Telephone tours of the Portland Museum of Art’s Winslow Homer exhibit

If you call 207-228-0300, you can hear an audio tour of the current exhibition, "Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine at the lovely Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

Not that you should try this at home. Without the paintings in front of you, it could be dull.

It's mainly if you're interested in hearing what the museum's telephone tour is like. Call that number and press #2 for the painting, "The Artist's Studio in an Afternoon Fog, 1894," #6 for the painting, "The Lifeline." And so on.

But, really, as I said, for this to be worthwhile, you really should be standing in front of the paintings as museum personnel describe them. I just thought that it was interesting that the museum has found a way to bypass audio headsets and fees by having patrons use their own personal tour devices.

Perhaps other museums do this as well and I'm late to this game?

The
exhibition features paintings, etchings and watercolors by Homer, the great
American artist who painted many maritime scenes, and lived and painted
in Maine in his later years. I continued to call that number for explanations throughout my visit.

The exhibition runs through December 30 and displays works that Homer, who died in 1910, created in the latter part of his life, when he lived in Maine. It's nice to see art in the places where it was created.

This
was my second recent visit to Portland and my first time to the museum.
It's a nice building right in town, within walking distance of a lot of cool shops and restaurants, and other small art galleries.

Living in Washington, D.C., I'm
not used to paying fees to go to museums, since the many Smithsonian
Institution museums are free. Ah well.

I also prefer going to museums alone. Otherwise, I'm constantly thinking, "Where are my friends? Am I taking too long? Are they waiting for me?" And, in this case, they were. But only for a short while…

Photo by Melville D. McLean.