VINALHAVEN, Me.� A WINDBLOWN island 80 minutes by ferry from Maine's rocky coast might not be everyone's idea of paradise in frigid winter. But the artist Robert Indiana, who moved here
from Manhattan 25 years ago, prefers his chilly exile on Main Street.
Once a downtown art-world insider, Mr. Indiana, who invented the ''Love'' logo in 1964, has undergone a nearly complete transformation into the consummate art-world outsider, sealed off in the
Vinalhaven world he has created for himself. He lives in the center of town, in a four-story Victorian building stocked with his ''Love'' artworks in various forms in nearly every room.
Love itself, however, is in somewhat short supply.
''I don't care for the pipes that freeze, I don't care for the furnace that goes on the blink and I don't care for the power outages we very frequently have on the island,'' Mr. Indiana said
last week when asked what he likes about the house.
When it was pointed out that he hadn't answered the question, he paused. ''What was the question?''
He doesn't like lobster, either.
Warm and fuzzy he is not. But like a nautilus fashioning chamber after chamber lined with mother-of-pearl, the reclusive and cantankerous Mr. Indiana has turned his house, a former chapter
headquarters of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, into a fascinating personal archive. There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of his colorful and enigmatic works and those given to him by
old friends like Ellsworth Kelly and Mimmo Rotella. There are hundreds of reviews and news clippings, and a startlingly wide range of ''Love'' merchandise. The repository amounts to a
portrait of the artist as an old man.
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