Rockland — Artist Eric Hopkins is in the process of the winding down his downtown gallery. The public is invited to final open houses Saturdays, March 23 and 30, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 21 Winter St.

Longtime gallery manager Robin Seymour recently accepted a new position in Pennsylvania and Hopkins, whose work has focused on Midcoast Maine for many years, has decided the time has come to explore the country at large. In a newsletter, he credited Seymour with sorting and categorizing “millions” of works from the past four or five (or six) decades. He said he has decided to turn over the marketing to others while committing the next half of his life to “exploring my favorite planet and doing new work.”

“For years — decades — since my first road trip to Colorado at age 10, I’ve wanted to explore the USA — not urban, suburban, mall America, but wild, Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land, Purple Mountain Majesties and Amber Waves of Grain wild, wide open America, ‘From the Great Atlantic Ocean to the wide Pacific Shore,’” he said.

The closing Saturday open houses will feature examples of new work from this winter. Dowling Walsh Gallery is now formally representing Hopkins’ work, and the artist said he looked forward to working with Jake Dowling, after years of marketing his work himself. Dowling Walsh Gallery, 365 Main St., will mount a solo exhibition during the summer of 2014.

Hopkins is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and has taught at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Pilchuck Glass School. He has exhibited at the Farnsworth Art Museum, Portland Museum of Art, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Waterfall Arts Belfast, the University of Maine Museum of Art and a number of galleries nationally.

Hopkins’ paintings and glass are held in many private and public collections including the Farnsworth Art Museum, Portland Museum of Art, Bates College Museum of Art, University of Southern Maine, Corning Museum of Glass, Wustum Museum of Fine Arts and the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies in the Bahamas, Pakistan, Philippines and the West Indies.

Courier Publications’ A&E Editor Dagney C. Ernest can be reached at (207) 594-4401, ext. 115 or dernest@courierpublicationsllc.com.