It’s a steamy, overcast morning as George Markowsky walks down a gravel road, past a rambling brick woolen mill, toward a hulking Civil War-era barn. He pauses where the ground drops off abruptly to the right, the site of a long-retired gravel pit that now holds demolition debris, old boards and perhaps less obvious, promise.

“This is our amphitheater,” he says, sweeping his hand toward the crater in the earth.

It takes vision to see performance space amid the rubble, and Markowsky – a professor, scientist, mathematician and entrepreneur – has it. When he first perused Ayers Island in 1998, the town of Orono had stalled foreclosure on the former Striar Textile Co. property because of the liabilities involved.

Where town officials saw risk, Markowsky saw 62 acres of opportunity smack in the middle of the Penobscot River. He looked past the tax and sewer liens and the coal-ash contamination and toward the future – to a place where culture, commerce, technology, research and development could feed off one another.

It would be nice to say that a deep-pocketed investor stepped in and that the old mill is now a thriving center full of galleries, chic restaurants, state-of-the-art research facilities and small-scale manufacturing. But it’s not. In the last six years, Markowsky has invested nearly $600,000 of his own money into cleanup and structural improvements – many of which are invisible. He has dealt with neighborhood unrest over traffic and noise concerns. And he has sat through dozens – if not hundreds – of meetings.

But he hasn’t wavered. And the community, both town and gown, has begun to show interest. Residents stroll on the network of trails and put in their canoes on the island. Art and new-media students from the University of Maine have used the mill and the barn as exhibit space, and several artists have done installation and sculpture there. Since he bought the island in 2003, Markowsky has moved his consulting firm, Trefoil Corp., into the rehabilitated side of the mill and incorporated Ayers Island LLC. The site also attracted national media attention last month when it was host to a homeland security drill.

Ultimately, though, Markowsky hopes that culture will put the island on the map, locally and internationally. And the first Ayers Island Contemporary Arts Festival, which is slated for mid-August, could be the catalyst. The event will bring together young artists from France, Montreal, the United Kingdom and Maine who are working with digital and new-media technology.

“One of George’s missions, really, is to have the public be aware of the creative process, whether it’s science or whether it’s art,” Peter Rottman, Ayers Island’s vice president of cultural affairs, said recently. “It’s not just an art show. It really is linked to the mission of what we’re trying to do here.”

Markowsky, a professor and chairman of the University of Maine’s computer science department, came to Orono in 1983 after spending nearly 10 years with IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Institute in New York. He has since become interested in the ways in which art and science intersect, and his entrepreneurial ventures reflect that.

He sees Ayers Island as a “center of creativity,” with a cinema, artists’ studios, exhibit areas and performance space for musicians, as well as annual events such as the contemporary arts festival. Ideally, this will lure in other entrepreneurs and UM researchers, and provide room and funding for an incubator program to grow.

“I think that the businesses that are going to be attracted here will be attracted because of all these other activities,” he said. “If your company feeds off that, this might be a stimulating place to be.”

In other words, Markowsky was thinking in terms of the creative economy long before it became a buzzword in Maine. He was talking large-building revitalization before it became fashionable. And he didn’t need a study to tell him investing in culture and technology was a good idea.

“I think if you’re going to have a creative economy, you really have to encourage creativity, and this is one of the ways to do it,” Rottman said of the festival.

“The creative economy is not just technology – that’s just a focus on tools and that’s not enough,” Don Foresta, a visiting art professor from France, added. “How do you discover creativity in a person and pull it out? It’s creating a creative atmosphere where innovation is almost taken for granted.”

Foresta, a New York native who lives in Paris, teaches at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts in Cergy. He is also a senior research fellow at the Wimbledon College of Art in England. He met Markowsky at a conference in Copenhagen in 1996 that examined ways of bringing art and science together. Ever since, the two have met up once or twice a year, and the Ayers Island Contemporary Arts Festival grew out of their shared interests.

“The idea is we’ll start creating a foundation for an ongoing exchange program,” Foresta said. “If we can start creating a summer camp for artists, why not?”

It was easy to lure international artists to Maine for “Without Borders,” which is the theme for the first festival. The installations will incorporate computer, video and sound, including one piece that will feature a hydrophone (underwater microphone) in the river that will be amplified in the mill space.

“We’re dealing with young, emerging talent,” Rottman said. “It’s a very important thing for young artists to get shown – artists who are dealing with new tools. We’re not talking about painters, but we’re not putting them down, either.”

The prevalence of technology has broken down the physical constraints of art – travel may be prohibitive, but with Internet access, you can know what’s going on artistically next door or around the world. As a result, Foresta says, there is no one dominant center of the art world anymore.

“I think that’s finished,” he said. “I think some cities may be more open, there may be more funding. I don’t think one country or one city will dominate anymore. It’s a moveable feast.”

And it’s moving to Maine.

In addition to international artists, several Mainers with ties to the university will participate. Andrew Hamm of Winslow is one of them. Though he graduated several years ago, Hamm spent a year in one of the mill’s cavernous rooms creating a large-scale installation – a flying machine – mainly from found objects on the site. It was cold, and it was dirty (it’s an old mill, after all) but he remembers the experience fondly.

“I had plenty of raw materials, and thousands and thousands of square feet to work with,” Hamm said. “Overall, it was just an incredible experience. As an artist, it’s impossible to find space like that. Just think about it, in New York City or anywhere.”

Ayers Island has no shortage of space – the mill building takes up 9 acres, the barn soars into the sky, and the island itself covers 62 acres. The developers have no shortage of vision, either. But plans don’t pay the bills.

“I think it’s a lofty vision, but I think it’s necessary,” Hamm said. “Not enough people are thinking like that. He needs more support. He needs support from the state and he needs support from accessible people.”

Maine is no Massachusetts, however, and Ayers Island is no MassMoCA. Not yet, anyway. Markowsky isn’t holding his breath for a $20 million shot in the arm from the state.

“With $20 million, you can do a lot. We welcome the opportunity to see what we can do with $20 million,” Markowsky said, laughing.

To date, private investment in Ayers Island has come largely out of his pocket. The town of Orono, the Department of Transportation and the federal government have pledged a combined $1.5 million for bridge repairs and an environmental cleanup.

“We’re probably at the point where a couple hundred thousand dollars more, applied to the building, will really move us forward,” Markowsky said.

The Ayers Island project is unique in many ways, said Bob Baldacci, who served as an economic development consultant to the town of Orono until recently. Because the university is tax-exempt, the town has a limited tax base and little available land for expansion. Though the island had been nearly vacant for years, several neighbors wanted it to stay that way, Baldacci said, because it was quiet.

“It’s been an unusual community participation process,” Baldacci said. “But George is a very unusual developer. He’s looking at doing more than making a return on his investment. He wants to develop something that will be a model for economic development in Maine, something that goes far beyond the borders of Orono, and that’s what that property represents.”

It hasn’t been an easy journey for Markowsky, but he’s had fun so far. The hurdles haven’t diminished his vision. If anything, they made it grow. When asked if he had any regrets, he raised an eyebrow and answered quickly.

“I never say that. It doesn’t do any good to say that. You just have to keep going. There’s always some way to make something positive happen,” he said.

As he stepped out into the warm morning air, he continued.

“It’s an island, for God’s sake, in the river, two miles from campus. People say, ‘How can you be so sure?’ He stopped and looked toward the gravel pit. The amphitheater.

“It’s gotta happen.”

Ayers Island is located at the end of Island Avenue in Orono. Walking trails are open to the public as long as the gate to the island is open. For information, visit www.ayersisland.com. Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.

John Hackney rips asphalt siding off the Civil War-era barn.