by B.J. Carter
Coastal Journal staff

What do you do here at the [Tidemark] gallery?

I’m one of the artists featured here, but I’m also one of the curators for the exhibits.  In the fall and the winter we have guest artists that come in and we devote very significant wall space to their work.  Audrey [Bechler] is one of the other curators here, we pick the work and hang the show and make sure the display is right.  Then we set up a schedule of guest artists from October through April, we basically work a year in advance.  I take care of PR and do the photography for the artists in the gallery.  And then I try to tackle a few paintings of my own, but I don’t have nearly as much time as I would like to work on them.

Which medium do you work in?

Oils and watercolors.  I’ve got one piece in here and one in the back, they’re both watercolors, but I actually prefer to work in oils.  They’re more forgiving.

Do you hang art in your house?

I do but, the artwork in my house is not mine.  I’m a collector.  It’s nice working in a gallery like this, it gives you an opportunity to see different artists and purchase a lot of different art.  Right now I think I own pieces from all but two of the artists represented by the gallery. 

Do you have a favorite piece in your collection?

[Sighing] Boy, that’s like choosing a favorite child.

I know, I know . . .

I guess I would have to say my favorite piece is a watercolor by Audrey Bechler, Audrey’s sitting out at the front desk right now.  It’s a portrait study, which is very difficult to do in watercolor.  Watercolor is unforgiving.  Once you put the water and the paint down, you’re stuck with what you’ve got.  Audrey’s painting is relatively small, but the quality of the work and the presentation really drew me in.

Is the rest of your family as interested in art as you are?

My daughter’s into collecting it, though she actually likes to do photography.  Art, strangely enough, is something I came to late in life.  When I was in seventh grade I had to go to school in Denver -  I was a military brat - and I took a mechanical drawing class.  I realized I could draw and a lot of the other kids couldn’t.  I didn’t know why.  I found out from my mother later on that my great grandmother was a self-taught artist, and in fact now I have three of her pieces handed down through the family.  She lived in a town called Tower in northern Minnesota.  She used to paint from postcards people sent her from various places around the world.  I guess it’s in the genes somewhat.  My mother was a singer - she played the piano and did vaudeville - but I have a tin ear and no rhythm [laughs], so there was really no choice for me, I had to paint.  I’ve always loved to look at paintings and wonder how they were done. 

When I retired from the Air Force, I decided to take a couple of classes, realized that I could do it and liked doing it.  In 2000 I retired from the First National Bank of Damariscotta and decided to study art full time.  In November of 2005 Charlotte Davenhill, the owner of the gallery, contacted myself and Audrey and a few other artists and said she wanted to open a gallery in a building she owned in Waldoboro.  We put the gallery together and we’ve been going ever since.

How old were you when you got out of the Air Force?

I was 41.  I was in for 20 years, then I did 11 years at the First National Bank.  I tried my hand at teaching for half a year but figured it wasn’t really for me.  I’ve been doing this since 2000, as well as getting involved in community activities. 

Which community activities?

I’ve been drawn to community activities because it’s my time to give back.  When I was in the Air Force the base was your community, you didn’t really get involved in much else.  When I came to Waldoboro, which is where my wife is from originally, the town really became my hometown.  I had never had a hometown before that.  It was welcoming to me, it was warm, in ‘74 I became a resident and had a piece of property.  When I came back in ‘88 and got involved in the bank, there was time to do small things in the community but nothing with any meat to it.  So in 2000 I became part of the recreation committee for the town, worked with a lot of people, including Charlotte, putting together a recreation package for the town.  Through that connection I then became involved in Lincoln County Weed and Seed.  Weed and Seed is a Department of Justice funded project for crime and violence prevention.  It’s unique in that the federal government doesn’t tell you how to spend the money.  Weed and Seed is usually an inner city program focused on a particular neighborhood.  In Maine Volunteers of America, who initially helped us get started, said that if it was going to work in Maine it would have to exist on a county level.  We were the first state in the country to organize a county Weed and Seed coalition.  I ended up becoming the chairman of the coalition.  I’ve been with them since 2002, and that’s led to opportunities with other prevention programs.

I’m Treasurer of the VFW post here in Waldoboro, I’m President of the West Waldoboro Community Church Organization, which basically entails shoveling the walkway and making sure the heat is turned on [laughs].  And I’m also a town selectman for Waldoboro, I was elected in January.  They’re all interwoven responsibilities, there’s an incredible amount of synergy.  I didn’t pursue all these opportunities, they just sort of came to me from my initial involvement with the recreational committee, and each opportunity has flowed into the next.

Since much of what you do is interreIated, is there ever a conflict of interest?

Actually, there hasn’t been.  The one thing I’ll say about the town of Waldoboro is that it’s a very caring, generous community.  The only real conflict is not being able to be in two places at once.  From the standpoint of being a selectman, there may be some times when I’ll have to recuse myself from voting on a certain issue because I’m involved in it, but I can then speak to that issue as an expert.  These community activities fit in nicely with my own personal belief structure.

I know you said you didn’t really have a hometown before Waldoboro, but where were you born?

I was born in Duluth, MN.  My mother used to take me there on vacation, no matter where we were stationed in the U.S., every summer.  Aside from the fact that Lake Superior isn’t an ocean, it’s very similar to Maine in climate, trees, water, black flies . . . .

Getting back to art now, I watched a pretty interesting documentary recently called My Kid Could Paint That, and basically it was about a young girl who started painting what some people were calling modern masterpieces when she was around four or so.  People would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get her paintings, and it raised all those issues about what qualifies as art and what determines the value of it, etc.  As someone who is a collector, what are the rules for you personally when it comes to purchasing art?

Obviously we all have budgets to live by.  If the art speaks to me and I really want the painting, I’ll try to be able to afford it somehow.  Ultimately the piece has to catch your attention in a powerful way, and you have to know that you will re-experience that same emotion you had the first time you laid eyes on it.  It’s perfectly legitimate to spend money on art if looking at it brings you joy.  And I can tell you that for the artist who has somebody pay them money for something they’ve created, there is joy there as well.  The buyer has made a connection with you as a viewer to such an extent that they are going to give you something of value in return for the value you’ve created for them and the emotion you’ve created in them.  That interchange of value, of love really, is special.

Do you ever get down to the museums in New York?  Or the really famous ones in Europe?

My daughter lives in Boston, so I do get to visit those museums down there.  I went to the Museum of Fine Arts just a few weeks ago.  I find myself drawn to the same galleries over and over again, but since you’ve paid to get in, you feel obliged to look at everything else [laughs].  And that’s a good thing, you get to experience things you haven’t seen before. 
I haven’t been fortunate enough to travel to the museums in New York, though I have been to the Smithsonian, I saw the Mona Lisa when it was on tour, I can cross that off my list [laughs].  But obviously I’d love to get over to the Louvre as well.

Well hopefully you will someday.

Yes, hopefully.