AUGUSTA — Sarah Ann Smith, of Hope, is the featured artist and keynote speaker at this year’s Maine Quilts, which is held at the Augusta Civic Center, July 25-27 (preview night July 24, lecture and banquet dinner Thursday, July 25 ).

Smith’s exhibit, Finding Home, will be open during regular show hours of 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.; her lecture, How Did She Do That, features samples from the exhibit and sold works and chronicles her life living and working around the world as a US Foreign Service Officer before finding her true home in Maine.  

Smith wrote in a news release: 

From infancy, I moved all over the world. A lot. So nowhere was truly home. Less than two years after we arrived in Camden, Maine, in July 2004, in my 40s, I made two quilts depicting winter with technicolor stone walls and trees and lots of snow. Those quilts flowed out of me effortlessly! I realized that while I wasn’t born in Maine, I should have been: my birthplace was an accident of geography. And I knew I had finally found Home.  

This summer marks 20 years since we arrived in Camden and I attended my first Maine Quilts. This exhibit showcases my work from my earliest art quilts to the present as I matured as an artist and became confident in my voice, skill, subject matter and style. I hope Finding Home brings you joy, just as living in Maine and being accepted as part of the state’s quilt community has brought joy and home to me.

Smith will be giving Gallery Talks twice a day at 11:45 a.m. and 2 p.m.   

Maine Quilts is an annual event presented by the Pine Tree Quilt Guild (PTQG), the non-profit statewide Maine quilt guild. The PTQG has more than 2,100 members, in 71 chapters across the state. The purpose of PTQG is to promote quilting through workshops, chapter activities, the Patchwork Press newsletter, educational programs and community activities. To learn more and join a local chapter, visit https://mainequilts.org