ArtSpeak: Al Miller

I was fortunate to sit down recently with Al Miller, the founder and Artistic Director of The Theater Project, in Brunswick, Maine.  We discussed everything from pure clowning to the crafting of a creative life.  Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

You are celebrated as someone who is passionate about bringing together people from widely disparate circumstances to celebrate the joy of storytelling.  Can you talk about your first experiences in inspiring others to perform?

I got interested in theatre in the Middle East.  When I came back to Maine and came across an ad for a summer Director of the Portland Children’s Theater, I applied and got the job. We had this big honking trailer and a van that we toured around with, and I had to back the trailer up into places where we were performing and open it up into this stage.  I had fun, so that fall I got a part-time teaching job in a little school in west Harpswell and started the Young People’s Theater. I began touring with kids in my Volkswagon van.  I would write to elementary schools and they would hire us to come out, and we would stay with families.  I’d watch the young kids watch the teenagers.  Adults could get up to perform and it would be okay, but when older kids did it, the young kids could see themselves doing it too. 

As well as fostering an incredible sense of local community, you have travelled far and wide to offer theater programs abroad.  How has your work with different cultures illuminated a common spark or thread?

“I’ve learned a lot from doing theater that I either didn’t know, or didn’t know was in me.  I learned a lot about listening.  Theater is a great a great way to work with people from different cultures, whether it’s a national, or ethnic, or religious culture; or an age culture, or a geographic culture, because if you listen, you find ways to bring people out, and they begin to make something together, and then they and you learn about each other, and you also create something.  In my experience, more so than having a conversation with a group of people, and asking about their culture - that may lead to going out and having a bottle of wine, and talking about things and learning a lot more - but when you’re working on something, and especially when it is a form of storytelling, you get attached, you end up holding hands when you didn’t think that that was what you were going to do, but you hold hands because you have to make a circle, and then you’re a circle, and you’re connected to each other.”

How do you see the transformative power of what you do?

“I think we often don’t know when things are transformative.  I think the effect of the work we do really well at the Theater Project through the Young People’s Theater is that we enable young people to think more freely about what they want to do with their lives.  And I think the freely is important.  If you learn from what you do, [not just in school] you just learn it better.  The way we work in the theater is freeing, and I love doing it.  I think it’s freeing in the way that playing around when I was a kid was freeing - you made it up.  We borrow a lot from that feeling, and we add discipline.”

If you were to tell your life story today, what would be most important to include?

“I think the most important thing about my story is that it suggests that you should go for what you want to do and you should stay open, because I never thought I’d do what I’ve ended up doing, … and I love what I do.” 

Interview by Sarah Boss
Sarah Boss is an artist currently living in Portland, Maine. http://www.sarahboss.com/ She is also the Executive Director of The Carlo Pittore Foundation. www.carlopittorefoundationforthefigurativearts.org

 

Fall Artspeak: Michael Branca

Enter the Bath studio of Michael Branca, and your eyes will almost certainly be drawn first to the impressive display in the middle of the room: his bookcase of cassette tapes. “I should really cover that up,” he says. “It’s like, everyone comes in here to look at the art, and that’s the first thing they notice.” His eclectic musical collection, and the attention it pulls from his art ironically mirrors one of the underlying tenants of his work – exploring the “human feeling of (dis)connectedness” with nature and the world. Just as someone might enter a studio full of art and first be struck by cassettes, Branca often finds his inspiration by connecting with subjects that are not always meant to be noticed. An interestingly shaped log. Dead bugs on a windowsill. An overflowing bag of recycling.

That paper bag, brimming past capacity, was committed to canvas under the title, “Bouquet (Recycling).” Why paint it? Partly for the challenge, but more so because “It spoke to me, I responded to it, and I painted it.” By giving artistic expression to that one bouquet-esque bag, Branca opened up a whole new world of possibilities.  For while the first bouquet was unplanned, it made him ask, “What can I do with that theme?” Now there are fourteen pieces in his bouquet series, ranging from flowers in a blender to work lights in a vase, with the potential for more to be manufactured or happened upon.

Likewise with the dead flies. Branca put them in a box that read “Free” on the outside and “Help Yourself” on the inside. It was a joke, a one-liner that spawned an international project. As it turned out, all it took was laminating them, adding a ¢25 price tag, and Mike’s Real Dead Bugs were born. He started a bug drive, and contributions came in the mail to help form a collection of formerly crawling, flying, and wriggling creatures from nineteen states, seven countries, and five continents. The bugs, of course, begot bug art with several oil paintings and small assemblages coming to life before the project lost steam. “The Real Dead Bugs are really pretty dead right now,” Branca said, but as with anything that has inspired him, he won’t count the book the closed. He’s considering a retrospective show or, just maybe, another international bug drive.

