Patrick Pierce with a piece called “Rogue Passage” at Two Diamond Artfarm in Saco. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
Patrick Pierce strolled through the damp grass of his four acres in Saco. Around him, the field was dotted with dozens of his sculptures.
“The birds love it,” the artist said. “They’re my favorite critics.”
This is Two Diamond Artfarm in Saco. It is Pierce’s home and studio, and it has also become a sculpture garden of sorts. Maine has a number of similar venues where visitors can take a walk in the fresh air as they take in the art. Museums such as the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art have sculpture collections on their grounds. The Viles Arboretum in Augusta has hosted sculptures in the past. Some are homegrown by a single artist, like Pierce. Others are sprawling venues that combine sculpture and horticulture.
Here are a few to explore.
Two Diamond Artfarm, Saco
Pierce calls this place Two Diamond Artfarm in deference to its long history as a dairy farm and the nearby fields still used for agriculture. He moved here 10 years ago from Massachusetts and found room to grow. It is his home and studio, and he jokes that it is also home to “free-range sculpture.”
“I came out of an urban studio scene, and I moved things up here, and suddenly I had way more art than I could fit in a tiny space,” he said. “So I spread it out over four acres.”
Pierce sometimes hosts events here; on Saturday, artist Claire Elizabeth Barratt will be teaching a workshop and giving a meditative performance of music and dance. But mostly, the space is open to visitors at random or by appointment.
Pierce’s work displayed around the yard at Two Diamond Artfarm in Saco. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
Pierce can tell stories about each piece. A recent sculpture called “Long Reach” started with a branch from a maple tree on the property and looks as if the steel appendages grew naturally out of the wood. An older one is titled “Found Poem” because of the words printed on the rusty wheel at its center: “Close Down Hard / Open Full / Keep Nuts Tight / Oil Often.” But he doesn’t mind if people just come wander, and he usually says hi but lets them explore on their own.
The work is there for people to enjoy, and it also inspires Pierce to think about the way it interacts with nature.
“The edges of what my work is have expanded,” he said.
“I sometimes feel like the work I do is a byproduct of my real intent, which is to realize a fully whole life,” Pierce added. “Part of what I do is writing and part of what I do is painting and part of what I do is sculpture and part of what I do is to try to attend the property as best I can.”
Two Diamond Artfarm, 98 Hearn Road, Saco. To schedule a visit, send Pierce a text at 978-427-8329. The community workshop and performance by Barratt will take place at 3 p.m. Saturday with a suggested donation of $5 to $20. For more information, visit patrickpierce.com.
Langlais Art Preserve, Cushing
Years ago, Bernard Langlais had more than 100 sculptures on his sprawling property in Cushing.
“He would allow people to come and walk around,” said Hannah Blunt, director of the Langlais Art Preserve. “He was not uncomfortable with that. He didn’t really advertise that, but it got the attention of local newspapers, and it became a little bit of a destination, but it really was his workshop out in the yard.”
The Langlais Art Preserve features a 10-acre art environment with a dozen sculptures made by Bernard Langlais in the 1960s and 1970s. Photo by Greta Rybus
More than 50 years later, many of those works have been lost to time. But the Langlais Art Preserve has worked to conserve a dozen striking pieces in the place where the artist lived and worked. The works – huge wooden figures of animals and people – span 1966 to 1977. The 90-acre property is protected by the Georges River Land Trust, and Blunt is the first dedicated director for this site. An ADA-accessible path winds for a quarter mile through the art environment; this summer, the preserve is also extending another existing trail further into the woodland.
“We’re in an exciting moment of taking it into a new chapter and building on this legacy of engagement with the place and with the land and with the materials of Maine, the wood,” she said. “It’s a whimsical place that I think people come and get kind of caught up in.”
The preserve is also offering community art-making on the property for the first time this summer. Blunt said she wanted visitors to be able to respond to the art and nature around them.
“The moments that have been the most exciting to me and just wonderful to observe are when a family will sit down and this intergenerational art-making happens,” Blunt said. “Oftentimes, adults get squirmy about making art, but if they have their grandchildren or kids, they find themselves more apt to sit down.”
