A Letter for the New Year
Lights Out is built by Mainers who believe in Maine art
Dear Lights Out Community,
There comes a need at the end of the year to summarize and review, to resolve in short words what we hope to accomplish in the next. However, putting our project in simple terms is one of the hardest tasks at Lights Out. Our reach includes documentaries on artists, eclectic pop-up shows across the state, and rejuvenating a once legendary snowshoe factory into a definition-blurring art center, to name a few. That aside, let us keep it simple.
Lights Out is built by Mainers who believe in Maine art.
When we interview artists in their studios we approach them without transactional intentions. We never charge them for our time, and we work tirelessly to show off significant work from one of our nation’s most secluded states. We do this because generosity is the best investment. Seeing your support thus far, this is proven right. Together we show the best of what is happening now in Maine art, and we all know that the best is not always obvious, is not always visible. We don’t represent individual artists, we are differentiated by devoting ourselves to the truly spectacular art scene here in Maine, and we constantly seek out ways to confirm and challenge what it means to be a part of it.
We began simply with the desire to connect to the Maine arts community. Art is by our estimates the best chance anyone can get to living a free life. We are not the only arts organization in Maine, but we would assert that we apply the logic of freedom through the arts most fully. As our friend Scott Stuart says, “It’s not business, it’s life.”
We are a young organization and we are in a privileged position of being flexible to change and form around the people we work with. We influence and constitute the art in Maine as much as it influences and constitutes us. We want to explode the delineation between the art space and the community space, to focus on art as everyday life that sustains us, transcends us, in a wild amorphous co-production of culture. In this often indefinable and chaotic world perhaps the only clarity we possess is the inevitability of change, and despite this inconstancy, we are certain art must last.
Looking forward, our vision is focused on one major goal for 2025: our snowshoe factory. As much enthusiasm as we have for this beautiful industrial space, a project this large requires more than vision. Our sheer energy and drive for connection is nothing if we cannot rely on the community we are building. So please, consider supporting our work as we move into the new year.
Sincerely,
Reed McLean
Daniel Sipe
Karlë Woods
Lights Out Founders & Co-Directors
And the Lights Out Team