Cousins Island artist Alice Wheatland Ingraham's new solo exhibition at River Arts West opened Nov. 21 and will run through Dec. 2.

Ingraham has been an island artist for over 25 years. She came to Maine from Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1984, purchasing the Moxie Farm (summer residence of Moxie drink creator, Alexander Thompson) on Friendship Long Island. She's been living on Cousins Island in Yarmouth since 2008.

Early on she painted illustrations for children and explored collograph print making with Rockport, Massachusetts, artist Marianna Wenniger. When Ingraham's children, Ana and Christopher Lorenz, entered school she began studying the processes of creating stained glass windows. She concentrated on commissioned pieces, windows, doors, cabinets, etc. for homes and businesses. One of her favorites was a commission for a glass rose compass to be installed in the old pub door at the Hawthorne Hotel, in Salem, Massachusetts.

Oil painting became Ingraham’s medium of choice when the chemicals and demands of working with glass and lead became physically irritating.

Her style is startlingly variable. “I’m moody. I like to have three or four oil and pastel paintings going at once; traditional, impressionistic, abstract, imaginative, pastoral and/or still life,” Ingraham said. “Painting is my passion; both avocation and need. It keeps me balanced.

“As a teacher, I’m determined to pass on an appreciation for art and creative expression. Tree trunks are more purple than brown, clouds aren’t white and fog can be pink, purple, blue, orange, gray. I want to teach children to see, to notice, to say 'Wow!' Their generation faces a tense, complicated, fast world. The world of art can be a looks, beautiful, stress-free and absorbing antidote.”

Ingraham’s memberships include The Rockport Art Association (of Massachusetts), The North Shore Arts Association, The SanCap Art League, Pastel Painters of Maine and The Bryan Memorial Gallery of Jeffersonville, Vermont.

She has exhibited and won awards in innumerable solo and group exhibitions throughout New England, the Midwest and Florida.

For more on the artist, visit www.aliceingraham.com.

River Arts is located at 241 U.S. Route 1, Damariscotta. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, call 207-563-1507 or visit www.riverartsme.org.