A Day with the Lights Out Team

Come along with us on full day of touring the new Waterville Creates building and interviewing our first double feature!

The Lights Out Team met yesterday in Waterville, Maine – It was a beautiful (and hot) day for a drive, and the perfect halfway point for Reed and Daniel coming from Norway, and Karlë coming from Belfast to meet. Their first stop in a full day of traveling was the new and impressive Waterville Creates building!

We met with Waterville Creates Exhibitions Coordinator, Marie Sugden, to tour the brand-new arts center, which was finished this past December. The facility is a spectacular example of community investment in the arts, making a wide variety of creative practices accessible to folks in central Maine. We had the privilege of touring two current exhibitions, The Great State of Illustration in Maine in their Ticonic Gallery, and Ashley Bryan/Paula Wilson: Take the World into Your Arms, in the Colby Gallery (Paul J. Schupf Art Center). In addition to public gallery spaces, the building holds studio spaces, a clay studio, the Maine Film Center and theatres, and a sky bridge to the Waterville Opera House.

After the tour, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at a local cafe and prepared for our next exciting stop, our first double-feature interview with artists Abby Shahn and James Fangbone.

We continued north driving through rural crossroads, discovering the famous South Solon Meeting House and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Upon arriving at Abby and Fang’s homestead, nestled at the end of a long dirt road in the rural yet vibrant community of Solon, we were greeted by a somewhat ominous scarecrow with a darth-vader mask and a home and door yard adorned with beautiful collections of found-again things.

For the next five hours, we entered into Abby and Fang’s world that they have spent the last 35+ years creating together. The heavily vegetated property was dotted with a number of curious outbuildings: a bathhouse, shrine, and large studio space – all sacred and thoughtfully decorated.

It was an honor to play around in this special space with Abby and Fang, creating music, talking about life, and being truly immersed in the realm of two profoundly creative and caring people.

It’s days and journeys like these that keep us so dedicated to the Lights Out mission, discovering the hidden gems of Maine and all of its curious crevices. It’s our hope that we can continue this work, illuminating the stories of devoted and creative folks in Maine. Please help support our work by making a monthly contribution – and stay tuned for the release of this double-feature and video later in the summer.

Thanks for reading,

Reed, Daniel, and Karlë, the Lights Out Team