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Arlene Morris of Topsham shaped handmade paper into facial forms and filled her panes with eyes, noses and lips.

Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

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Dozens of artists worked wonders on windows, such as this colorful detail, for “Taking Panes” at the Ames Mill in Richmond.

Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

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View of "Taking Panes" at the Ames Mill in Richmond.

Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

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"Taking Panes" organizer Richard Lee at the Ames Mill in Richmond.

Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

IF YOU GO

"TAKING PANES"

WHERE: Ames Mill, 307 Front St., Richmond

WHEN: Opening reception, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today. On view through March 30. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday.

INFORMATION: 798-0935

RICHMOND — When you think about it, what really is the purpose of a window?

To keep out the elements, yes, and to draw in light.

On a larger scale, a window's purpose is to create vision and allow us to see a world beyond where we stand at any given moment. A window represents a passage to another place.

In art, the window has been used as a metaphor for that journey for almost as long as the earliest artists left their mark.

For the next two weeks in Richmond, the window serves as a rallying point for Maine's visual arts community.

"Taking Panes," on display through March 30 on the third floor of the historic Ames Mill, fuses old windows with the wildly creative impulses of the contemporary arts community.

The exhibition is the brainchild of 75-year-old master papermaker Richard Lee. He and his partner, fiber artist Christine Macchi, share a studio on the mill's second floor.

Last fall, the mill's owners told Lee they were replacing the century-old wooden windows with vinyl replacements.

"What are you going to do with the old windows?" Lee asked.

"Throw them out," the mill owners said.

Lee wouldn't let that happen.

He distributed the windows to artists around Maine. He asked them to work their magic and re-purpose the windows with their own creative vision.

At first, he got about 20 artists to take the windows. As the snow started piling high, more artists signed up. The exhibition, which opens today, will feature 88 windows and represent the work of almost as many artists, from Portland to Eastport, from Bridgton to Solon.

"It just spread. People kept calling, 'Do you have another window, Richard? Can I have a window?"'

There were no rules or limits, beyond the stipulation that artists must use the weathered windows in their work. The windows couldn't simply provide the inspiration, but had to serve as a component of the piece.

Some, such as Frank Brockman of Brunswick, painted on existing surfaces, transforming the wood and glass into a colorful explosion reminiscent of Jackson Pollock.

Arlene Morris of Topsham shaped handmade paper into facial forms, and filled the panes with eyes, noses and lips.

Kyung Cha of Brunswick created more than 2,000 tiny ceramic human forms and affixed them within the window panes. His piece creates the notion of a little world within the framework of a big window. It's brilliantly crafted, and visually stunning.

Many artists dismantled the frames.

Lihau Lei of Solon busted all the glass, shattered the wooden frame, salvaged the glaze and nails, and then placed each element in its own see-through box. In their urn-like final form, the collective mass of the four elements reminds viewers of what once was, and how in the end – animal or object – we're all reduced to finite matter.

On the other end of the spectrum, Edward Mackenzie, who runs Richmond Store Gallery just up the street from the mill, sliced and diced his window, making a stew from the muntins and mullions. He gave each piece new life and form.

David McLaughlin of Liberty, a sculptor accustomed to steelwork, said the project proved enlightening, because it illustrated diversity in expression and the unpredictable nature of contemporary art. At the same time, there's unity in the work, he said.

"Here we are, almost 100 artists who started in basically the same place, and we went to all these different destinations of artistic expression. I was working independently, but I felt I was working with all these other artists," he said.

The mill dates to 1881, and was built for cotton. It's had many textile tenants over the years. The last of those, Ames Worsted Co., went out of business in the 1960s.

It's a majestic brick building, standing on the western shore of the Kennebec River directly across from Swan Island.

Inside the mill, the present-day...