The decision to make violins with nontraditional woods has meant Peter Gallant has been largely shut out of the classical violin world.

Patrisha McLean's My Island is a celebration of summer and year-round Maine island children, with more than 100 duotone portraits. The 160-page book—five years and countless ferry rides in the making, she says—is distributed by Islandport Press...

By Laurie Schreiber

On Swan's Island, Mary L. (Mamie) Torrey was an inquisitive and determined soul.

The two men were friends. According to Wyeth, they first met in 1950 when Ruohomaa knocked on his door. Their friendship was based on mutual admiration, but they also shared an artistic sensibility: both of them depicted Maine and Mainers with a clear yet poetic eye.

Nine years ago, a man who had no background or any interest in creating art became an artist. Swimming along the bottom of Wiscasset harbor, 30 feet under water, bottle hunter Rick Carney was hit with an idea that would lead him down an unimagined path.

I lived through the digital revolution—or thought I had until I read this book. Being a child of the 1950s and '60s, I had assumed that computers, email, Google and the World Wide Web were all creatures brought to life by my own generation; since Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were, in fact, younger than me, it was only natural to conclude that they had invented the digital world we now live in.

Whether it's a wedding, reunion or holiday celebration, photographers often struggle to get all the key family members in their shots. Imagine how hard it was for Miranda Battiste to capture the family that is the island's year-round population.

A retired fourth-grade reading teacher, she's recently published her first collection of poetry, Cutting the Grass with Scissors—Monhegan Poems.