BAR HARBOR—Robert Phipps paints with a passion. It is a passion born of a lifetime commitment to art and the environment, and to the rational integration of the two. Phipps is one of three artists featured in a new exhibition, "Light Branching Water," in the Ethel H. Blum Gallery at College of the Atlantic.

The show had its genesis in a "Healing Environment of the Arts" competition for a proposed hospital in Cooks Corner near Brunswick. Phipps’ entry was one of the finalists and, although his art was not selected, the art contest brought him, once again, to the attention of Carl Little, director of the Blum Gallery.

"I’ve been wanting to exhibit Robert for a long time," said Little.

Phipps suggested a joint showing with sculptor Stephen Parmley, also a finalist in the hospital competition. Little included the ink drawings of artist Emily Brown and the exhibition took cohesive shape.

Phipps has been painting the same Beech Mountain cliff scene for 17 years. The vantage point, from across the lake at the Appalachian Mountain Club Camp, has shifted slightly over time to accommodate the encroaching growth of trees. But Phipps’ studies of the scene, always divided into four distinct seasons, remain as constant as the glacial granite cliffs he paints.

At first, Phipps’ cliff scenes were done as single paintings. They have since evolved into large-scale murals, painted and hung in six or seven vertical, framed panels measuring 12 inches by 60 inches each.

For his other paintings, Phipps finds inspiration in everything from a Japanese haiku to a Pete Seeger song to the Chernobyl disaster. He renders these in a variety of artistic mediums from oil to watercolor to woodcut.

Phipps’ degrees include a bachelor’s degree in art history from Harvard and a master’s degree in painting and drawing from Boston University.

For the past 22 years he has been a resident of Bar Harbor. Inspired by the teachings of Scott and Helen Nearing, Phipps first came to the island in 1978. He worked as a sea vegetable harvester before opening a cooperative bakery in Bar Harbor.

Eventually the bakery disbanded, but not before Phipps was able to purchase the building where it was located. Today, the large structure houses businesses and Phipps’ home and art studio. Phipps functions as landlord.

Not surprisingly, one of the resident businesses, a restaurant, found that Phipps’ lease included a "no beef" clause.

"Beef production is very destructive to the environment," he explains. "I had to draw the line somewhere."

Phipps has been active in several local environmental issues, including fierce opposition to the proposed AES coal-fired electricity plant in Bucksport a decade or so ago. More recently, Phipps has taken up the causes of aerial spraying, dioxin poisoning and forestry management and clear-cutting practices.

His letters to local newspapers are near legendary. One of his favorites, written from the point of view of a salmon, was published in The Ellsworth American last year.

Intrigued by its human ecology program, Phipps formed a strong attachment to the College of the Atlantic early on. He has taught there frequently and sees exhibition there as a continuing dialogue with its students.

Turner Brooks, the architect of the gallery that houses his latest exhibition, was a student of Phipps’ when Phipps taught at Putney School in Vermont back in the early 1960s—a fact Phipps finds strangely appropriate. Phipps is dedicating his contribution to the exhibition to the memory of two of his teachers, Pat and Maud Morgan.