You’ll find me out back with the horses.

The Kelpie Galleryis located in front of Pepper Hill Farmin South Thomaston. I’ve never walked back to the barns, because I’m always too busy looking at the paintings. However, gallery owner Susan Lewis Baines promises that if I visit next Saturday, November 18, she’ll give me (and you) carrots to treat the beasties with.

That’s an irresistible deal. Sue is sometimes seen with a furry fellow who might be a Haflinger—I don’t know, because we’ve never been properly introduced—and perhaps I’ll get to meet him. We kept horses in my misspent youth, and I know them pretty well. I doubt I could swing into a saddle now, but I can still whisper sweet nothings in their ears.

I’ll be there because the Kelpie Gallery will be presenting its Holiday Season show, Provenance, with an opening reception on Friday, November 17, from 5 to 8 PM. The party continues all day Saturday. Sue’s offering hot coffee or mulled cider and homemade biscotti, including a gluten-free option. If you’ve never attended an opening at the Kelpie, you don’t yet know that Sue’s a first-rank foodie. The nibbles at her events are always fantastic.

I dropped off two pieces for the show yesterday. I never meant to go past the doorway, but was drawn in to look at a small, detailed painting by Jerry Cable that called to me from the farthest room. It was of the white walls and red roof of Monhegan Island Light. It was iconic while still avoiding any hint of cliché. This is a hard trick to pull off, and it’s the best in Maine regional painting. It’s why people come here to look at art.

I’m often compelled to look farther than I intended when I stop at the Kelpie Gallery. Sue’s a painter herself, and I think her arrangement of paintings is a continuation of her own color sense. She treats it fluidly, making it flow from room to room. She can hang disparate works together in a way that flatters them all.

The two paintings I dropped off are silly and sweet—a Father Christmas figurine and a toy monkey. Both remind me of younger days and a house full of noisy kids on Christmas morning.

Represented artists are Tania Amazeen-Jones, Susan Lewis Baines, Holly Berry, John Bowdren, Jerry Cable, Sandra Leinonen Dunn, Maggie Galen, Julie Haskell, Pamela Hetherly, Beth London, Nancy Lee Lovley, the late Erik Lundin, Angela Anderson Pomerleau, Wayne Robbins, Ann Sklar, Kay Sullivan, Gwen Sylvester, and Lucas Sylvester. Oh, and yours truly.

To get to the Kelpie Gallery, just head south on Maine Rt. 73 from Rockland. The gallery is about a mile south of the Owls Head Transportation Museum and on the same side of the road. (That’s 81 Elm Street, S. Thomaston, if you’re using your GPS.)

And, yes, the bridge over the Weskeag is now open.