Tranquil Journey, oil on canvas, 20" x 30"

Maureen Leavenworth is living a dream that began at age ten when she sat at a kitchen table in tiny Millville, Massachusetts taking private art lessons. An only child from nearby Blackstone, she soaked up this education in drawing and painting, just as she had her mother's sewing and cooking instructions. Creativity seems to have come as naturally to her as breathing and her skills advanced quickly. A recently unearthed portfolio of architectural designs that she produced in her grammar school days was the basis for plans she drew up for her current home, a 1700s-style saltbox Colonial in Eastham.

Leavenworth's self-described heartfelt connection to the unspoiled beauty of the Outer Cape is evident in her impressionistic depictions of sun swept salt marshes and crimson cranberry bogs. From winding trails opening into breathtaking vistas and sweeping shorelines bound by majestic headlands, this place sparks a reverence rooted deep in Leavenworth's Abnaki and Colonial ancestry.

"The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth," states the bumper sticker on the SUV that takes Leavenworth to her favorite locales, where she paints en plein air. "There have been times when suddenly the area moves me so much that I forget to paint," she says. "I'll just sit there drinking it all in, absorbing the temperature, the birds, the clouds, the smell of pine trees warmed by the sun."

Although the serene Outer Cape beauty captured in oils and pastels has brought her recognition, this 52-year-old renaissance woman is also a renowned authority on Colonial hearth cooking as well as an expert seamstress who creates period clothing from Colonial times and beyond. An Eastham resident since 1975, Leavenworth summered here as a child and met Steven, her husband of 28 years, after graduating from Westfield State College where she earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts. For 20 years she pursued a career in advertising, juggling the demands of a full-time job and raising the couple's son, while establishing herself as a fine artist.

Leavenworth retired from her corporate career in 2000 to delve into her many interests. She sees her diverse passions as all of a piece. "I look at it all as art--culinary art, textile art, fine art--each one creative in its own sense," she says. "I've just melded them all together."

Leavenworth's work is available at Brophy's Fine Art, 313 Main Street, Wellfleet, MA 508-349-6479, www.brophysfineart.com, and on her website, www.maureenleavenworth.com.

Kathy Salzberg lives in Eastham and is a freelance writer who specializes in features on animals.