Mattie Rose Templeton is inspired by the natural world, and through art she explores our connection to nature, including the undeniable fragility that is found there. Her goal is to produce art that moves the viewer beyond the piece itself, and into a place of storytelling. “Art has always been a way to record history through visual storytelling,” she says.

Using an “old-fashioned” ink well, with variously sized nibs, Mattie Rose works with texture and line, often avoiding the use of color, because she finds the contrast of black and white more dramatic. She adds a conceptual quality to her art with geometric shapes and patterns layered into an otherwise realistic piece.

Mattie Rose will be at the Wendell Gilley Museum in person to share her storytelling as the museum’s People-Nature-Art presenter for December on Tuesday, Dec. 2. There will be a 6 p.m. artist’s reception followed by her presentation at 7 p.m. which will happen in person and simultaneously livecast. Both in-person and online attendance is free, but registration is required at www.wendellgilleymuseum.org/calendar.

Mattie Rose is a self-taught artist whose work is now carried in more than 75 stores in New England and beyond. She was born and raised in rural Maine, and lived off the grid with her parents and three siblings. She credits this lifestyle as the foundation of the blooming of her vivid imagination.

Now she can often be found sitting in front of a big window, pen in hand, looking out at the beautiful mountains of Grafton Notch from her own off-grid home. She has published a children’s book in collaboration with the Appalachian Mountain Club and is working on a second one. During the summer she participates in many multi-day art fairs in Maine and New Hampshire; year-round she makes art, is a mom to two young children, and works the land around her home.

People-Nature-Art is a free monthly series that brings artists, writers, carvers, and creative types of all kinds to the Gilley to explore how nature and art interact in their work, and how their art impacts their own approach to nature. It is sponsored by our friends at Bar Harbor Bank & Trust.