Whitney Davenport
Whitney Davenport is a local artist born and raised in Westbrook, Maine and currently studies art education at the University of Southern Maine. Generally, she uses oil paint as her main medium, often focusing on figure work and portraiture. Whitney explores themes surrounding human relationships and growth, aiming to evoke strong emotions in the viewer through gestural brush strokes and realism. As an emerging art student, Whitney has exhibited work in the 2026 Juried Student Show at USM and was awarded Honorable Mention for her work “Listening” (2025).
Title of work:
Summer Concert
Where to find:
Legends Rest at 855 Main Street
This painting is about the Thursday night concerts and how they’ve accentuated Westbrook’s summer night life. Experiencing these nights as someone who grew up in Westbrook is especially exciting. The energy and support
reciprocated with the local businesses surrounding Valleé square makes it like a weekly festival. This work aims to capture that energy with bright lights and energetic, dressed up figures. In particular, this work references the Motor Booty
Affair concert with the disco inspired clothing and dramatic flashing lights.
Archer Isgro
I am a current Studio Arts Major with a focus in drawing and painting and completing a game design minor at the University of Southern Maine. I’ve grown up in Maine my entire life, and enjoy working with paints, graphite & ink. I love to do landscapes, animals, and character design, as well as portraiture. I also love reading, writing and games and the art that goes along with it.
Title of work:
River Walk
Where to find:
Profennos at 934 Main Street
For this project I wanted to work at least somewhat realistically, and focus heavily on the natural environment of Westbrook, and how humans interact with it. For a very long time now, one of the main things I think about when in Westbrook is the river and the bridge that crosses over it, which became the focus of my piece.
The river sits in the center of the piece leading into a sunset. The bricks became both a border and a place for the birds to sit as well.
The birds I chose are ones local to the area, an Eastern Bluebird and a Chipping Sparrow, and are matched in pairs as well. I also chose to use vibrant colors to draw the eye to many different places, and to show how much life there is in Westbrook.
Leah Boutwell
My name is Leah Boutwell, and I am a first-year student at USM majoring in art education, with a concentration in ceramics. Although my concentration is in ceramics, I still appreciate and enjoy the beauty of painting.
When working, I primarily work in acrylics on canvas. I personally like to use an acrylic medium, which slows down the drying process, allowing me to go back and continue working if needed. Many of my paintings are centered around personal experience, memories, and issues directly affecting my community. I have been able to use the art-making process to express my opinions and ideas.
Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to have one of my pieces displayed in the Portland Museum of Art, been granted the Craftsmanship Award and scholarship from Edward Little High School, and just recently, been nominated by the USM Art Department Faculty to be this year’s recipient of the Art Department Discipline Award in Foundations. Ultimately, my goal is to create artworks that invite viewers to pause, reconsider their own surroundings, and find beauty in the complex stories that bind us together.
Title of work:
Shared Currents
Where to find:
BreaLu at 511 Main Street
I decided to take the prompt “flow together” literally by depicting various species of wildlife that inhabit the Presumpscot River and its banks. By showing these species coexisting within a shared space, I aim to illustrate the unity of their ecosystem.
This serves as a metaphor for how we must come together to support one another within our community, because the environment we create today will directly shape the young minds who will inherit it.
Lucy Berry
My name is Lucy Berry, I am a sophomore at the University of Southern Maine studying Art Education. I grew up Lobsterfishing in a small, coastal community in Down East Maine.
I have two Sisters, Two Brothers, two golden retrievers, and loving parents who make me strive to be the best I can be as a person and as an artist. I am mainly a graphite and charcoal artist who paints here and there and occasionally burns/carves wood. I have basically lived all of my life on the water.
I grew up with the Narraguagus river in my back yard, I’ve worked on the ocean, I go to the beach 15 minutes down the road every chance I get, and when I am not on the beach, I am at my family camp on Bog Lake. I can’t help but be inspired by water, my community, and family, and it is what makes up a large portion of my portfolio.
Title of work:
The Dana Warp
Where to find:
Evergreen Credit Union at 1 Westbrook Common
My goal going into this project was to create something specific to Westbrook that anyone who crosses paths with it, can enjoy.
Inspired by artists like Kurt Wenner and Julian Beever, I wanted to make it have the illusion that you’re looking through the wall. This piece showcases the Iconic Dana Warp Mill on the Presumpscot River.
The theme “Flow Together” led me through many drafts, leading to the final piece here showcasing the history of what built Westbrook today.