As for the interesting log, it too has found new life on canvas, posed leaning on a pillow with a backdrop of red cloth, a wooden take on the traditional recumbent nude. That’s his latest painting, with another one on the easel. With such a constant diversity of subjects, inspirations, and themes, how does Branca answer one of the questions most frequently posed to artists – what kind of art do you make? He doesn’t have a simple answer. He has resisted falling into a niche. He moved away from the bugs in part because of the limitations of the subject matter, and in part to avoid being labeled as “the bug guy.” Beyond bugs and bouquets, just look at his mixed media work with catalytic convertors.  His collection of miniscule drawings and paintings framed inside keyholes and other tiny items. His handmade road signs.  Or his landscapes – yet another major focus of Branca’s work, and one the best representations of the connectedness he seeks with his subject matter.  These works are painted on location, en plein air.  The paintings lack the refined quality and clean marks of his studio work, but they are an even simpler and more accessible exploration of the human relationship with nature.  Branca invites others to join him on these painting expeditions, leading backcountry art trips for “artistic adventurers and adventurous artists.”  The trips are, at this point, more an ambition than a full-fledged operation, but all it takes is interest.  He offers day, overnight, and custom trips, and from October 16-19 he is leading a trip to Katahdin Lake with support from Bates College Museum of Art.  The trip is open to the public, and Mike welcomes you on his artistic explorations into nature and the world in which we live.
Find out more at www.mikebranca.com and meet Michael Branca during the 3rd Friday ArtWalk, Sept 19, 5-8pm at Bruce Goodwin studio, 48 Oliver St.

Seth Kelley is a junior at Bowdoin College majoring in Art and Theater/Dance.  He was a Community Matters Fellow at Five Rivers Arts Alliance.

August Artspeak:
John Joyce, Town Elder

As a founding member of Spindleworks, John Joyce is a well known figure on Maine Street, Brunswick, his excellent posture and sturdy frame a familiar sight  as he stops to chat with friends on his frequent errands.   John likes food. At exactly ten a.m., Monday through Thursday, "I bowl on Fridays", John has coffee and a sweet at Grand City's restaurant , sitting  in the same booth every time, ordering the same thing every time-- a town elder.  Years ago,  when Spindleworks was given some polaroid cameras  John's assignment was to photograph circles on Maine Street.  He came back with a lovely shot of an engraved sewer cover and many, many more shots of Frosty's doughnuts. 

  John's hometown is Bowdoinham where he lives with his brother's family and his elderly mother.  "I take care of her, every day.  We play checkers -- sometimes she beats me, sometimes I beat her."  And every Sunday,  "we all go out for dinner.  I have scallops, french fries and....pudding."

Above John's Spindlework desk, a tidy collection of tools and paint supplies, hangs a sign saying "Executive Director." 

            For many years, the Wild West was John's inspiration; then came Elvis, then pop stars, now race cars.  Drawings, paintings and wood sculpture are what he likes do.  He works on his own now, not much call for help or advice.  To help remind himself, he has posted notes over his desk, which has a yellow fright wig hanging from the top, that read:  Gray -- black & white.  Pink - red & white.  Red & blue - purple.  Brown - red black white.  One note is nicely framed and says,

          to make peach

              orange

                  &

       yellow.

One of the original 6 Spindleworkers, he and one other founder, Steve Mann, seem to be held in special regard by those who have come after.  John has an air of ownership or even entitlement which, one might think, comes from his 30 year history with Spindleworks.  But not so, he came to the program that way.  The families of both Steve and John gave them the needed support that allowed them to see themselves as useful, worthy people.

 Spindleworks began in the 1970's in a tiny, ill- lit studio (cold in winter, hot in summer) with six artists from the Independence Association.  Today it is housed in a large house on Lincoln Street in Brunswick with over 30 midcoast artists actively involved.  Throughout its many changes, two things have remained the same -- the excellent quality of the work and the wondrous spirit of the workers.  Another has to be added:   outstanding directors, like the current one, Liz McGhee,  and a staff of compassionate, talented people.

By Nan Ross, Founder of Spindleworks.

