At Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset Oct. 5, two brothers shared their late mother’s art in a setting different from where most of her works appeared. Woolwich’s Tommy Davis and Peter Davis of Virginia said their mother Ardyth Davis (1930-2015)  worked on commission. So the works, many inspired by the Maine coast where the family summered, tended to go to corporations, not galleries, they said.

“So it’s fabulous seeing all these pieces in one space,” Peter Davis said. 

At the opening reception for “Seeing the Surface: The Fiber Works of Ardyth Davis,” attendees saw works Davis’s sons said helped her plan and practice for one commissioned piece or another. Tommy Davis’s partner Danny Evarts, who curated  the show with the brothers, recalled getting to both help Ardyth Davis and learn from her: He said he taught her bookmaking and she taught him how to crochet and do techniques. Her methods included using dressmaker smocking machines, he said.

“We made thousands of those cones,” Evarts said smiling about one of the textural techniques.

Attendee Tricia Losornio of Bristol praised the fiber artist’s color choices and the textures. “And you can’t quite see how it happened, so there’s a certain mystery to it.”

“Seeing the Surface” runs through Oct. 26, Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the non-profit gallery at 15 Warren St.