http://www.carenmariemichel.com/cmmhome.html
Caren-Marie Sargent Michel was born January 19, 1955 in Portland, Maine and is a lifelong Maine resident. She paints landscape and still life in acrylic and pastel. She often portrays a location through series capturing different seasons or times of day with changing light and color. Many of Michel’s paintings incorporate collage.
Michel studied painting with Esther Barney in Portland, Maine for six years and received her B.F.A. in painting from Portland School of Art in 1978 (now Maine College of Art) where she studied with Bill Collins, Ed Douglas and Johnnie Ross. Michel has returned to painting and exhibiting in 2000 after a sixteen-year banking career. She has been represented by Jameson Gallery in Portland, Maine. Her work has been selected for juried shows in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado and Washington. Michel’s work has been juried for publication in the University of Southern Maine’s 2002 and 2004 Words and Images.
After earning my BFA from Portland School of Art (now Maine College of Art) in 1978, I raised two daughters and embarked on a sixteen-year banking career. In 2000, I left my banking career to paint again.
My main interest is color in landscape. Living in Maine, one cannot help but be amazed with nature and the effects of light, time, season, place, and colors. My paintings come from frequent walks and travels, bringing my vision and experience of the place to the viewer. I work in many layers of acrylic washes to achieve glowing color in my paintings.
I have set out to document how our urban landscapes continually change. I see the world as a painting, whether it is the old mill downtown, the fire station, the golf course, or the beach. Many of my current paintings are of Westbrook, Maine. My past and current involvement in this community intensifies my desire to represent the city and its individual buildings, for example, the Dana Warp Mill. This old mill is central to the history of Westbrook. As hundreds of cars pass it each day, I wonder if its occupants see the beauty of its colors. Sometimes I blend the “real” with the unknown by incorporating collage into my paintings, a “space stamp,” which causes the viewer to stop and add their own interpretation to the piece.
When I paint with acrylics on canvas, I continue the painting around the edges of the canvas. One day while my canvases were lined up while I was preparing for a show, I noticed that the edges themselves created a new landscape image. I then used this idea to create new landscapes, painting the edge of each painting on paper side-by-side as I painted the canvas edge. This is how the “Painting Edges” series began. Each “Painting Edges” piece represents four to eighteen individual landscape paintings. Not only does each piece develop a new imagined landscape, but also the pieces document my work as I go along.