July 2008 Artspeak:
Remembering Victoria Crandall

Victoria Crandall founded the Brunswick Summer Playhouse 50 years ago, opening nine ambitious and fully staged musicals in the course of ten weeks!  It was hardly a Rooney-Garland-“let’s-put-on-a-show” moment, for Crandall brought experience and pluck that set the foundation for the theater’s impressive run. An Eastman School of Music training, Crandall had a concert pianist career, toured Europe during World War II with the USO, and accompanied many big names on Broadway of the era, including Maine’s own Rudy Vallee, Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, Frank Loesser, Richard Rodgers and Moss Hart.  She produced musicals that toured resorts along the eastern seaboard and the Caribbean, playing a circuit of summer playhouses that catered to traveling shows with big name stars.

At 50, Crandall “settled down” in Maine to start her own summer music playhouse, with the ambition of staging locally producing musicals of Broadway caliber. From the start, strong alliances with the Town of Brunswick, Chamber of Commerce, local businesses and Bowdoin College have been keys to the theater’s success and longevity.  So too has Crandall’s legacy of determination, professionalism, and dedication to “the best.” Opening night of the first 1959 production, “Song of Norway,” played to the Governor of Maine a loyal and engaged audience that has only grown with the years. 

Able to shift with changing times, the theater succeeded first as Crandall’s for-profit business, and more recently as a nonprofit. It now provides educational training for more than 40 college interns and apprentices on stage and backstage. In 1988, Crandall received accolades for her work from Governor John R. McKernan and that year the theater was renamed Maine State Music Theatre, marking its statewide patronage and reputation.  After flirting briefly with a move from Brunswick in 2000, MSMT purchased its Elm Street facilities where scene shop, rehearsal space and offices run year round.  Come May, the company & crew move into Bowdoin College’s Pickard Theater as soon as the students move out.  Today MSMT is one of the state’s largest cultural institutions, contributes more than $5 million to the local economy, and year after year, fills the seats of the beautiful Pickard Theater.

Audiences look for a “mix of the old favorites and the newest, hottest shows available” states Marketing Director Andrew Gilbert. “Every season we say ‘there's is no way we can top this next year’ and then we somehow do.”  This season is as ambitious as any to date. Under the guidance of Artistic Director Chuck Abbot and Executive Director Steve Peterson, the whole staff, Equity actors, musicians and crew of interns clock many hours to create the appearance of an effortless performance audiences see opening night to closing curtain.

Tickets sell fast so to catch this summer’s shows and special events, go to msmt.org. Upcoming shows include: “The Producers,” June 25-July 12; “All Shook Up,” July 16-August 2; and the first full-scale production in Maine of the World’s Most Popular Musical, “Les Miserables,” August 6-24.  “Toxic Audio” is a special event July 28. This Grammy-nominated a capella group ranges performs rap to be-bop, scat to doo-wop.

This year’s golden anniversary events include a gala opening night reception, art exhibit at Frontier Cafe, banners along Maine Street, and Accolades, the highly anticipated coffee table book with memories from the beginning through today. The entire staff and actor community of MSMT is behind this anniversary and involved in promotions, workshops, parties and presentations. Adds Gilbert, “Most importantly we realize that we would not have made it through 50 years without the support of the community and our audiences. This anniversary celebration is really for and about them.”

Artspeak: Local Food, Local Arts
A close relationship between local restaurants and local artists

Grab a cup of coffee or sit down to a three-course meal at a local restaurant and you are likely to find yourself surrounded by locally produced art. What makes an entrepreneur decide to decorate her establishment with a rotating gallery? Why do artists reach out to a food establishment as a gallery? What effect does the art have? These are a few questions we asked café/gallery owners in Bath and Brunswick and we found they shared a consistent view of food, art and community.

Eat Local/Display Local:  “This is a community space and showing community art just makes sense.  We do a high volume of business and in terms of visibility it is a great place to show.  It makes people more aware of the artists in their own community,” said Café Crème owner Tonnie Schultz. Foods and products from local producers are coveted by consumers in our region, and sharing the creative side of our community adds meaning to the “shop local” motto we often hear.

Rotating Menus and Rotating Exhibits:  Many restaurants vary their menus weekly, monthly, or seasonally and couple those variations with changes in the gallery space. Mae’s Café owner Kate Winglass noted, “It’s like changing the furniture; it creates variety, and our customers love to see the new pieces.” As the wall decor changes in an establishment, it can change the atmosphere of the space, fill an otherwise barren expanse and provide fulfillment of more than just the taste buds of the community. Says Frontier owner Michael Gilroy, “Our walls are in a constant state of change, so even our full time staff is inspired.”

