All summer and straight on through October, Gold/Smith Gallery in Boothbay Harbor will be featuring “The Working Waterfront,” by Cushing artist John Wissemann.

Wissemann, a maestro of colored pencil, has turned his attention from the Orient and Far East to Down East, Maine and the state's working waterfronts. He is well-known for his large scale colored pencil transformations of Japanese wood block characters. These works are part of the permanent collections at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland and the Art Museum at University of New Hampshire.

Wissemann cuts stencils of lobster boats, piers, shanties and sailing vessels and then arranges them on a press to create his mono prints. That's when the fun begins. Wissemann works his magic creating an improvised rendition, each an individual one of a kind drawing of these places. His color combinations seem endless, his colors range from the smokey blues and grays of a quiet harbors to deep reds and yellows as the bustle of a busier waterfront, like Bath Iron Works, comes into play.

He is like the conductor of a jazz ensemble, improvising the variations to change the mood, tonality, atmosphere and emotion of each piece from the elation of a full summer’s day to the mysterious hush of fog and night. His mastery of color and decorative pattern allows him to be profound and playful at the same time. He expresses an obvious joy in the linear angularity of pilings and piers, boats alone or as a full sail flotilla. The way the island spruce cut through the fog — a result of over 50 years of painting and plying the waters on the coast of Maine.

John Wissemann’s tour de force, “The Working Waterfront,” will be featured all summer and fall this year at Gold/Smith Gallery to celebrate his 89th birthday this week.

The gallery is at 41 Commercial Street, Boothbay Harbor, next to the Ebb Tide Restaurant.

The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call 207-633-6252.