The Emery Community Arts Center on the University of Maine at Farmington campus plans to kick off its 10th anniversary season with two art exhibition openings and a celebration of Emery’s 10 years of fostering community and the arts. Shown is “Incoming” by Ellis Johnson Contributed photo

FARMINGTON — The Emery Community Arts Center, located on the University of Maine at Farmington campus, plans to kick off its 10th anniversary season Thursday, Sept. 2, with two art exhibition openings and a celebration of Emery’s decade of fostering community and the arts.

Featured exhibits will include “Reimagining the Real,” a thematic exhibition that launches the New Commons Project’s exploration of “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, and “Palette of the Forest,” an exhibition of fiber art, weavings and prints featuring a group of artists local to Franklin County.

Opening receptions for the exhibitions will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. Sept. 2 at Emery, with music by Alden Robinson, Chris “Junior” Stevens and Owen Marshall beginning at 4:30 p.m. and commemorative remarks by UMF President Edward Serna at 5:30 p.m.

Refreshments and a cash bar will be available. Music and the reception will take place outdoors in Emery’s front courtyard. If there is inclement weather, a rain date is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 3. A rain date announcement will be posted on Emery’s website homepage.

“Smoke Ring,” 2019 by Iris M. Kirkwood.

“Reimagining the Real” presents a broad survey of artworks by local and nationally recognized artists engaging the legacy of realism in the 21st century, continuing, complicating or contesting this tradition.

The show features representations of landscape and ecological processes, familiar objects presented in new contexts, expanded notions of portraiture, and depictions of reality as mediated by the internet and news media.

This selection of works includes oil paintings, video, photography, drawing, sculpture and textiles. This exhibit will be on display from Sept. 2 to Oct. 21. Gallery open hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The event is free and open to the public.

Nelda Warkentin, “October Morning,” 2013 Contributed photo

Participating artists include: Ann Arbor, K. Johnson Bowles, Michael Burd, Peter Christenson, Bailey DeBiase, Chao Ding, Hannah Duggan, Diane Fitch, Niloofar Gholamrezaei, Pato Hebert, Jang soon Im, Tom Jessen, Andrew Ellis Johnson, Juliet Karelsen, Iris M. Kirkwood, Heidi Kumao, Hui Chi Lee, Justin Levesque, Mary McFarland, Susan McPherran, Lake Roberson Newton, Phil Poirier, Jesse Potts, Jennifer Seo, Kendra Stenger, Jude Valentine, Nelda Warkentin, Raphael H. Warshaw and Holden Willard.

“Palette of the Forest” presents a selection of fiber arts, weavings and prints inspired by the landscapes of Maine. This exhibition features a group of artists local to Franklin County, including Juliet Karelsen, Mary McFarland, Ellen Roberts, Jan Royall, Dona Seegers, Cheriese Shanti and Nelda Warkentin.

The artworks on view showcase the intricate techniques of embroidery, quilting, weaving, felting, textile painting and printmaking. “Palette of the Forest” will be on view from Monday, Aug. 30 to Oct. 8 throughout Emery Community Art Center.

Christina’s World, painted in 1948, depicts Christina Olson, a friend and frequent subject of the painter, crawling toward her farmhouse home in Cushing. Olson was disabled, but refused to use a wheelchair. The painting, nominated by Mike Wilson of Rockland, has long been considered a staple of mid-20th-century realism. Wyeth himself contested this categorization, however, pointing to the intensely inward and psychological aspects of his paintings.

Music will be provided by Alden Robinson, Chris “Junior” Stevens and Owen Marshall in the Emery Community Arts Center on Sept. 2 at the University of Maine at Farmington. Contributed photo

Masks are required when viewing the artwork inside the Emery Arts Center building. Check maine.edu/emerycommunityartscenter before a visit for updated hours or unexpected closures because of the pandemic.

All visitors will be screened for COVID symptoms before entering and will be required to register with name and contact information (either phone number or email address). This information will only be used if the university needs to conduct contact tracing in the event of confirmed exposure to the coronavirus.

For more information, contact April Mulherin, UMF associate director for media relations, at 207-778-7081 or april.mulherin@maine.edu.