Introducing art to new eyes: One of the benefits for artists showing in restaurants is that it allows people to see their work who might never experience it otherwise. Paul Harrison, owner of Little Dog Coffee Shop, says “We are approached by artists all the time…. Some artists have done reasonably well… an artist is able to show to a big audience here.” Gilroy adds, “Folks who might not enter a more traditional gallery/museum setting become exposed to different types of artwork, unintentionally.” New experiences for consumers can work both ways, bringing new customers into restaurants because of the art. “Through the month of May we always exhibit the Morse High [School, Bath] AP art class. Many students and their families come to the gallery opening who have never been here before.  New artists bring in new people; their friends, family and people familiar with them.” says Winglass.

Let’s Talk!  Conversation is fundamental to our society and art encourages these discussions. “Our customers like the storytelling aspect of our artwork. I’d also like to believe that it exposes our customers to something different, when they may least expect it,” says Gilroy. It may be a story told through the artists’ work, or a concept inspired by their work. Winglass said, “Some pieces are controversial; they bring up issues with different effects.  Our latest artist had some pieces with political and religious elements and some customers loved it, and some hated it, but it’s all open to discussion.  It makes people talk, and that’s important – that’s what art is all about.” 

Let’s Walk:  Visit these and many more art venues during regular business hours and on June 13, 5-8pm for 2nd Friday Art Walks, Brunswick & Topsham, and June 20, 5-8 pm 3rd Friday ArtWalk, in Bath. Listings at www.fiveriversartsalliance.org.

Interviewers: Amanda Similien, Economic & Community Development Specialist, Town of Brunswick and Erika Helgerson, Community Relations Coordinator, City of Bath talked to Michael Gilroy, Frontier Cafe, Cinema & Gallery, 14 Maine St, Brunswick; Paul Harrison, Little Dog Coffee Shop, 97 Maine St, Brunswick; Tonnie Shultz, Cafe Crème, 56 Front St, Bath and Kate Winglass, Mae’s Cafe, 160 Centre St, Bath. 

ArtSpeak RICHARD LEE - TAKING PANES

Look at those weathered mill windows with wavy glass panes," exclaims master paper artist Richard Lee. Stacks of windows lean against each other along a wall in Lee's second floor studio in Richmond's historic Ames Mill. Their frail, transparent forms mirror the artist to some degree. Both show their age. Each is outlined in white. They share a few cracks and creases between them. And together, man and medium are responsible for a vibrant collaboration of creativity, community and transformation in the dead of winter. "Taking Panes"--an exhibition fusing historic windows with contemporary artists--is a response to the disposal that these long-lived windows faced after replacement.

"What are you going to do with the old windows," Lee recalls asking? "Discard them" came the answer. Lee proposed salvaging them instead--and window-frame after window-frame quickly arrived at his studio, listing at attention, awaiting his orders. Lee's command, "Let’s give windows to artists and ask them to make an art statement."

Nearly one-hundred artists from the midcoast to as far away as Eastport, Bethel, Solon and Portland have traveled to Richmond and returned to their studios window-handed. The collaborating artists are diverse in their expressive styles and Lee expects that the upcoming show will reflect both quality and originality. "I think the challenge of transforming these old panes has been stimulating to their creators," he explains.

Regional artists, however, are not the only inspired participants contributing to "Taking Panes." Local businesses and agencies including the Town of Richmond, Richmond Contract Manufacturing Company, Paradigm Windows, K & G Hardware, Steve Pennisi, Amy Stacey Curtis, Jay Robbins and dozens of volunteers have also donated space, staging, promotional materials, hospitality and energy to this artistic salvation. Artists Mary Beth Morrison and Karen Campbell have helped organize the effort. Proudly, Lee nods and says the generosity he has received has been "overwhelming--a tremendous response."

Credit Lee's quiet magnetism for this. Lee, 75, is not only a master papermaker but a sly motivator. His ability to invite, cajole, suggest, and challenge artists from around the state in the dead of winter to pick up a window, create new work quickly, return it to Richmond, and attend the show's opening in-person is, like winter itself, a force of nature most cannot escape.   Artist Richard Lee has inspired children and adults locally, nationally and around the world to participate in and practice papermaking. Last year, Lee was awarded Honorable Mention for the 2007 Maine Alliance for Arts Education Bill Bonyun Award and his paper expression "Egyptian Angel with a Monk" is currently traveling in the Fuller Craft Museum's national exhibition "Pulp Function." Lee himself traveled to Turkey last year and envisions another exotic journey this coming year if his health allows. All of his effort now though is focused on this exhibition and only one chore remains. Participation. Lee leans over and says, “Come all, bring your neighbors.”

Show details: Opening Reception: Sunday March 16th, 10am - 4pm. Free.
Ongoing: Wed – Sun, 10am to 4pm, March 12 - 16, March 19 - 23, March 26 - 30.
Location: Ames Mill, 307 Front Street, Richmond, 4th Floor.
Elevator in the building for those needing assistance. 
Contact: 798-0935.

