art festivals in Dover and Rollinsford open doors to thriving arts communities

This Saturday, May 10, Seacoast residents will have a chance to get to know their local artists. Two studio buildings in Dover and Rollinsford will open their doors to the public and invite families and art lovers to explore their work space.

Dover’s first ever One Washington Center Arts Festival will be held in two 19th century mill buildings from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. In the past 18 months, one of these two mills, the Picker Building, has been transformed into a commercial space housing small businesses and artist studios. The other mill will display a sneak preview of exhibitions coming to the new Children’s Museum in anticipation of its grand opening this summer in the Butterfield Building, located next door.

Visitors to the Art Festival at One Washington Center will enjoy open studio displays of the Picker Building’s diverse resident artists, plus exhibits of 40 visiting artists from surrounding communities. Mediums include film, photography, oil painting, sculpture, fine jewelry and costume design. Face painting and other entertainment will be provided by local musicians and dancers, as well as poetry readings by students of the Cocheco Arts and Technology Academy. There will also be art from local school children throughout the building, and Terracotta Pasta will offer refreshments and sell merchandise.  

The Picker Building’s artists are all from New England, with the majority living in Dover. Property manager Brint Shone hopes growing interest in Dover artists will create an artistic movement, placing Dover alongside neighboring Portsmouth as a city known for its artistic community.

“The goal of the Dover Mill Arts Collaborative (the resident artists of the Picker Building) is to provide and encourage perhaps a more affordable art scene apart from Portsmouth,” said resident artist and festival facilitator Daisy Adams.  

The Picker Building and the Children’s Museum will be key facilities as Dover forges ahead with its waterfront development project. The new Children’s Museum will have three times more exhibit space in the Butterfield Building than it did in its former Portsmouth location. It is expected to generate $30 million dollars and 250 new jobs for the local community within the next five years.

Salmon Falls Mill, a slightly more senior building on Front Street in Rollinsford, will hold its open studio event from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Rollinsford Public Library’s grand reopening will coincide with the event. The library has relocated to the lower mill, and resident artist Anna Volpe Birch expects it to create a link between the local community and mill artists. Nearby businesses like Black Bean Café and Salmon Falls Grocery profit from traffic at the mills and will serve customers during the mill’s twice-a-year open studio event. 

According to Birch, most of the resident artists at Salmon Falls Mill are from southern Maine and the Seacoast. “Many artists have come over from the Portsmouth area, enticed by the great big studios along the river and comparatively low rents,” she said.

The open studio event will also include belly dance performances, arts and crafts for children and music from violinist Sam Goodall at 11 a.m. 

For more information on Saturday’s open studio events, visit www.onewashingtoncenter.com/artsfestival.html or www.millartists.com/index.html.