A reception celebrates the exhibits at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, in the museum. Nemett, chair of the painting department at the Maryland Institute College of Art, talks about his work and signs his 2009 book Paintings, Poems, and Passages at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, in Olin Arts Center’s Room 104.

Babb’s exhibit, The Process Revealed, shows until March 26, 2010, while Nemett’s Drawings from Italy remains up until Dec. 18. Open free of charge, the museum’s hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.

Through Babb’s exhibit, curator Bill Low investigates the roles of both the act of drawing and the drawings themselves in the production of paintings. Commonly thought of as by-products of the act of creating paintings, drawings are works of art in their own right. Illustrating the creative process by pairing preparatory drawings with finished paintings, this exhibition reveals the stages of work that go into resolved art. The exhibition will display works from three of Babb’s many areas of interest: cityscapes, wilderness landscapes and figural works.

Nemett presents landscape drawings made during travels to Italy. He has received numerous awards, including two from the Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program to paint in Brittany, France, and a Ford Foundation grant to support his work in Italy.

Babb, who lives in Sumner, received a B.A from Princeton University and an M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University. In 2003, his work was the subject of a major exhibition at the Bates museum titled Intimate Wilderness. He has shown at Vose Galleries and Gallery Naga in Boston; Sherry French Gallery, Gerold Wunderlich and the National Academy Museum in New York City; the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Frost Gully Gallery, Portland Museum of Art and the Ogunquit Museum of Art in Maine and Trudy Labell Fine Arts in Florida.

Nemett, a graduate of the Pratt Institute and Yale University, has also exhibited widely, including the National Academy Museum in New York, the Rochefort-en-Terre Museum of Art in France and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in Nagoya, Japan. He is also the author of a novel, a textbook and a collection of both writings and art. He has been on the faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 1971. In 2006, he worked as an artist in residence at Bates.

Learn more about these exhibitions and the Bates College Museum of Art.

The event has been rescheduled since it was first announced and will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, in Room 104, Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. Nemett’s exhibition opened on Oct. 10, in conjunction with Joel Babb: The Process Revealed.

Nemett’s lecture is open to the public at no cost and is co-sponsored by the Department of Art and Visual Culture and the Learning Associates Program. For more information, please call 207-786-6158.

Open free of charge, the museum’s hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.

Nemett, who is showing landscape drawings at Bates, has received numerous awards, including two from the Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program to paint in Brittany, France, and a Ford Foundation grant to support his work in Italy.

Also an author and poet, he has penned a novel, a textbook and most recently, a collection of writings and art titled Paintings, Poems, and Passages. This work will be available for Nemett to sign in the art museum, also in Olin, immediately following the lecture.

Showing with the Nemett exhibition is Joel Babb: The Process Revealed. Curated by the museum’s Bill Low, this exhibit uses the Maine artist Babb’s work to investigate the roles of both the act of drawing and the drawings themselves in the production of paintings. That exhibit shows though March 26, 2010.

Another highlight for your story planning is the fact that Frank Glazer, an artist in residence at Bates and a pianist of international stature, has two concerts on tap during November.

In addition, the month holds one must-cover in literature at Bates, a reading by Camden’s own Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, Richard Russo (Empire Falls).

Full press releases will follow for most of these events.

• Stage: The Robinson Players, one of the oldest student theater companies in the nation, continues an ambitious year with three November productions. David Ives wrote two of them: The Red Address, which started in October and closes Nov. 3, and All In The Timing, a collection of absurdist one-acts (Nov. 15-17). Also this month the “Rob Players” present Love Changes Everything, an original cabaret of popular love songs from such Broadway hits as West Side Story, South Pacific and My Fair Lady (Nov. 8-9).

• Meanwhile, the Department of Theater and Rhetoric at Bates has its own fish to fry. Professor Paul Kuritz directs Oscar Wilde’s sparkling comedy of manners, Lady Windermere’s Fan (Nov. 1-3, 8-10). Starting later in the month (Nov. 19 and 21, Dec. 5-6) is Sex and Death, a collection of one-acts written by Diana Amsterdam and directed by students in Kuritz’s directing class. Finally, the department’s dance program offers showcase performances of work by two visiting big-name choreographers: New York’s Ben Munisteri on Nov. 1, and from Boston, Sara Sweet Rabidoux on Nov. 15.

