This Local Artist Depicts Monk Life at the Cumberland Monastery

Image courtesy of Serene Lincoln.

Serene Lincoln has been making art ever since they could hold a pencil, which is just about as long as they’ve been coming to the Cumberland Monastery. So when an art professor said to paint whatever they liked, the town resident was naturally drawn to the peaceful enclave. “It just seemed like the natural progression for me,” says Lincoln, who graduated with a BFA in painting and printmaking from Rhode Island College last fall. They’d set up watercolors and an easel on the trails — preferring the quieter routes near the back of the property lined with Eastern hemlocks — in all sorts of weather and light. The more they painted the more they wanted to learn about the history of the space, which housed Cistercian monks from 1902 until a fire destroyed most of the church and guest house in 1950. They leafed through old newspaper accounts, scoured the web and read Through Faith & Fire, a book about the order’s history. “I just fell down a rabbit hole,” Lincoln says. “The way the Cistercian monks lived and existed day to day was really, really captivating and beautiful to me.” Using that research, they created black-and-white prints depicting daily life at the monastery, with monks praying, tending to the apple orchard and caring for their oxen. Lincoln is currently looking at grad schools to further their painting and printmaking practice, and is grateful for all the time they’ve had in this soothing space. “I really feel like I got to know this place in such an intimate way when I was young, and it’s only been able to grow more since then.”