Gateless Garden

Read the Reviews…

"…The unexpectedly rich presence of the framed objects . . . combines a here-and-now picture presence with a pulsing rhythmic sense of time provided by the literary quotes. Together, these create an almost musically eloquent dialogue between presence and thing – a sort of poetry of place."
Portland Press Herald

Maine Writers Alliance Award 2016

Here’s to Maine women writers in this unprecedented and powerful collection of quotes. . . . Not merely a collection, but a community of voices that speaks to us all about the lives of women throughout time and the deep truths of the human condition and its formidable spirit.”
—Richard Blanco, fifth Inaugural Poet of the US

The wisdom of Maine’s women writers is on fascinating display in this collection.”
—Tess Gerritsen, author of Rizzoli and Isles

A Gateless Garden is a great celebration of our literary history and of the women who have left an indelible mark on Maine and inspired the entire country.”
—Senator Angus S. King, Jr.

Instead of Gideon’s Bible, it’s A Gateless Garden that should be in Maine’s hotel rooms.”
—Megan Thorn, Portland, Maine

Where do I start? How can I express my appreciation as eloquently as your book of Maine Women writers? All of it is so wonderful: the rhythm in the quotations, the feelings from the black and white photographs, the strength shown by the women from the 1800s to now. [A Gateless Garden is] a friend disguised as a book to be enjoyed and from which to grow with each reading.”
—Marybeth Herens, Colorado Springs, CO

A Gateless Garden

In this unprecedented collection of quotes by Maine women writers, editor Liza Bakewell has gathered together women’s voices from 1800 to present, beginning with Madame Sally Wood, Maine’s first novelist, and traveling through the last two centuries up to the present day. The matching of quotes with photographs by Kerry Michaels accentuates just how much Maine women writers have energized the essence of place, strengthened women’s lives, and illuminated the human condition. In sum, A Gateless Garden is a meditation on community, collectivity, landscape, gardening, love, desire, and family, topics as ancient to women’s experiences as they are palpable to us today.


The Exhibit

A Gateless Garden is also an exhibit of 50 letterpress quotes and black and white photographs, printed on German etching paper and framed as pairs.


The Portfolio

The Gateless Garden exhibit can be purchased as a Portfolio. Letterpress quotes by Ascensius Press, accompanied by black and white photographs by Kerry Michaels, printed by Nickelson Editions, inside an archival book box by Grey Parrot Bookbinder. Three is a limited edition. The University of New England’s Maine Women Writers Collection has one in their collection.