• Literature: Richard Russo, the Camden author who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel Empire Falls, reads from his work on Nov. 14. This Annual Writers Harvest event is sponsored by Bates and the national anti-hunger organization SOS.

• Another compelling event in the humanities is a talk on Nov. 11 by Marcus Borg, best-selling author and a professor of religion and culture at Oregon University. His talk is likely to be an attention-getter: The Bible: Instrument of Oppression or Liberation?

• Music: With two concerts in November by Frank Glazer, who is well into his 80s, the time is ripe for a long-overdue major Glazer profile. On Nov. 9, the pianist is joined by his New England Piano Quartette colleague Curtis Macomber for a program of Beethoven violin sonatas. On the 20th, it’s just Glazer with music by Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy and Liszt.

• Two student ensembles have their autumn concerts this month, too. The Bates College Orchestra performs music by Haydn, Brahms, Stravinsky and Pärt on Nov. 1. On Nov. 15-16, the Bates College Choir sings a cantata from Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” and Mozart’s “Solemn Vespers of the Confessor” with orchestral accompaniment.

• Visual Arts: November is the month for lectures by visiting artists, notably Maine’s own Joel Babb (Nov. 7), who is exhibiting Maine landscapes at the college through the end of the year. Others discussing their work are Alyssa Hinton, who uses mixed media to explore the folklore and history surrounding her Native American roots and has the exhibit Spiritual Archaeology at Bates (Nov. 10); and Pheobe Farris, a Purdue University professor of art, design and women’s studies, with a survey of contemporary female Native American artists (Nov. 15).

The play’s the thing when it comes to November’s public arts and entertainment events at Bates College. Two productions are planned by the college’s theater program (as well as two by the dance program), and there are two by the student theatrical troupe, the Robinson Players. Other performance highlights for November include two concerts by artist-in-residence Frank Glazer, a pianist of international stature. The month also holds a reading by Camden’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Richard Russo.

The Robinson Players, one of the oldest student theater companies in the nation, continue an ambitious year with two November productions. David Ives wrote All In The Timing, a collection of absurdist one-acts (Nov. 15-17). Also this month the “Rob Players” present Love Changes Everything, an original cabaret of popular love songs from such Broadway hits as West Side Story, South Pacific and My Fair Lady (Nov. 8-9).

Meanwhile, the Department of Theater and Rhetoric at Bates has its own fish to fry. Professor Paul Kuritz directs Oscar Wilde’s sparkling comedy of manners, Lady Windermere’s Fan, at the Gannett Theater through Nov. 10 (read more about it here). Starting later in the month (Nov. 19 and 21, Dec. 5-6) is Sex and Death, a collection of one-acts written by Diana Amsterdam and directed by students in Kuritz’s directing class.

Finally, students in the department’s dance program offer a showcase performance of work by visiting choreographer Sara Sweet Rabidoux on Nov. 15.

On the music front, Glazer is joined on Nov. 9 by his New England Piano Quartette colleague Curtis Macomber for a program of Beethoven violin sonatas. On the 20th, it’s just Glazer with music by Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy and Liszt.

On Nov. 15-16, the Bates College Choir sings a cantata from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mozart’s Solemn Vespers of the Confessor with orchestral accompaniment.

In literature, Russo, who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel Empire Falls, reads from his work on Nov. 14. This Annual Writers Harvest event is sponsored by Bates and the national anti-hunger organization SOS.

Another compelling event in the humanities is a talk on Nov. 11 by Marcus Borg, best-selling author and a professor of religion and culture at Oregon University. His talk is likely to be an attention-getter: The Bible: Instrument of Oppression or Liberation?

In the visual arts, in addition to a lecture by Maine landscapist Joel Babb on Nov. 7, two lectures concern Native American artists: Alyssa Hinton, who uses mixed media to explore the folklore and history surrounding her Native American roots and has the exhibit Spiritual Archaeology at Bates, talks about her work on Nov. 10; and Pheobe Farris, a Purdue University professor of art, design and women’s studies, offers a survey of contemporary female Native American artists on the 15th.

In Boston, Babb is especially well-known for cityscapes that include street-level views and a series depicting the city as seen from a helicopter, such as “Copley Plunge.” In 1996, working in consultation with the doctors who performed the first successful kidney transplant, Babb finished a mural of that historic operation that is displayed in the Courtway Library at Harvard Medical School.

