ROCKPORT — Katie Wilson moved to Maine last winter from New Hampshire, from the hills to the ocean. Her sister, Corrine, lives in the area, and Katie arrived in the Midcoast to concentrate on her on her art and a germ of an idea to open her own studio.

She is a painter, working with oil paints, pastel and media, and she wanted her own space here, in a region she regards as highly receptive to artists. She has traveled to art festivals, exhibiting in Florida, throughout the northeast, and in Camden's Habor Arts and Crafts Show (held in July and October); but, she wanted a home base, a place to ground her art.

With grit and determination, she made it happen. On Saturday, the doors of her Beech Hill Gallery, on Route 1 just south of Rockport Village, were wide open. When her doors are open, the gallery is hard to miss as one drives down the road. She currently is hanging a large portrait of her great uncles on the sliding barn door, and inside the barn, more of her pieces hang from the warmth of old pine boards and sides of stalls. Her work reflects different periods in American history: her uncles could step from the 1950s, earnest men in the loosely-hanging suits and fedoras; on her easel, a portrait of three Edwardian ladies, in their long dresses and sassy smiles, is a work in progress; a photo of Wilson's own daughter, a study of a generation about to take the reins of the world, sits on the computer screen beside her easel, another piece that she is about to begin.

Wilson purchased the modest old farmhouse at auction earlier this year and set about cleaning and renovating a home that had come upon hard times. She quickly brightened walls that had been painted black, and filled with someone else's sad wall markings. She ripped out rugs and flooring saturated with cat urine, and spent weeks transporting trash of former residents to the dump. She did it herself, with the help of her sister, removing truckloads of refuse. Today, the place is restored to a state that would make its original owners smile in their graves.

Walk through the mud room into the kitchen of the attached house, and it's clear that this is the home of an artist: the dining room is commanded by a large easel, and by the window that looks over the backyard, a long table stocked with oil paints and brushes. The kitchen is freshened with color, and there is purposeful order to the home.

"I feel connected here," she said. "It is easy for me to connect because there are so many artists, so many creative people. And if not artists, they know how to appreciate art."

Why does she paint?

"I don't know if it's a release of emotion or satisfaction of something visual. It is about color, and trying to do something really beautiful with art."

Wilson was trained as an artist at the University of New Hampshire in the 1990s, and she credits her professor, Tim Harney, for his encouragement and exceptional instruction.

She looks to the masters for guidance: Egon Schiele, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent.

"I want to take an expression or face and give it my interpretation," she said.

See more about Katie Wilson at her website.