June LaCombe and Bill Ginn

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is my great pleasure to have with you me, June Lacombe and Bill Ginn. June Lacombe is an independent arts consultant specializing in New England sculpture. Her husband, Bill Ginn, is the executive vice president of the Nature Conservancy. He has also served as the former chief conservation officer of the Nature Conservancy. And you have a couple of nice houses here in the state of Maine, surrounded by sculptures and also are really into things like solar power. So you're doing a lot of stuff. Thanks for coming in today.

Bill Ginn:

We're glad to be here.

June LaCombe:

Thank you for having us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I almost don't know what to talk about first because what you do is so interesting to me, but I guess I'll get a little bit of background. Your house, your mainland house is just up the coast a little ways up in Pownall, I believe. How long have you been there?

June LaCombe:

40 years?

Bill Ginn:

Yep, I think that's just about right. We met at Maine Audubon Society and June was the education director, I was the assistant director. And we fell in love with this little country place that was melting into the ground and we spent 40 years trying to resurrect it.

June LaCombe:

And it's grown over the years and we've I learned when I went back to a doctoral program and I was looking at environmental art and study art and nature, but I learned that there was a name for what Bill and I were doing 40 years ago. We were called back to the Landers. We wanted to raise our food. We had sheep. I had and Then we had small kids and we were living on the land.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you still have chickens and other fowl that I'm remembering.

Bill Ginn:

Big gardens. Sadly, we don't have big commercial farm anymore because we've been so busy with our June's case, her art career, and in my case, my conservation work for the Nature Conservancy. So we've had to make some compromises. But we still love the land and eat as much as we can from it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where are you both originally from?

Bill Ginn:

Well, I'm from Ohio originally. My connection to Maine is that my father went to Bates College. He was from Delaware, and he came during the war years to Bates and then went into the army and met my mother, who was from North Dakota, and they came back to Bates. My mother put my father through Bates, working at the Bates Woolen mill in Lewiston. And then my father got a job as a lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio. And so my connection to Maine got broken then. But it's always been in the back of my mind. And when I had a chance to come back to Maine, I did.

June LaCombe:

I grew up in Maine. I lived in North Yarmouth, where my father was the superintendent of schools in Cumberland and North Yarmouth. We had a ski cabin at Sugarloaf. We had a little house on a lake. We had a boat in the harbor down in Yarmouth. We had horses and a farm. And my mother was always a gardener, even though she worked at the Maine Medical center in the research department. And we lived, really the best life one could live in Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did each of you come to believe in the importance of conservation?

Bill Ginn:

Well, I mean, for me, it was a lifelong passion from a small child being out in the woods and seeing the impact of development on places that I cared about. And then I had the pleasure of coming to New England to go to college. And I heard about this new environmental school in Maine called College of the Atlantic and never had a class before. And I thought to myself, wow, I would really like to go back to Maine and study the environment. This was right at the beginning of Earth Day, and there was a lot of energy around the environment. And so I came to Maine, and I was in the first graduating class of two at the College of the Atlantic. And so, you know, in the end, I. And basically, I've never left. It's been a great place to be.

June LaCombe:

My father was a Maine guide. My mother was always an environmental activist, and she was an organic gardener 50 and 60 years ago. And so she was a model of environmental and close to the land kind of living. And I went to school to study environmental education and designed a program where I. I wove art and the environment together through my undergraduate degree at the new College. And then I continued. I have continued to look at the art and the environment, and I'm clearly trying to just carry on that belief that both are important.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Not only do you have a yearly exhibition of sculptors at your farm, but this year you also are working with Wells Reserve at Laudholm and bringing an outdoor exhibition that will actually run through October. Tell me about the importance of sculpture.

June LaCombe:

