Art awards help reveal great talent in Maine Commission gives out $3,000 at Bangor event

BANGOR – If you had dropped by the Whig & Courier last Thursday night, you would have been greeted by the sound of acoustic guitar, accordion, and a curly-haired man clacking a pair of bones to the beat. With the exception of the bones, it was a pretty typical pub scene. Then everyone started dancing.

As the patrons at the surrounding tables clapped in time to the music, a group of dancers, artists and members of the Maine Arts Commission got up and paired off on the only clear space in the room. Cindy Larock of Lewiston started calling out the moves as the group performed an impromptu contradance in cramped quarters.

It was a spontaneous performance of the best kind – a jam session among people who love music. They came from all over the state (one even made the journey from Montreal) to receive awards from the Maine Arts Commission. After the official reception at the Bangor home of John and Lynda Rohman, which included the annual presentation of $3,000 in fellowship awards to seven artists, writers and designers, as well as the Traditional Arts Apprentice Awards to four musicians, a step dancer, and their respective apprentices, they headed downtown to celebrate.

In doing so, they gave the local audience a glimpse of why the arts are so vibrant in Maine.

“Maine is a state that is blessed with true riches in the arts, particularly with the number of artists who make their lives here,” Alden Wilson, the director of the Maine Arts Commission, said during the reception. “With this program, we seek to recognize and financially support artists in all disciplines as well as Maine’s folk and traditional artists.”

One of those traditional artists, Benoit Bourque, made the drive from Montreal to receive the award with his apprentice. The Quebecois step dancer and musician has been working with Larock for several years now, helping her revive a Franco-American tradition that has all but vanished from the Lewiston-Auburn area. She has, in turn, shared what she has learned with a new generation of dancers.

“He’s such a good role model, because a lot of the kids I work with are boys and it’s hard to get boys to dance,” Larock said.

Bourque has a pretty persuasive argument for the boys, however.

“As boys, we didn’t dance,” he said. “We were ‘real’ boys in sports. When I was 13, a friend wanted me to join a folk dance group. At first, I said, ‘Dance? Are you crazy? Dance is for girls.’ And he said, ‘Yeah!'”

It worked – Bourque is now married to one of those girls. For Bourque, however, that was just a fringe benefit of the dancing.

“Being in the arts as a musician and dancer is a privilege,” Bourque said. “I’ve been in touch with other cultures. I’ve made bridges with other cultures. … I have the chance because of the music and the dance to get to know these cultures.”

The traditional arts awards are also a way to build bridges in Maine, as well. Pirun Sen, a Portland-based musician, came to Maine 20 years ago from Cambodia. When he arrived, he immediately sought out other Cambodian musicians to keep the tradition alive. He and his apprentice, Anthony Chhem, have played together for two years in the Samaki Ensemble.

This year, three Franco-American fiddlers received the apprenticeship award, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Ben Guillmette of Sanford, a national fiddling champion, has worked with Veronica Delcourt of Gorham for the past two years. Don Roy of Gorham, who learned how to fiddle at age 15, teaches workshops at the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland. His apprentice is Rhonda Bullock. Emile Langevin of Lyman has been playing the fiddle for 10 years, and performs regularly at dances in Biddeford and Saco. His apprentice is Mary Rose Lord of South Berwick.

“In the traditional arts, it has to be an authentic traditional art form that is passed on from generation to generation, passed down and learned directly,” Wilson said. “These are art forms that would be lost otherwise.”

The fellowship awards, on the other hand, only have one requirement: artistic excellence. This year, 130 artists applied, and seven out of a possible 10 awards were given. Gov. John Baldacci presented these and the apprenticeship awards during a conference call on Thursday.

The winners are: author and journalist Chris Barry of Portland; Judy Gailen of Portland, a set and costume designer; Tim Harbeson of Portland, a musician and visual artist; Colin Sargent, a poet and playwright who founded Portland Magazine; Elizabeth Neary Sholl, a Portland-based poet; Amity Stoddard of Hulls Cove, a writer of short fiction; and Elizabeth Tibbetts of Hope, a poet and author.

Baldacci, who was in the thick of bond-issue debate in Augusta, took time out to praise the artists and their achievements. He said that he recognizes the importance of the arts, and that through policy, he intends to “highlight our artists.”

“No state in New England is more deeply rooted in the creative arts than Maine, Baldacci said. “These artists are a visual record of who we are and where we came from.”