila McDonough will demonstrate yarn spinning on her wheel while passers-by can browse some of her unique artisan apparel made from alpaca yarns.

Step inside our store to try your own hand at working with alpaca fiber! Sample skeins of yarn will be available to test knitting and crocheting. Start a swatch or add to one that’s already started. At the end of the weekend, we’ll be stitching together the swatches to make a truly unique scarf for the Lobsterman’s Park monument.

Not a knitter? Why not learn to needle felt! Needles and natural wool will be set out for people to pick up and practice with.

If you find the alpaca fiber as soft and comfortable to handle as we do, take some home with you! You’ll find discounts on our yarn, alpaca fiber, and needle felting kits all week long.

Drop in this Friday to be a part of our very first First Fiber Art Walk! You won’t want to miss it.

This First Friday Art Walk, travel from Portland to Florence by way of May’s artist, Kelly Ufkin.

Kelly Ufkin is a young artist raised locally. Ufkin left the comfort of New England to pursue a degree in Art Therapy at Merrywood University. After earning her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts, she re-enrolled and acquired her Master’s of Fine Arts in painting. She says her school “became my home for seven years,” leaving only for two semesters abroad in Florence, Italy.

In Italy, Ufkin studied oil and fresco painting. She also got a chance to study a few of the country’s greatest artists. “Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi’s realism and extensive technique have helped me enhance my style and progress as an artist,” she says. Monet, Renoir, and Corot are also listed among her influences. Ufkin says these artists have taught her how to capture a moment in time in a simplistic manner.

This Friday, Kelly art work will don our walls. We’ll our store’s doors open until 8:00pm. We’ll have wine, as well as cheese and crackers, to share with First Friday Art Walkers who are at least twenty-one years of age.

If you can’t make it this Friday, stop by to see Kelly’s work all month long.

On Friday, April 4th, PacaNaturals will resume participation in Portland’s First Friday Art Walk. Our first featured artist is Gwendolyn Cardente, a local jack-of-all-art-trades. Gwendolyn enjoys working with a variety of media, including oil, acrylic, mosaic, and printmaking.

Pictured left is one of her more colorful acrylics. At our store, you’ll see a series on the tools in our lives. Gwen believes that possessions absorb the characteristics of their owners, revealing how we’ve made use of even the simplest of objects.

“I have a hammer that belonged to my grandfather,” she offers as an example. “Although it is a mass manufactured tool, the dings and drips of paint, its handle, the angle of its swing, have been shaped by years of handiwork; repairing the shed, hanging pictures, building tomato trellises.”

PacaNaturals will remain open until 8:00pm. We welcome art walkers to stop in and experience Gwendolyn’s tool series, as well as some new autobiographical work she plans to debut.

In the past, PacaNaturals has had painters, photographers, and needle felters share their work for Portland, ME’s First Friday Art Walk. A new group of artists has been lined up for this summer’s events.