Where the Land Speaks: Painting Lubec, Maine

A few years ago, I received a generous landscape commission in Lubec, Maine—a small coastal town perched at the edge of Mainet, a few hours north of Winter Harbor. By then, I’d already roamed and digested much of the Schoodic Peninsula, Acadia, and even a taste of Cape Elizabeth. Lubec was new territory for me with its rawness and rugged honesty. 

My client owns a remarkable house right on the water, just before the small bridge that crosses into Canada’s Campobello Island. Maria, our cat Henri, and I stayed there while they were away so I could live with the land and let it speak to me. It occurred to me then that people might not know how a commissioned landscape truly begins. How it’s not just painted, but found.

Most of my commissions start with a referral from someone familiar with my work, or a designer who’s witnessed one of my pieces light up a room. Often, the painting is meant as a gift. Sometimes it’s a gift to oneself. (I’ll say it again: you deserve it.) These early conversations are less about location and more about emotion—a feeling sparked by a painting I’ve done before. My task is to chase that same magic in terrain that belongs to someone else’s memories.

Henri dreaming of the speedy Lubec mice.

We settled into the house quietly. Henri, a seasoned traveler with limited patience, surveyed the territory at once. He took great interest in the Lubec mice. Although a legendary mouser in Alexandria, He never caught the faster country mice of Lubec. 

October in Lubec means self-reliance. You bring your food, your wine, and your willingness to listen. Nearly everything is closed for the season. The evenings are filled with winds and distant elks and maybe ghosts? Occasionally the waves would crash into the cove so hard beneath the house that the chandelier would sway.  

Each day, I set up my travel easel and painted small studies, chasing light as it shifted across water and stone. You must roam a landscape, let it reveal itself from every angle, every hour. And then, one evening, often at the edge of dusk, it happens. A sudden break in the clouds. A fleeting color. A sensation rising up the back of your neck. There it is. That's the one.

I typically return with a collection of studies, and together with the client, we choose the one that holds the soul of the place. Back in my studio, that small study becomes the final painting. Eventually, there’s a champagne toasted unveiling, and your memory is now installed on your wall. Forever part of your family.

“Lubec” by Don Ripper oil on canvas 2023

If there’s a place you carry with you, a shoreline, meadow or mountain, and you want it honored in paint, reach out. That’s how these journeys begin.

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