Martha Hall papers

Martha Hall (1949-2003) was a Maine-based book artist, writer, weaver, and business owner and executive, whose creative work focused largely on themes related to her fifteen-year struggle with breast cancer—living with the fear of dying; creating in order to heal; understanding one’s own legacy; and appreciating and living fully each day.

Hall was born on June 4, 1949, in Malden, Massachusetts, the oldest of Dwight and Gertrude Smith’s five children. She attended Deering High School in Portland, Maine, and graduated from Smith College in 1971 with a degree in English. While a student at Smith, Hall won a prestigious poetry prize, the same one earlier awarded to Sylvia Plath, and met her future husband, Alan, whom she married shortly after graduation.

From 1971 to 1975, Hall taught eighth grade English in South Portland, Maine. In 1972, she earned Art Education certification, purchased her first loom, and learned to weave. The following year, Hall started teaching weaving, and, in 1975, she traveled to Finland and Sweden to study Scandinavian weaving techniques. In 1976, Gabrielle, the first of her two daughters, was born, and Danielle followed in 1978.

The following year, Hall established a retail store, Martha Hall, Inc., in Yarmouth, Maine, from which she sold yarn, books, and spinning and weaving supplies. The business thrived and in 1983 she expanded it to include a national mail-order catalog. She sold the business in 1987, when she entered graduate school at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

A week before Hall received her MBA with honors from Dartmouth in 1989, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite the uncertainties, Hall forged ahead with an ambitious new career as a marketing executive at American Express. She lived in New York City during the week and commuted home to Maine for long weekends to see her family and undergo chemotherapy.

Following a reoccurrence of breast cancer in 1993, Hall underwent high dose chemotherapy in Maine, an autologous bone marrow transplant at Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, followed by radiation. Exhausted both physically and emotionally, Hall left her job in New York City and returned to Maine full-time in order to spend more time with her family and with her writing and art. She joined the staff of L.L. Bean developing marketing strategies, and continued to be employed there until her illness forced her to retire in 2000.

In 1995, Hall began serious and concentrated study of the visual arts. She attended a paper arts workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, the first of several workshops she would take at the school in Deer Isle, Maine. In 1996, she completed her first book arts workshop, a course with Rebecca Goodale and Dennis Gilbert, and created her first artist’s book, The Raven. Over the next few years, Hall would develop close and collaborative friendships with several of Maine book artists. In 1998, she moved to Orr's Island, Maine, a place that would inspire and comfort her as she battled a second reoccurrence of breast cancer. In 1999, she entered the BFA program at the Maine College of Art, but following a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, opted to not complete the program and instead focus on creating and sharing her artist’s books.

By the early 2000s, Hall’s reputation as a book artist had grown considerably. She exhibited in New York City, Massachusetts, and Maine. Hall worked diligently to place her works in academic institutions where they could be viewed and handled by the public, cancer patients, and medical professionals. Her hope was to educate people broadly about what it means to be a cancer patient, and more specifically, to inspire health care provides to improve the way they interacted with patients. Hall articulated her process and desires in the documentary “I Make Books” which the Maine Women Writers Collection at University of New England produced in 2000.

In late 2002, Hall collaborated with Martin Antonetti, then the curator of rare books at the Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College, to develop the exhibition “Holding In, Holding On,” a major retrospective of her work. Hall worked tirelessly on selecting works, writing text, and developing the catalogue, even while continuing to produce new works and entering the final stage of her illness. The exhibition opened at Smith College in Fall 2003, a few weeks before Hall’s death on December 5, 2003, at the age 54. Following her death, the “Holding In, Holding On” traveled to Bowdoin and Wellesley colleges and to Yale University.