CAMDEN — Michael Weymouth and Elizabeth Garber have teamed up to produce a new book about Penobscot Bay, Maine (Island Time). Weymouth painted the watercolors for the book and Garber’s poetry and text accompany the artwork. Both the paintings and the poetry, as well as the published book, will be on display in the Camden Public Library’s Picker Room for the month of July. The book recently won the 2014 Maine Literary Award for Excellence in Publishing. Weymouth and Garber will celebrate the book and the exhibit with a gallery opening and art talk at the library on Tuesday, July 1. The opening will be at 6 p.m. and the book talk at 7 p.m. 

Maine (Island Time) portrays Maine’s Penobscot Bay region with photographs, paintings, poetry, and interviews. For the five million visitors who pass through Maine’s Penobscot Bay region each year, few get to experience the mystique of the island that pepper the bay or to visit the people who inhabit the islands. This exhibit and book of paintings, photographs, and poems takes the reader on that journey and shines a light on this remarkable region of Maine. 

Michael Weymouth’s watercolors, oil paintings, and photographs feature Great Spruce Head Island, the summer home of artist Fairfield Porter and his brother, photographer Eliot Porter, whose book Summer Island depicted life on the Porter family island. Michael also followed in the footsteps of artist giants such as Robert Henri, George Bellows, and Edward Hopper in his visit to Monhegan Island. 

Garber’s poems transport you to waking up in the Great Spruce Head Island Big House, as it is called today, for an early morning swim and to evening conversations around a crackling spruce fire, as well as to the nooks and crannies of the island to experience its many natural wonders. Elizabeth W. Garber has lived in Maine for 30 years. Her poetry describes rural life in Maine: True Affections: Poems from a Small Town (2012), Listening Inside the Dance (2005) and Pierced by the Seasons (2004). Three of her poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac and her poem “Feasting” was included in his Good Poems for Hard Times. She was the 2006 Belfast Poet Laureate. 

Weymouth was born and raised in Maine. He presently presides over a 30-person branding design firm with offices in Boston and San Francisco but retains very firm Maine roots. Even though painting was part of his DNA from the beginning he placed it on the back burner for more than 40 years as he pursued a design and photography career. This book is a return to his first love. Michael lives in Hingham, Massachusetts, with his wife Peggy.