This Month We Remember

This October marks two years since the Lewiston mass shooting, which claimed 18 lives. In response to the tragedy, one artist and teacher from Lewiston, Ellen Hodgkin, chose to use her art to aid in her healing process and raise awareness about gun violence. Her project, “Remember Lewiston,” took nearly two years to complete and reached people from Washington, D.C., to Augusta, Maine.

Beginning in November 2023, the museum started receiving handmade, block-printed postcards created by Ellen. Printed in stark black ink, each card featured the name of a person killed in the October shootings, along with illustrations depicting the individual’s life and work. A handwritten note on the back of each card included a personal message often beginning with “This month I remember,” followed by a memorial to the individual.

Over the next 18 months, Ellen designed, printed, handwrote, and mailed a new card to politicians and policymakers, ranging from members of the U.S. Supreme Court to Maine Governor Janet Mills. Hoping her message would influence their views on assault weapons, Ellen also presented her work to remember and honor those lost to gun violence. As she wrote in her artist’s statement on her website: “Gun violence is so common in the US that the shootings tend to blur together, except when it is in your own community. Lewiston is my community, and I am not willing for us to be forgotten.”

The Maine State Museum is honored to be one of the few institutions to receive a card from Ellen each month. The curatorial decision to add the 18 cards to the museum collection helps ensure that future generations can learn from them, and that the tragedy in Lewiston and the work of artists are not forgotten.