With her current show “Winter Colors” at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (CMBG), East Boothbay artist Andrea Peters clearly shares in the spirit behind the celebration of the holidays and winter at CMBG's “Gardens Aglow.”

Peters’s show runs concurrently with Gardens Aglow, Thursday through Sunday, through Dec. 31. The public is cordially invited to Peters’s opening reception, and a chance to meet and talk with her, on Thursday, Dec. 3, from 5 to 7 pm. The reception is free with admission to Gardens Aglow.

Winter is Peters’ favorite time of year to paint. With her bold, brushy strokes, she makes winter come alive. Peters sees color everywhere: drab trees reveal streaks and splashes of mauve and violet, hillsides light up with pinks and yellows; winter snows turn the landscape into a magical world of blue shadows.

It is no surprise that arts writer Edgar Allen Beem honors Peters by calling her: “One of our finest interpreters of the winter landscape” (Down East, “The Blue Snows of East Boothbay,” February 2010).

Visitors to Gardens Aglow will find Peters paintings hung in the café and the resource room, but her masterwork, the 4-foot-square “Winter Garden,” graces the entryway. “Winter Garden” is a stunning rendition of the artist's own garden put to bed for winter, where she has intentionally left clumps of spent seed heads, adding texture and color on a winter day, reminding us that the garden is a place of beauty and interest year round—just like the botanical gardens themselves.

CMBG is located at 132 Botanical Gardens Drive, just off Barters Island Road in Boothbay.

Andrea Peters' artwork may also be viewed at Gleason Fine Art, 31 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor, where she has been represented for over 20 years.