Babb’s work is represented in the collections of the Bates museum, Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, the DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, Mass.) and numerous corporations and individuals. His exhibition venues have included the prestigious Sherry French Gallery and Gerold Wunderlich and Co. (both in New York City), Kathleen Dolan Fine Art (Boston), the Art Complex Museum (Duxbury, Mass.) and the Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati, Ohio).

In Maine, he has shown at the Portland Museum of Art, the Ogunquit Art Museum, Frost Gully Gallery, Round Top Center for the Arts and Maine Coast Artists, among other venues. Intimate Wilderness is the fifth Bates exhibition representing Babb.

The Bates College Museum of Art was founded to preserve the nation’s largest repository of Marsden Hartley drawings and other items relating to this important artist, a Lewiston native. Its holdings include a robust print collection and notable works by Maine artists with national significance, such as Dahlov Ipcar, the late William Thon, Neil Welliver and Charles Hewitt.

The flagship museum for the Maine Art Museum Trail, the Bates College Museum of Art is located in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. Admission is free. The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. and 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Sun. The museum is closed Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

May will speak in Room 104, Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. The reception will be held in the museum, also located in the arts center. For information, please call 207-786-6158.

A resident of Buckfield and an instructor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Babb has been a notable presence in New England art for more than 20 years. He is known for large, luminous, boldly colored paintings that combine traditional techniques with an approach to imagery and composition that is virtually photographic.

In Boston, Babb is especially well-known for cityscapes that include street-level views and a series depicting the city as seen from a helicopter, such as 1990′s “Copley Plunge.” In 1996, working in consultation with the doctors who performed the first successful kidney transplant, Babb finished a mural of that historic operation that is displayed in the Courtway Library at Harvard Medical School.

Babb’s work is represented in the collections of the Bates College Museum of Art, Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, the DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, Mass.) and numerous corporations and individuals. His exhibition venues have included the prestigious Sherry French Gallery and Gerold Wunderlich and Co. (both in New York City), Kathleen Dolan Fine Art (Boston), the Art Complex Museum (Duxbury, Mass.) and the Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati, Ohio).

In Maine, he has shown at the Portland Museum of Art, the Ogunquit Art Museum, Frost Gully Gallery, Round Top Center for the Arts and Maine Coast Artists, among other venues. Intimate Wilderness is the fifth Bates exhibition representing Babb.

Stephen May is an independent historian, writer and lecturer about art, culture and historic preservation. He has a special interest in Maine art and artists, and has written and lectured extensively on artists ranging from Church and Homer to Bellows and Katz. He is a contributor to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of New England Culture.

May has lectured for organizations such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and the Worcester Art Museum. He has written for such publications as American Artist, American Arts Quarterly, Art New England, ARTnews, Down East, Smithsonian magazine, the Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The Bates College Museum of Art was founded to preserve the nation’s largest repository of Marsden Hartley drawings and other items relating to this important artist, a Lewiston native. Its holdings include a robust print collection and notable works by Maine artists with national significance, such as Dahlov Ipcar, the late William Thon, Neil Welliver and Charles Hewitt.

The flagship museum for the Maine Art Museum Trail, the Bates College Museum of Art is located in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell Street. Admission is free. The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. and 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Sun. The museum is closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Led by Anthony Shostak, education coordinator for the Bates College Museum of Art, the discussion will focus on why these artists of regional and national acclaim are compelled to paint the landscape, how prolonged observation of nature has changed the way they see art and how cultural influences, including art, have changed the way they see the landscape.

Thinking, Seeing and Painting is part of the outreach programs associated with Notations of Color: Oil Sketching in Maine, a special two month exhibit of landscape painting on view in the Bates College Museum of Art through Oct. 30. The exhibit features small-scale oil sketches by more than 40 American landscape painters of the late 19th and 20th centuries, including George Bellows, Robert Henri, Neil Welliver, Joel Babb, Ann Lofquist and Lewiston native Marsden Hartley.

This exhibit was generously funded by Fleet Charitable Trust and friends of the Bates College Museum of Art.

The museum will remain open on the evening of Oct. 24 to allow those attending the lecture to visit the exhibit and see the panelists’ paintings. Both the lecture and the exhibit are open to the public free of charge. The Bates College Museum of Art is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesdays-Saturdays. Schools and other groups are welcome by appointment. For more information about the exhibit and programs, or to schedule a group tour, call 207-786-6158.