Where real artists go

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You could forgive Bangor High School’s Advanced Placement art students for being a little suspicious when Susan Maasch showed up in their classroom.

Maasch has a hip haircut and favors sophisticated black clothing. She looks like what she is: a successful art gallery owner. Bangor’s Clark House Gallery is, in the words of one student, “a place people go, where real artists go.”

Sure, Maasch said she wanted to give the kids a show — a real show, just like “real artists.” But, they wondered, why would she want to do that?

“I was curious how real it was,” said senior Jenn Wilson. “It kept getting more real and more exciting.”

It was never more real than Friday night, when the student show opened at the Clark House. Covered with glass, the pastels and black-and-white photographs and paintings hung on bright white walls. The sculptures sat proudly on pedestals. Guests packed the place, full of praise, and the artists glowed.

As it turned out, Susan Maasch had been serious.

“I have four kids and a gallery — I’m always saying no to people,” she explained. “This was a way to give back to the community, in a way I could.”

The community has thrilled to Maasch’s 2 1/2-year-old gallery on Hammond Street, surprising and delighting her by buying as many abstract paintings as traditional landscapes.

Maasch was thrilled, also, to learn that Bangor has three full-time art teachers at the high school, where her 14-year-old daughter is a freshman. (Her other three daughters are 2, 4 and 7.)

“That’s very unusual, and I wanted to honor it in some way,” said Maasch, who laments the shortage of art classes at lower grade levels. “I thought, let’s have people see this and know about it, because it’s just fabulous.”

Advanced Placement art teacher Kal Elmore heard Maasch’s enthusiasm, but early in their talks, she had her own doubts: “I thought, what are the chances of this coming to pass.”

Elmore presides over a close-knit group of seven AP students who meet daily at 12:30 p.m. They are juniors and seniors, mostly young women. Most are also part of an independent study art class held just after AP, giving them 80 total minutes of art daily.

Some have taken the AP class twice. One, Beth Lancaster, is in her third year.

These are the most serious of about 240 high school students enrolled in one of 15 art classes, from a total school enrollment of more than 1,300.

Most years, some of the AP seniors go on to art school. This year is a bit different, with more indecision about the future.

That’s not because of a lack of talent, however. Maasch said she was very impressed by the caliber of the students’ work. “There are things I want to buy,” she said enthusiastically.

Also impressed was Ed Nadeau, an Orono painter who joined the gallery owner in her student outreach effort. “I think they’re very serious about it,” he said.

Nadeau is still grateful to the high school art teacher in Waterville who encouraged him and helped him get into art school. He sees his involvement with the Bangor students as a way to repay that teacher.

“I wish I’d had an authentic gallery experience in high school,” he said. “I think it would have given me a big boost. It might give someone the confidence to pursue an art career.”

Maasch knew that Nadeau, a ponytailed 40-year-old who looks years younger, could also be a confidence-booster.

“I wanted them to see someone who grew up here, got a master’s in painting and became a successful artist,” she said.

Other local people were also getting on board. Art enthusiast Jean Deighan of Deighan Associates got on the phone and recruited the Bangor Daily News, WBRC Architects and Tate-Fitch Public Accountants to sponsor the show. Northeast Reprographics would print invitations and posters, and Bangor Frameworks, where Nadeau works, would frame the art.

Maasch visited the high school early in October to talk about the gallery. She showed some art and explained how it was chosen to hang there. Her emphasis was on the importance of presentation — submitting clean, well cared for work without rips or smudges, matted and done on paper appropriate for the medium.

“If an artist comes to me and doesn’t have his presentation thing together, he’s not going to get in the gallery,” she said.

A month later, students visited the Clark House to see professionalism in action. Brooksville painter Robert Shetterly walked them through his show and shared insights about his work, greatly impressing the young people, who assailed him with questions.

“He didn’t talk down to us,” said Jenn Wilson, an AP student. “He didn’t treat us like, `That’s cute you have an interest in art.’ He talked to us like he was talking to another artist, even though he hadn’t seen any of our work.”

If there was a downside to the visit, it was seeing the gallery’s limited size. Only 30 or 35 pieces would fit. They’d known it from the start, but now it seemed real: Some of their work would have to be rejected.

By Dec. 1, students submitted at least three pieces to be considered for the show. Some, like Beth Lancaster, sorted through dozens of drawings and paintings done over several years, looking for the creme de la creme.

“I was struck most by how much I’ve grown,” she reflected.

One of the pieces she submitted was “Rednight,” a layered painting done on her first day back to school after her father’s death this fall. “It was a really emotional thing for me,” she said.

As Lancaster talked about how the loss affected her art, her classmates listened alertly. They seemed eager to throw attention her way, but protective, watching to be sure she was doing OK.

“They do a good job of helping each other,” Elmore said.

When Seth Gass started to talk about his modeling clay sculpture “Bob Had A Bad Day,” his classmate Molly Wiebe was quick to retrieve it from the back of the room and show it off for him.

Wiebe’s self-portrait “Girl in Red” is a lively, skewed collage. “In art, I like to be crazy and exciting,” she said. “I like to show traits I’d like to have.”

At the high school last month, making their picks, Maasch and Nadeau looked for original ideas, good use of medium, presentation and completeness. Over 3 1/2 hours, they whittled the field to about 30 pieces.

As expected, not everyone made it in. “There was some elation, and some disappointment,” Elmore said. “But they knew it was part of the process.”

Three days before the opening, students laughed and hammered and climbed stepladders while hanging their work at the gallery. The mood was celebratory, though there was homework to be done at home and midterms fast approaching.

Every once in a while, one of the kids would stand back quietly and marvel at the way things were shaping up.

“You were pretty strict,” Susan Maasch had told Ed Nadeau, reflecting back on their selection process. “But that’s where it’s at.”

“Not getting in is just as important as getting in,” Nadeau asserted with the hard-nosed logic of a grown-up artist. “They might not realize it now, but it might motivate them.”

“A Collection of Works: Bangor High School Art Students” will be on display through Jan. 30. The Clark House is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 11 to 4 p.m. Saturday. A reception will be held from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 22, at the gallery, 128 Hammond St., Bangor.