Rockland artist finds rooftop magnet O’Donovan’s gallery exemplifies city’s ‘creative economy’ shifts since 1990s

ROCKLAND – Thomas O’Donovan’s new rooftop garden gallery is but the latest centerpiece in the city’s ongoing downtown revitalization story.

Midcoast Magnet, a group formed as a nonprofit organization two years ago to try to attract and retain people interested in a creative economy, has scheduled a return engagement to Rockland after meeting at the Farnsworth Art Museum in May.

In September Midcoast Magnet will meet on the rooftop of O’Donovan’s Main Street Harbor Square Gallery.

Cited by state Economic Development Commissioner John Richardson on a visit to the city in May as a community that has improved itself over the past 20 years, Rockland is thriving as the epitome of Gov. John Baldacci’s concept of a creative economy. O’Donovan has played a significant role.

In 1996, a city group outlined a downtown plan that included building and facade improvements, additional parking spaces, including a reconfiguration of the Museum Street parking lot, and new plantings of trees. O’Donovan’s purchase of the vacant four-story former Security Trust bank building in 1995 fit right into the plan.

O’Donovan, 58, came to Maine from Pennsylvania in 1979 and settled in Camden, where he built his business from a 350-square-foot cold-water studio near the landing to a 4,500-square-foot gallery on Bay View Street.

In 1995, the arrival of credit card lender MBNA and its telemarketing operation put pressure on Camden’s retail space, driving up rental prices, and O’Donovan began to look around for a building to buy, settling on the former bank, a 1912 vacant building on Main Street in Rockland.

The Farnsworth’s expansion into the former J.J. Newberry store next door to O’Donovan’s gallery, an upgrade of the Spear building by Camden National Bank at the corner of Main and Park streets, and relocation of Second Read Bookstore (now called Rock City Books & Coffee) to a bigger Main Street store, and an upgrade of the Reading Corner bookstore are among the downtown revitalization plan projects accomplished since 1996, according to City Manager Tom Hall.

Since moving his business to Rockland, O’Donovan said he has received so much support that it’s been almost “miraculous.”

“In Rockland, there’s this return to the center of the city – I think all across America – where people are almost seeking refuge in what used to be the center of civilization, where each city had its own identity. When you went from one city to another, there weren’t the same restaurants, and you didn’t see the same retail stores, and every city had its own culture,” O’Donovan said.

He credits Patrick Reilley and Suzanne Ward, owners of Rock City Books & Coffee, with helping to start Rockland’s downtown renaissance with the 1992 opening of their coffee shop and with creating a focal point for a local creative community.

“The cool thing about Rockland business is that it’s in owner-occupied space. I own this building, Grasshopper store owns its building, the Black Parrot owns its restaurant, and the Reading Corner owns its real estate,” he said, naming a few.

O’Donovan’s Main Street Harbor Square Gallery goes from the basement floor all the way above the fourth floor to the roof, where in April he expanded his space to allow for the Muir Garden for Contemporary Sculpture, after the late artist Bryce Muir of Bowdoinham.

O’Donovan, who said he has been told that his is the only public rooftop garden in Maine, sees his roof as community space, where people may go to relax, view the greenery and sculptures and look out over the city.

“It’s like a park. Where I grew up, Allentown, Pennsylvania, we had the highest percentage of parks in any city in the country,” he said. “Every neighborhood had a park, and that’s part of the way I feel the world is supposed to be.

“It’s a beautiful park in the middle of the city, and it gives Rockland a chance to look at itself from a point of view it hasn’t seen before,” he said of his 1,000 square feet of rooftop garden.

“What I remember about Allentown was that the business community was so proud of itself,” said O’Donovan, who began his career as a metalsmith and designer. “There was so much celebration of beauty, and in the 1950s, the idea of the real tyranny of the bottom line hadn’t taken over yet.”

Similarly, he said, “Midcoast Maine has been very good to me. This community has helped me grow this thing.”

A Quaker since his college days at Pennsylvania State University, he said the inner spirit associated with the Society of Friends guides him.

“I really feel guided by spirit. Whenever I feel fear, I’ve learned to move toward it, as if guided by an inner spirit,” he said. “I move toward the fear, toward anything that may feel threatening.

“One of the things that being in the Society of Friends has taught me is to listen to the many systems of truth,” he said. “They’re all related as one truth.”

Midcoast Magnet meets at O’Donovan’s rooftop garden on Sept. 6. The group is a nonprofit organization serving Knox and Waldo counties.