Langlais Art Preserve, 576 River Road, Cushing. Open year-round from dawn until dusk. Barn studio and workshop open through Aug. 31, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Sunday; suggested admission fee of $10 per person for non-Cushing residents. For more information, visit langlaisartpreserve.org.
Visitors can explore the preserve via a 1/4-mile ADA-accessible gravel path. Photo by Greta Rybus
Studio JBONE, Warren
Jay Sawyer often meets people who didn’t intend to stop at his studio. They tell him they were driving down Route 90 and just felt compelled to stop in the moment.
“It’s this energy,” he said. “When I put a piece of sculpture and my ‘open’ sign down by the road, they’ll sense something. They’ll feel something. ‘I’ve got to turn around and go back there.’ It will just trigger the most awesome conversations.”
Jay Sawyer’s sculpture garden in Warren is open Sundays and Mondays through October. Photo by Jay Sawyer
Sawyer worked as a mariner for years before he transitioned to his career as an artist. He makes sculptures out of found industrial materials and has done a number of public art pieces, including one that pays tribute to the 33 lives lost when the cargo ship El Faro sank during Hurricane Joaquin in 2015. Four the victims were from Maine. His sculpture garden was closed while he focused on “El Faro Salute!,” which was dedicated in 2022, and he is now starting a project about the Underground Railroad in Maine. But he decided to reopen the property to the public this summer. He estimated that 2-3 acres of the sprawling property are dedicated to the garden. He expects rainy days to be quiet, but “that’s when the adventurous people come out,” he said.
“Some of the best visits,” he added.
He doesn’t have formal training as an artist, but his practice is informed in part by observing the sculptures in his own fields.
“It truly has given me an education, between how to site your work and also seeing how the light plays,” he said. “The light is incredible through the changes of the season, through the changes of the day. Being here all the time, in and out, is always something new. The same sculpture is making taking on a different patina, so even though the light is the same, the effect is still different. It’s an ongoing spectacular show of nature really have it’s way with it.”
Studio JBONE, 131 Camden Road, Warren. Open to the public 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays, Mondays and select Saturdays through October. For more information, visit studiojbone.com.
Jay Sawyer has reopened his sculpture garden to the public this summer. Photo by Jay Sawyer
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay
New to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay are two sculptures by artists in residence at Indigo Arts Alliance in Portland as part of a multi-year collaboration.
Shane Perley-Dutcher is a Wolastoq mixed-media artist from the Neqotkuk Wolasqiyik (Tobique First Nation) in New Brunswick. He created “Eci-Mahsosiyil/Fiddleheads” (2024), an interactive installation of two arched fiddlehead ferns made from braided and woven metal emulating traditional Wabanaki woven baskets, installed in the Arbor Garden.
“Eci-Mahsosiyil/Fiddleheads” (2024) by Shane Perley-Dutcher. Photo courtesy of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Anna Tsouhlarakis, an enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation and of Creek and Greek descent, installed “The Native Guide Project: CMBG” (2024), four shell middens constructed from grass, oyster
shells and granite sourced from the surrounding region, installed on Cleaver Lawn.
The pieces have already been incredibly popular with visitors, and marketing director Katie Hey said she feels these sculptures can help people come together in difficult conversations.
“As we think about social justice and climate change, these pieces are also making us think in ways that aren’t necessarily intimidating,” Hey said. “I don’t think it shuts people down. I think it opens up their viewpoints.”
The sculptures join a large collection of public art at the gardens, from the kinetic “Flock of Birds” by George Sherwood or the storybook “Sal’s Bear” by Nancy Schon. The giant trolls by Thomas Dambo are a popular attraction in their third year; they will likely deteriorate after a decade in the gardens. Hey said the artist has installed more across the country, and now some visitors come to Maine on a quest to see them all. The sculptures and the gardens both add something different to the experience.
“The gardens are a piece of art in themselves,” she said. “They’re both additive to each other.”
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, 105 Botanical Gardens Drive, Boothbay. Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Oct. 20. For admission prices and more information, visit mainegardens.org.
“The Native Guide Project: CMBG” (2024) by Anna Tsouhlarakis. Photo courtesy of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
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