"

Art & Accessibility

Anyone familiar with Brunswick knows the solid shape of the Walker Art Building perched on the edge of the Bowdoin College Quad, with its broad sullen shoulders, and back hunched to the community. Though the building’s stoic exterior bears no signage on the street side to announce its purpose or stature to passers by, this well-known centurion is on the National Register of Historic Places.This fall the Bowdoin College Museum of Art will reopen to reveal a newly tailored exterior, and an expanded and state of the art interior, completing a renovation project begun in 2003 to honor this Brunswick landmark.

The goals of the renovation are multifold, but perhaps the most interesting to me are those pertaining to the museum’s relationship to the community. While honoring the original structure, architects Machado and Silvetti Associates of Boston have created a visual and literal point of entry from the town-facing or street side so that the museum no longer appears to cater just to the college. The  “glass curtain” on what might be considered the back of the building offers a glimpse into a new gallery featuring Bowdoin’s well-known Assyrian reliefs.

The new transparency facing Park Row reflects a desire on the part of the Director Katy Kline to communicate to the town that the greater community is welcome in. In addition to this enticing view, visitors are invited to enter via a new glass pavilion rising from the ground just east of the museum itself. This entry way is the architects’ answer to Kline’s goal to make the formerly partially accessible museum “elegantly handicapped accessible.”  To that end, visitors of all abilities, and from both the college and community, are invited to enter the museum through this new and somewhat magical portal.

Having been a part of the Bowdoin College community as a student, and now a part of the Brunswick community as the director of an art center for people with disabilities, my appreciation of the transformation is heartfelt. Central to our focus at Spindleworks is to foster an inclusive community where everyone, no matter what his or her ability, is embraced and treated equally. We encourage this on a human level, and law requires it to happen on an architectural level. The new entrance to the museum takes this requirement one step further by making an inclusive entrance instead of a solely accessible one. I look forward to bringing the artists I work with to the museum where they will be able to experience the museum for what it is and what it hopes to be: a home to a wealth of art and artifacts for all the community to enjoy, learn from and celebrate.

The public is invited to the ribbon cutting ceremony at 1:00pm on Sunday, October 14. The museum will remain open until 5:00 pm, and then resume normal hours. In addition, Thursday evening hours are being added to increase access for the working community.

Liz McGhee is the Director of Spindleworks, which is a program of the Independence Association of Brunswick. www.spindleworks.org

August Artspeak: Rob Stevens

Rob Stevens is part of a long history of boat builders in Maine. His career started at the Apprenticeshop at the Maine Maritime Museum in 1980. The program was free and students were “asked to commit to 18 months and to get the hell out by two years.”  Rob and other apprentices were responsible for running the shop, and almost as soon as they knew anything, overseeing new apprentices. He was exposed to numerous traditional vessels as there were 8-9 boats being built at any one time including a Washington County Pea Pod, an 1840’s style Pinky, and a Chesapeake Bay crabbing skiff.

Rob now runs his own shop in Phippsburg, where he and two others—including a graduate from the Apprenticeshop—build boats to order. The next big project is the reconstruction of Maine’s first ship, the Virginia, built originally at the Popham Colony in 1607. While funds are still being gathered to bring the ship to life, extensive work has already been done by Rob, naval architect David Wyman, and volunteer John Bradford to design the boat. Without plans for the original vessel, the team used old drawings, descriptions, and books written in the 1600s on boat building to create the plans that are now Coast Guard approved and ready to go. Rob credits John with “saving the boat” as he deciphered the old books—the first mathematical descriptions of how to build a boat that were like reading Shakespeare.

When the time comes, the Virginia will be recreated using New England timbers, many from Maine, and hopefully a tree from every county in the state. Many of the tools that will be used could have been used by a 1607 shipwright. Rob admits “the jobs we use a power tool for, they could have done faster with an axe. Electricity makes us lazy.”

This summer you can find Rob at the Maine Maritime Museum as part of a summer long celebration of shipbuilding in Maine. He will be using traditional tools to make the spars for the boat, and will be working on the lofting (drawing out the plans full size). Rob recognizes and appreciates the hum generated by seeing a boat being built. The greatest part, he says, is seeing volunteers come out to get involved, even if to just sweep the shop floor. “There is something magic about boats, that speaks to the human spirit, and the pleasure and excitement of getting on the water.” Certainly Rob helping to carry forward the spirit that makes Maine one of the last strongholds of wooden shipbuilding.