introduction by carl little

"If I lived in an apartment in New York City, I wouldn't know a tenth as many people as I know here on this island in Maine. The sea brings in fresh air. You feel that you're standing on the border between the human world and the rest of the universe." – Marguerite Yourcenar

 

The coast of Maine is made up of thousands of indentations, small and large, where the water impresses the ironbound land, stretching to coves and encompassing rocky necks. Somes Sound, the closest equivalent to a fjord on America's Atlantic coast, is one of the most dramatic of these channels, reaching to the heart of Mount Desert Island.

 

Sarah Butler was born and raised near the head of this remarkable body of water, in a place she describes in terms of a kind of childhood paradise.¹ Exploring her family's boatyard, she came of age among moorings and sails, and Mainers making a coastal living.

 

There, at that place once known as the Town of Sound, Butler began to orient herself to the world. She found she lived on an island surrounded by the sea. Her home town, Northeast Harbor, was situated at the other end of the Sound from where she lived. She attended nursery and grade school there, and through her early teens frequented its shops and stores, buying penny candy at McGrath's or a soda at the Pine Tree Market. It became central to her life....

 

To read the entire intro, you can purchase the book from local bookstores or buy an autographed copy online from the artist.

 

Notes

The epigraph is from Marguerite Yourcenar, With Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey (Boston: Beacon Press, 1980, p. 103).

¹ Conversation with the author, Ellsworth Public Library, September 19, 2008.