A heart to art talk: Midcoast Magnet advocates a creative economy that extends past galleries

ROCKLAND – Maine’s creative economy will need more than art galleries to survive – the state also needs businesspeople to follow the example of artists to think creatively, a board member of the nonprofit group Midcoast Magnet said Thursday.

“The old idea that we can’t do something because we’ve never done it before is no longer an answer,” said board member Howard “Skip” Bates.

More than 40 Midcoast Magnet members met at the rooftop garden of Thomas O’Donovan’s Harbor Square Gallery on Main Street to talk about the role the arts can play in the region’s economic future.

Dorian LeBlanc, chairman of the Midcoast Magnet board, called the rooftop garden setting with its many sculptures a “fantastic” anchor to bring people together from the arts and business.

“We think this is a great place to give members a chance to socialize,” he said. “We’ve got people here who are creative, and hopefully some people have come here and think about relocating to the area.”

Lee Webb, a senior fellow at the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy at the University of Maine and a Midcoast Magnet member, said he believes the decision years ago by the Farnsworth Museum to buy the former J.J. Newberry building opened up Main Street to change.

“The arts and history of the area have stimulated growth,” he said. “Now we need new sources of financing. We need people who are willing to think outside the box.”

“The arts were already here,” said Lora Urbanelli, executive director of the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. “There were a lot of artists, and the Farnsworth provided a locus for other galleries.

“We are so interested in the community,” Urbanelli added. “The community is where we start.”

Today, the city has 24 art galleries, according to the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Bates said he thought the state’s idea of developing a creative economy was but one piece of the story.

“Another piece is the need for business to be creative in marketing, financing, education and product development. We need to be more creative if we’re going to compete internationally,” he said.

Education is important because of the need for an educated work force for companies and the need for them to look at things differently, according to Bates.

“Maine has a tradition of Yankee ingenuity,” he said. “A creative economy draws on our people’s strengths.”

He cited the local Fisher plow company, which has been making snowplows for many years, as an example of an innovative operation because its employees are challenged to think creatively.

Bates said Maine’s natural beauty and resources have made it a “great place to live” and an attraction to young entrepreneurs and professionals who choose to live and work in the state because they can. They are no longer tied to metropolitan centers for work.

Citing the state’s strong cultural history, including the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Edna St. Vincent Millay of Rockland and Edwin Arlington Robinson of Head Tide, Bates said it is interesting to see who among award-winning writers have followed.

The nonprofit Midcoast Magnet organization was formed in 2004 to bring people together to develop innovative projects supporting creativity, livability and economic sustainability in Knox, Lincoln and Waldo counties.