PORTLAND -- A Maine artist has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve on the advisory body of the National Academy of the Arts.

New York native Barbara Ernst Prey, who has a studio in Tenants Harbor and runs a gallery in Port Clyde, will serve a six-year term on the National Council of the Arts. She was nominated to the post by President Bush.

Prey is a painter who specializes in watercolor. Her work is in the collections of the White House, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Farnsworth Museum of Art in Rockland.