Artist Alice Tweedie

NORWAY — Norway Memorial Library is exhibiting Faces, a collection of 20 multimedia illustrations by Alice Tweedie in January and February 2024. The exhibit is on view whenever the library is open.

“I’ve been having fun creating these characters on paper and spinning off on them to imagine stories,” says artist Alice Tweedie. “Typically, I have no idea who will appear when I put pencil to paper. The person emerges as one thing leads to another. Sometimes, I’ll see a picture in the newspaper or on a brochure that will be the starting point.

“All of these portraits start as pencil drawings. I add a bit of color, or full color, in pastels, colored pencils, and acrylic paints. I add collages to some of them to give further ideas of the character. I like to use photographs of previous paintings of mine with other photos for my collages.”

Tweedie says these pictures evoke stories, a tale, or a new narrative. Some illustrate stories like Peter Pan and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Alice comes from a professional background in the performing arts. The performing arts came to include (for her) the art of designing and constructing Muppet-style puppets for television out of her studio in New York City. They were featured on Today and in New York Magazine. “So, I used to think up characters in three-dimension”, she says, “before I did in 2-D.”

Alice holds a bachelor’s degree from Antioch College with a major in theater arts and from the University of Southern Maine with a major in communications. She studied art at the Maine College of Art, USM, Antioch College, and The New School in NYC.

Alice was a puppeteer, actress, and character singer with the Muppets, with Shari Lewis on Captain Kangaroo, The Kid-A-Littles, The Perry Como Show, and a Johnny Carson TV pilot series. She made many TV commercials and infomercials for large businesses. Alice has acted Off-Broadway in The Three Sisters and America Hurrah and repertory at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, countless summer stock theater companies, and on dinner theater tours throughout the southern states.

“I’ve done some Mad Magazine-type characters that are way ‘off-the-wall’ (not in this exhibit), and I’d love to see what someone could write or act out from those pictures – or for that matter, from any of my drawings.”

Titles from Alice’s show range from “Risen from the Ashes of Pompeii” to “La Pieta” (which is surrounded by Alice’s bright orange poppies), to “Cornrows Hipster”to “Our Lady of the Plants and Creatures” and “The Social Worker”.

Those interested in purchasing can get contact information and a price list at the information desk. Visit Alice’s website at alicetweedieart.com. Norway Memorial Library is located at 258 Main Street, Norway, Maine. For more information, call 207-743-5309 or visit www.norwaymemoriallibrary.org.