Published March 7, 2024
Updated June 28, 2024
A Resilient Vision: Art Returns to the Maxwell Mays Wildlife Refuge
By Betsy Sherman Walker
Twelve years after the opening of the Maxwell Mays Wildlife Refuge, Audubon has embarked on what might fit in as the final detail in the story of Mays’ legacy—as an artist, a conservationist, a lover of wildlife, and a philanthropist.
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Art is coming back to the Maxwell Mays Wildlife Refuge.
Audubon has announced plans to convert Mays’ guest cottage at Woodlot Farm (which he playfully named the chicken coop even though he had no chickens) into an art studio and teaching work-shop. The program will be run by Coventry artist Aileen Quinn, who has ties to the property and is a member—as was Mays—of the Providence Art Club. With an enthusiastic endorsement from Executive Director Jeff Hall, Quinn, under a rental agreement with Audubon, will begin classes in April. The program will run through October. At the moment all that’s been needed is a fresh interior coat of paint. “We’re going to spruce it up a bit,” said Quinn. According to her, the building is an ideal spot in an ideal location. “There is a nice wide-open space with so much natural light.”
“This has been a priority of mine for years,” Hall says. Mays, who the Providence Journal referred to in 2009 as Rhode Island’s “living legend,” was Past President of the Providence Art Club, with the main gallery named for him. He left his beloved Woodlot Farm to Audubon in 2010, and Hall added that one of Mays’ visions was to make Woodlot Farm available to Art Club members for plein air painting excursions. “Max was such a huge part of the Art Club,” he added, “and I want to maintain that connection.”
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Aileen Quinn Painting at the Quidnick
Quinn, a lifelong artist, is a native of Warwick and has been teaching art in the area for more than 25 years. She currently leads a weekly art class for adults with special needs at the Warwick Center for the Arts, as well as monthly watercolor workshops. Her connection to Audubon runs deep; from 2013-2015 she ran the Fresh Palette art studio at the old barn located at the Parker Woodland Wildlife Refuge in Coventry. When the house and barn was sold to help finance the endowment of the Parker Woodland property, Quinn recalls, “I figured I’d take my passion and pour it into life in some other way.
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Quinn is also currently the housekeeper for Mays’ lake-side cottage on the property, which Audubon rents during the summer months. (“I turn the place around between guests,” she explains.) On her many housekeeping gigs—and as an overnight guest herself, when she goes to paint—she would walk by the coop, a small clapboard structure with oversized windows, and see a small gem with big potential. “Every time I’d go down there the [chicken coop] would be sitting there—not being used,” she said. “I’d say to Audubon Land Steward Joe Metzen, ‘What are you going to do with that little building?’”
With Metzen as the conduit, Quinn and Hall eventually came together. “The idea for art at the refuge started after Max’s death,” says Hall, “but we didn’t have a plan or a timeline. The conversation resurfaced after [Joe] brought the subject up to me last winter.” Metzen, also an artist, presented Quinn’s idea and her interest in renting the space for an art studio. According to Hall the fact that, like Mays, Quinn was local, established, and a member of the Providence Art Club was the indisputable link.
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The "Chicken Coop"
“When I heard that,” he said, "I thought it might be a perfect fit for the coop.”
Allison Barrett, Maxwell Mays’ niece and companion during the later years of his life, lives on an adjacent piece of property – a gift from Mays. Her fondest memories are of walking the trails with him, almost daily. In a recent conversation with Hall, Barrett confirmed that the notion of “bringing the art back to the refuge” is something Mays would have endorsed, wholeheartedly. “He could paint for hours and not be interrupted,” she noted in a previous conversation. But he was also very social, she added “and also loved to entertain friends at his house on Carr Pond, fill it up with people who appreciated it as much as he did.”
Quinn says she never met Maxwell Mays, but that her stepfather would mention growing up in the same Providence neighborhood, and that he was “proud to have owned a print of Max’s well-known painting ‘Buttonwoods.’” Her attraction to the coop reveals an artist’s practiced eye, and an artist’s sixth sense about what it takes to create a good painter’s retreat. Besides maintaining the Lake House for other renters, she has also spent numerous weekends there, bringing fellow artists along.
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Hall says he would like to see a fundraiser come together later in the fall. No date is set; he wants to see how the summer unfolds first. But it would be wonderful to have the venue for the event—which may include an auction—be the Providence Art Club, in the Maxwell Mays Gallery. “It’s something that we want to explore,” says Hall. “It could pull together people who knew Max and loved him.”
In true Mays fashion, Quinn’s vision is his: to share his woodlands, trails, and the wildlife drawn to Carr Pond with as many art and wildlife lovers as possible.
“It would be an honor to be able to teach art and carry on for him,” Quinn says. “To be able to bring people to the refuge and see what Max left for us. It’s a legacy that should be honored. I’m so glad to be a part of bringing it back.”
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The Field at Parker Woodland - Watercolor by Aileen Quinn
The chicken coop will be busy. Quinn is planning on classes for all ages, and in a variety of media. Her plans include plein air watercolor sessions beginning in May, workshops on painting seasonal birds on glasses (beginning with the hummingbird); and both youth and adult weekend sessions of papermaking. She will be offering a journaling workshop for young children, and to honor Earth Day, in April she has scheduled a recycled art workshop during spring vacation.
Carr Pond, and the fields and woodlands on the property will be adding artists to Mays’ envisioned list of visitors. Mays’ resilient vision prevails —and seems to be growing. And from where Maxwell Mays would be standing, framing with his hand one of his many wildlife scenes, paints at his side, Quinn sees it from an artist’s perspective. “I really look forward,” she says, “to spending more time on the property, on the fields, quietly painting and reflecting.”
Get Creative This Summer!
Here is the summer 2024 Maxwell Mays Art Studio class schedule. Click the links to register!
Wednesday Walk and Watercolor
Come to the Maxwell Mays Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday mornings in the summer for walks and watercolor painting. A new watercolor technique will be explored each week and put into practice with a seasonal theme. At the end of each series an 11”x14" matted painting will be ready to frame! All materials and morning coffee / tea provided.
Four-week Sessions - Two Options Available:
- Session 1: July 10, 17, 24, 31, 2024 (9:30 am - 1 pm) - RSVP HERE
- Session 2: August 7, 14, 21, 28, 2024 (9:30 am - 1 pm) - RSVP HERE
Open Studio Thursdays
It’s open Studio! Bring your artwork on Thursdays to share and work in the studio space or outdoors En Plein Air. Morning coffee / tea provided. Meet in the parking lot at 9:30 am.
Four-week Sessions - Two Options Available:
- Session 1: July 11, 18, 25, August 1, 2024 (9:30 am - 1 pm) - RSVP HERE
- Session 2: August 8, 15, 22, 29, 2024 (9:30 am - 1 pm) - RSVP HERE
Printmaking
Explore simple printmaking techniques using natural and recycled materials to create an owl and other small colorful feathered friends. Our paper sculptures will be ready to hang! Maybe even fly away!
August 16, 2024; 6:00- 8:30 pm; RSVP HERE
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Dock at Carr Pond at Maxwell Mays Wildlife Refuge by Aileen QuinnDock at Carr Pond at Maxwell Mays Wildlife Refuge by Aileen Quinn
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Rent the Charming Maxwell Mays Lakefront Cottage
Perfect for a weekend-get-away or a family vacation, this beautiful wood and fieldstone camp is available May through October. Click here for details and availability!
