DeLano artwork to be displayed as part of Clothesline Project

PHOTO: Mary DeLano stands in front of the 42-foot clothesline at Western Foothills Land Trust’s Shepard’s Farm Preserve in Norway, Maine. (Nathaniel Liu photo)

NORWAY — The artwork of Mary DeLano will be displayed as part of the Clothesline Project at Shepard’s Farm from July 16 through 26.
DeLano is a fiber artist, and her work will be hung on the 42-foot clothesline at the farm, 121 Crockett Ridge Road.
The farm is part of the 272-acre Western Foothills Land Trust conservation area that wraps around Witt Swamp.
DeLano uses the plants she collects for both dye and patterns using eco-print techniques in her art. Throughout the pandemic, she collected and experimentedwith plants she discovered while connecting with nature at the preserve, providing raw materials and her artistic adventures. Ultimately this led to her creation of a new body of work to be displayed at the same location her materials derived from.
DeLano is the first of four local artists to exhibit as a part of the Clothesline Project, which pays homage to the history of the Penley Clothespin Company, formerly of West Paris. Through this project, WFLT hopes to reinforce the community’s memory of a once huge local industry (wooden clothespins) that will reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has inspired connection to natural landscape and art in our everyday lives.
In 2018 WFLT built a half-mile universally accessible trail at Shepard’s Farm with funding from The Davis Family Foundation, The Stephens Healthcare Foundation, Norway Savings Bank and the Maine Arts Commission. The trail provides a wander through a former agricultural landscape and provides access to six Bernard Langlais sculptures.
Eventually the trust would like to add to the permanent outdoor collection at the preserve. The project will provide an introduction to new artists, new materials and new concepts of visual art at the preserve.
For more information, visit www.wfltmaine.org.