Courtney Rog
My name is Courtney Elisabeth Rog. I grew up in Cumberland, Maine and currently reside in Saco, Maine. I have always been inspired by indigenous, folk, and craft arts. The deep significance and rich history of these art forms have always called to me and sparked my creativity.
I enjoy making art that is deeply meaningful and extremely purposeful in each aspect of the piece and I aspire to imbue my work with as much meaning as possible. I completed my first mural in the summer of 2025 and it sparked something inside me. Being able to share my art freely and openly with others filled me with such joy that I hope to keep sharing my work to the public. It also ignited a bright, two-dimensional, folk-inspired style that I have been carrying with me since. Always inspired by human history and the strength and beauty of the natural world, I hope my colorful creation is understood and beloved. I currently have a piece exhibited in the University of Southern Maine’s juried student show, and a mural in Portland on the restaurant, Ocotillo.
I hope to have more work displayed soon and paintings will be for sale this summer online and at Farmer’s markets around southern Maine. You can find me on instagram @ whatever.courtney.
Title of work:
Quilted River and Falls
Where to find:
City Hall at 2 York Street
This barn quilt is meant to be a representation of Westbrook’s history while also illustrating the bright, colorful, beautiful future that lies before them. There are three Abenaki names for bodies of nature that define Westbrook: Presumpscot “river of many rough places/falls”; Saccarappa “falling towards the rising sun”; and Ammoncongin “high fishing place”. Presumpscot is represented on this quilt by the dark blue and teal triangles flowing and falling in a ring around the quilt. This is the river that flows through Westbrook and defines the natural landscape. Saccarappa is represented as the rising sun in the middle of the quilt towards, and around which the water is falling. I put the sun in the middle of the quilt because I wanted it to be a strong beacon of hope for Westbrook. To show that there is always another day ahead of us, no matter what has happened in the past.Finally, Ammoncongin, meaning “high fishing place” is represented by the basket weave pattern in the corners of the quilt. I chose to use the basket weave pattern to represent this word because the Abenaki tribe which lived in what is now called Westbrook used woven baskets, called Weirs, to catch fish and eels in the Presumpscot river. So this pattern visualizes the essence of Ammoncongin, while also teaching us about the ingenuity of the indigenous people.I hope Westbrook’s community views this barn quilt mural as a representation of their home that they will admire, identify with, and pass on the meanings of for generations to come.
Bethany Shaw
Email: [email protected]
Bethany Shaw is a Maine native from Oxford and a student at the University of Southern Maine studying painting, drawing, and art education. She has been an Ed Tech 11 for seventeen years and was an Art Director/Instructor at a summer recreation camp for ten years. In the fall of 2025, she completed an outdoor mural of multiple birds along with the community residents of School Street, Westbrook Housing. She loves many different mediums and has a custom wool needle-felting side business called Wooleycreations. She also creates brooches, earrings, ornaments, commissioned paintings, and bouquets. She loves nature and animals, and spending time with her three grown children, friends, and family.
Title of work:
Renescence
Where to find:
Walker Memorial Library at 90 Bridge St
The flowing waters of the Presumscot River and the diverse community of the city of Westbrook were my inspiration for this project. I observed the falls, the fish bridge and restored areas of the city. I chose to incorporate the river walk bridges, flora, fauna and wildlife of the area along with the surrounding wetlands. Bringing to light and celebrating the renascence of downtown Westbrook. The diverse population renewing a sense of hope in the community remembering the past and embracing future sustainability that nature has to offer.
Emily Straetz
Emily Straetz is a student artist at the University of Southern Maine studying art and entrepreneurial studies with a focus on photography, digital art, and design. She enjoys creating work that explores connection, nostalgia, and the meaning found in everyday moments.
Title of work:
Where We Flow
Where to find:
Dana Warp Mill at 90 Bridge St
This piece explores the idea of “Flow Together” through abstract lines of color that move across the surface like the currents of a river. Each color represents a different path, voice, or experience within a community. While each line has its own direction and character, they all travel within the same flow, suggesting unity without sameness.
Libby Lange
Libby is a Portland-based artist drawn to mandalas, symmetry, and spiritual geometry. Her work explores how color and pattern can activate a surface, transforming it into something vibrant and alive. With a background in mandalas and animated styles within her mural practice, this mosaic represents her first exploration of the medium. She was immediately drawn to the tactile process and the meticulous placement of each fragment. Working with glass introduced a new physical relationship to pattern.
