ORONO – Alden Wilson, the nation’s longest serving director of a state arts agency, has announced his plans to step down on Feb. 2. The news, made public during Friday’s meeting of the Maine Arts Commission, was met with well-wishes, praise for a job well done and hearty applause for his 36 years of service.

With the success of 2004’s creative economy conference in his wake and the framework for November’s Juice creative economy conference in the works, Wilson said he is leaving the commission in a healthy place. Donna McNeil, who has served as the commission’s assistant director since November 2006, will be his successor. (See sidebar, Page A2)

“I think it’s a wonderful time to change,” Wilson told commission members. “I’m delighted with it, and I’m really looking forward to the next adventure.”

That adventure entails a move to the Los Angeles area, where Wilson, 60, hopes to pursue his passion for mid-century modern architecture.

“I’ve long had an interest in architecture that stems from an aesthetic interest in the interplay of space, which is why I love dance,” Wilson explained during a recent interview at the commission’s headquarters in Augusta. “I think it affords the opportunity to think about the built environment, the natural environment and the relationship between the two, which is very consistent with the creative economy work I’ve done, but this one I want to do as a creator, not an administrator.”

An equally important reason for the move is the health of Wilson’s life partner, Don Chase, who has a permanent disability that requires specialized medical attention. The services he requires will be more readily available in their new California hometown.

“My partnership comes first,” he stressed Friday during his remarks.

In his professional life, Wilson has spent the last 36 years making sure the state’s arts community comes first. He has received the field’s highest honors for his efforts, including the Gary Young Award for outstanding state arts agency leadership. In January, he accepted the National Endowment for the Arts’ accessibility award on behalf of the commission. His work with the creative economy also has attracted national attention.

“I know the other states of New England have borrowed from the work Alden sort of tested there,” said Rebecca Blunk, the executive director of the New England Foundation for the Arts, for which Wilson is a standing board member. “He has guided the state of Maine in taking the reins of the creative economy discussion that we got started here … and worked with Gov. John Baldacci to put this concept to work for the state of Maine.”

Wilson has worked with every governor since Kenneth Curtis, and he credits the Baldacci administration for its support for the creative economy and arts funding – Baldacci has included more money in his budget for arts programs than any other governor during his tenure.

On Friday, the governor returned Wilson’s praise.

“I appreciate Alden Wilson’s service to the Maine Arts Commission,” he said. “His longevity is unmatched in such a position, and I wish him well in his retirement.”

Wilson, a West Virginia native and Colby College alumnus, came to the commission in 1971 as a National Endowment for the Arts management intern. At the time, there was “no concept of what an arts agency was at the state level,” he recalled. The focus was making high-quality arts accessible to more people with an emphasis on strengthening arts institutions such as the Bangor Symphony Orchestra and the Portland Museum of Art. When he became director in 1974, he told the board chairman he’d be there five years, tops.

Thirty-three years later, he’s still in Augusta, but he says that since then, he has had “a bazillion different jobs.” His position evolved to include shaping public policy, organizing artist tours and coordinating educational programming.

“I think the challenge was and is to provide the best of arts to all Mainers,” he said. “That reflects my point of view as much as anything does. … The arts and culture should be made available to as many people as possible.”

In its early days, the commission was chiefly a grant-giving institution, but that changed in the early 1990s. At the time, the National Endowment for the Arts sustained significant budget cuts, which in turn cut funding to state arts councils. In Maine, the NEA contribution now makes up more than 40 percent of the commission’s annual budget.

Faced with a fiscal crisis, the arts commission stopped giving grants for a year. Wilson wasn’t convinced the system was serving the arts community well anyway – he felt it fostered ill will between organizations competing for limited funds.

“In a state like Maine, the most important thing is to bring people together,” Wilson said.

After that regrouping period, the commission embarked on a new model, one that would build community through the arts. The Discovery Research program, which catalogs cultural resources, was introduced, as was the Partners in the Arts and Learning initiative. The commission still awards folk and contemporary artists through fellowships and an apprenticeship program, but grant-making is no longer its chief focus.

“That was just a major bold thing to do,” said North Carolina Arts Council director Mary Regan, a friend of Wilson’s who began her work a year after Wilson arrived in Augusta. “That was amazing. I don’t know of any state arts council that would have the confidence to take such a bold step as that.”

Wilson’s bold step paid off. He considers Maine a model for rural states, and others would agree.

“His scope of vision in terms of support of the arts has included the folk arts and community-based art, [which] puts Maine at the forefront,” said Barry Bergey, the NEA’s director of folk and traditional arts programs. “He’s very inventive. He rethought the way a state arts agency might do that with a limited budget.”

The Discovery Research project uncovered under-the-radar resources in towns throughout the state. The effort eventually led to the New Century Community Program, a unique collaboration among the state’s seven cultural and historical agencies, which in turn sparked the creative economy initiative. In other states, such entities work in competition, but in Maine, they work in concert.

“The spirit in which cultural programs are administered here in Augusta – this is particularly true with the Maine Arts Commission – has always been viewed as a partnership,” said Earle Shettleworth, a friend from Wilson’s Colby days who directs the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. “Alden has consistently, persistently reached out and encouraged people throughout the state in all different artistic endeavors to partner with the arts commission to reach their goals.”

Among Wilson’s fondest collaborations is his work with the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance in Old Town, which has raised the profile of the state’s American Indian artisans on the national level. He points to the organization’s use of arts commission funding, moral support and the apprenticeship program to help further its own goals.

“Helping to preserve a tradition is something I’m very, very proud of,” Wilson said.

In the coming months, Wilson will do his part to preserve the heritage of the arts commission. He hopes to complete a personal history, including his own reflections and interviews with other key players during his tenure, by June 2008.

But even though he has “the best job in the state,” Wilson said it’s going to be hard to compile a history when a new life – with palm trees – is on the horizon.

“I don’t focus on the past,” Wilson said. “I’m much more interested in what’s coming next. That’s because I like the unknown.”