The Stier Family Gallery, on the library’s lower level, hosts exhibitions that offer great variety of media, topics, and artists that educate, inform, or entertain the community. Information about our current exhibit is below, followed by information on how to apply to exhibit your work in our gallery.
Currently on Display
Into the Light
Breaking the Silence of Domestic Abuse
Photographs by Patrisha McLean on posters from Finding our Voices
July 1 – 32, 2025
Selected images from the exhibit
This month’s exhibit is part of our effort to raise awareness about domestic abuse in Maine, and in particular, in Cape Elizabeth. For the past eighteen months, TML has been partnering with Finding Our Voices, the grassroots and survivor-powered nonprofit breaking the silence of domestic abuse across Maine. In addition to its innovative public awareness campaigns, the group empowers women survivors with online weekly support groups, healing retreats, and, through referral partners, access to free dental care and payments of apartment security deposits.
The exhibit features portraits of Maine women, aged 21 – 85, who are survivors of domestic abuse. The photographs were taken by Patrisha McLean, Founder and CEO of Finding Our Voices, and featured on posters along with quotes from each of the survivors.
About the Photographer
Patrisha McLean became a firebrand for women’s rights at the age of 55, sparked by the domestic violence arrest of her celebrity husband. (Read the article in The Irish Times.).
In addition to being acting executive director of Finding Our Voices, she runs an online book club looking at books through the lens of domestic abuse and hosts a Podcast and radio show featuring conversations with domestic abuse survivors.
Named by WOMEN’S e-News as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, she regularly contributes opinion pieces about domestic abuse to Maine’s two daily newspapers, Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News. Her talks on domestic abuse include to Harvard Law School, Maine high schools, and gatherings of police chiefs and district attorneys.
Patrisha’s previous career was an award-winning photographer. Her books are Maine Street and My Island, appreciation in photos and prose respectively of her neighbors in Camden, Maine and children living on Maine islands; and All Fall Down, and the biography of Brandon de Wilde (child star of the movie Shane). She is a calligrapher and scuba dives in Egypt and Indonesia.
Find out more about Cape Elizabeth’s domestic abuse awareness efforts, and find out how you can help stand up for survivors: Click here!
Information for Prospective Artists/Exhibitors
The Stier Family Gallery consists of two wall display areas (with a rail/cord hanging system) and a large display case divided into 5 segments. More detailed space plans are available in the gallery application.
- All interested artists are strongly encouraged to make a site visit prior to submitting a proposal. Artists are able to use part or all of the gallery space available. Please note, if an artist is only using part of the space (i.e. only the display cases), another artist’s work may be displayed elsewhere in the Gallery.
- Any interested party in utilizing the gallery must submit an application to the Library Director.
- Applications are accepted any time of year. Exhibits are scheduled on a “first come, first serve” basis. Please note that at times of high demand, the gallery may be scheduled months in advance.
- Given the public viewing of the gallery, the subject matter of any show must be appropriate for children as well as adults, therefore explicit images are not permitted in gallery shows. The Library Director reserves the right to reject or remove any material(s) that seem incongruent with the public nature of the gallery. In the event that the Library Director rejects or removes any material(s) for exhibit, that decision is final.
Click here for more information or to apply!