Influenced by her travels, Libby draws inspiration from places where color, ornamentation, and pattern signal cultural vibrancy and expression. She aims to create work that energizes viewers and signals that they are entering a space that values creativity, color, and excitement.
Where to find:
Bagala Window Works at 677 Main St
This piece explores the idea of taking tiny, fragmented pieces anduniting them into something cohesive. Using stained glass, I hand-cut each piece carefully and arranged them like a puzzle to create a kaleidoscope-inspired shape. The work invites viewers to reflect on unity; just as a kaleidoscope relies on every fragment and every reflection, unity emerges when different perspectives, and experiences come together, creating something whole, dynamic, and greater than the sum of its parts.
Trevor Taylor
Title of work:
Flow Together
Where to find:
Westbrook Housing Presumpscot Place at 765 Main St
For what I did in my painting was using two themes of “Flow” and
“Together” in which the flow was the environment and the together part focusing on the puffins as a small community within each other. From what I gathered about puffins, they are always together and go wherever they follow each other and while they don’t stay together all that much, some tend to do and from there I feel like the group are a perfect representation for the community of Westbrook. As for the flow features, that would be the environments of course being active and big with the ocean and how it interacts with its environmental surroundings. That is what I wanted my image and vision to be as it helps show the possibilities and how we all interact as one.
Taylor Farwell
Hello! My name is Taylor and I want to get my name out there as a queer Maine artist. I’ve taken every opportunity to surround myself with art since I joined an afterschool oil painting program in elementary school that sparked my interests. I was a set painter and prop designer from 6th to 12th grade in Drama Club, and attempted to take every art class I could throughout my high school years. During my sophomore year, I was invited to be a student representative on the school board to help hire two art teachers. Hearing these candidates speak about their passions with art and their desire to teach sparked the idea for my own career path; art education. I think high school can be a troubling time for lots of teenagers. I want to be a supportive teacher who creates a positive, stress-free environment where students are comfortable to be themselves and explore.
Art can be a great outlet for emotions and often invites conversation as well. I was the co-president of the Art Club in my senior year in high school, and had received the “All Around Visual Arts Award” award from my high school twice in sophomore and junior year. This year, my sculpture work was chosen to be in the 2026 Juried Student Exhibition at USM. Today, my artworks are very colorful and playful, often celebrating the wonders of life. I am heavily inspired by the French fauvism movement.
Title of work:
Swimming Against the Current
Where to find:
Moonlight Cleaners at 823 Main st
This mural depicts a variety of fish species interacting with blocks of color that are arranged like the lovely quilts sewed in Gees Bend, Alabama. The fish represent diversity in the city of Westbrook, and the quilt design relates to its tight knit community. The structural blocks also represent how Westbrook is built around the Presumpscot River; the interaction between wild and built. There are 10 primary species of fish native to the Presumpscot that are presented, but the Atlantic Salmon is considered a historic fish, painted at the top right corner of the mural. This fish is the first to swim off the frame, meaning its time is passing. Mark making is very important to me. I focused on enhancing the colors of the fish and creating form through varying patterns. I think it’s important to embrace imperfection in a world that constantly strives for the opposite. The patterns of quilts sewn in Gee’s Bend are not meant to have right angles and exact measurements. Westbrook is far from a perfect place, but its quirks make it the town that it is. Only people who grew up here can share their memories.
Genevive Chicoine
I am a painter and a lifelong Mainer having grown up in North Berwick and currently residing in Gorham. When I’m not painting, I love to read, write and explore the odd nooks and crannies around Maine and New Hampshire.
Title of work:
The Water Bearer
Where to find:
Stockhouse Building at 506 Main St
I chose the image of the waterbearer as part of the mural theme, “Flow Together,” centering Saccarappa Falls. The water bearer is the symbol of the sign of Aquarius that can be seen on ‘The Star’ tarot card, and values rejuvenation and connection through caring for the community.
The Aquarian waterbearer is also a maverick of sorts, carving untrodden paths for the benefit of the whole.
Ava Lawson
As an artist, I explore the human figure and its relationship with nature.
Throughout my life, I’ve found comfort in immersing myself in nature and a place to often reflect. In my art I like to capture and show the beauty I find in the world around me weather that be in other people, animals, or nature.
Title of work:
Muddy
Where to find:
Westbrook Warren Congregational Church at 810 Main St
Snorkeling in lakes and rivers has changed the way I see the natural world; it has brought a great appreciation not only for the bodies of water we live next to but also for the ecosystems that thrive within them.
Muddy showcases a brook trout (his name is Muddy), swimming in the Presumpscot River.
