Finding “Elsewhere” -Ben Lincoln I’ve lived most of my life on Mt. Desert but my history with this island begins long before my time. My ancestors were among the first wave of rusticators to establish a summer residence here in Northeast Harbor, so I carry with me not only my own memories of growing up in this beautiful place, but countless generational memories as well. One of those ancestors was Charles Eliot, a founding member of the Champlain Society, it was his inspiration which ultimately led to the creation of Acadia National Park, and I think a part of my mind still sees this island through his eyes. It’s kind of like having an internal photo effect filter, my mind mentally editing the scene of the human imprint so visible in the landscape today. I took a lot of inspiration for this work from the luminist painters of the mid-nineteenth century. Like theirs, I believe this work is an instinctive response to a time of technological, environmental and social change. I’m not a luddite and have no wish to turn back the clock. I'm grateful for the advantages modern technology affords, and excited by its many possibilities as some of my other recent work suggests. But I also crave quiet places free of the dings, alerts and other incursions into my interior space that are so much a part of daily life now. For me these paintings are a metaphor for a kind of internal “elsewhere”. A quiet, reflective and slightly enchanted place I carry with me in order to live intentionally and apart for a while each day, not so much to escape the world, but in order to live a bit more peacefully within it.