Well, I've had shows throughout the state of Maine. I've had a number of shows at the Maine Audubon Society at Gilsland Farm, and I have for the last 10 years, done the sculpture shows at Costa Maya Botanical Gardens. And I've had shows at the College of the Atlantic. So I do show sculpture at my home because I know the land well. And we've just opened a trail where I'm able to not only show sculpture in situ in my gardens in my home, but also through this woodland trail. So it's a good place to show sculpture, and it's a good place for me to be able to work with clients to help answer their questions. But the show at Loudholm is the place, first of all, is their byline, is a place to discover. And it was clear to me when I stepped out the door and started looking at their reserve that the title of the show should be called Power of Place. It was. The surf was crashing in the background, and there were beautiful rolling fields and grand old historic farmhouses and barns. And it was really a delight to put a sculpture show together. And I really feel that sculpture can help reveal the sense of place. And these artists that are working in New England have been inspired by the beauty and the power of the land and working with materials like granite and wood and marble. And granite, of course, is the bedrock of Maine. And when you put a piece of granite on the landscape, there's something that, I don't know, makes this connection, a powerful connection between the piece of artwork and the thoughtful sculpting of that artwork and the place where it sits.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When I was at your farm, you were showing me where various things were placed. And this was sort of in the off season. It wasn't at the high point where all the sculptures were there, but there were still a fair number of them. And you're very specific about where you like things to be.

June LaCombe:

Well, I think there's a. Sometimes there is a. First of all, it takes a good piece of sculpture. And then it takes this place. And when you put them together in the right place, they resonate in a new way. I really believe that. But we have this kind of welcome home piece of sculpture, which is an abstracted, quite abstract standing stone figure, and that is right in my herb garden, right outside my door. And I think it's a good place to put a piece of sculpture where someone is knocking on the door and they wait, and that's their spot where they can contemplate their setting. And it really is our welcome home piece. And then I have a piece at the end of my driveway that's just a. It's a big abstract by Gary Haven Smith. I have a piece on the landscape that brings my attention out from my home out to a focal point setting on the landscape. And so I do think that there, when I go to someone's house and think about where they might place sculpture, I sit at their desk, I stand at their kitchen sink, and I sit in their favorite chair and look out the window, and that's where one might place a piece of sculpture.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Bill, you've worked with the Nature Conservancy for many years, so your idea about the power of place is probably fairly significant as well.

Bill Ginn:

Well, you know, the Nature Conservancy, of course, is known as an organization that protects places, and it has a proud history in Maine and really across the world. Your listeners might be interested to know that the biggest programs of the Nature Conservancy outside of the US Are in places like China and Brazil. So we really are a global organization that is who working across the planet, because, frankly, things like climate change don't know boundaries. And we think that the kinds of experience and history and tools that the Nature Conservancy honed and developed here in Maine and elsewhere in the United States have relevance everywhere. And one of the things I'm doing right now is starting a program in India for the Nature Conservancy. So that's all a brave new world. But if you care about the world, there's really almost no way you can be successful in saving the environment unless you work in places like India and China, because that's 40% of the people on Earth. And so their sustainability has everything to do with our sustainability here in here in Maine. So, you know, I certainly fell in love with the environment here in Maine, but I have come to greatly appreciate the vast complexity and diversity of the world's environment and how important that is to. To all of us. So that's. That's how I have migrated, I guess, from being place based, focused on Maine, to being thinking about the world and how it can be sustainable, because we have to figure out how to do that in a world with 7 billion people today and, you know, 9 or 10 billion people in the future. And how we do that will have everything to do with the quality of life of the future.

June LaCombe:

I was somewhat discouraged by our political climate and this last year, and I decided that I would have the sculpture show at our home be called Embracing Earth, and that I would have a series of maple tree talks that would be looking at the art of sustainable living as well as the art that sustains us. And so we've had this series where David Colson came and did a talk on organic gardening and answered people's gardening questions. I have my qigong instructor coming and doing a qigong class. I have the we're going to have this solar going solar in Maine talk because I just feel as though we need to be doing everything we can do. And my byline here is Living well where we are, Celebrating beauty, supporting creativity with attentive and thoughtful living, and making choices as if our grandchildren's lives depend on it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's a good byline. I like it. I'm wondering, there were a lot of Back to the Landers at one point, and now you're still here, and a lot of the other ones are not here anymore. How have you maintained this energy and made it really a positive energy that's kind of propelled you forward during all these years?

Bill Ginn:

Well, I mean, I think we've just tried to be conscious about how we live, you know, because we are connected to the rest of the world. So we're not. We're not hiding in the backwoods. You know, any given day you might find me, you know, in some faraway place on earth. So we're very much part of the world. But I think it does resonate to take care of your own garden, to take care of your own place on earth. So for us, it's the. The fact that we are outside and global in our daily living makes it really important to be outside and local in our daily living as well. So for us, it's what keeps us sane and happy and fulfilled. And I think people are. It's interesting. I mean, we certainly don't necessarily see the big waves of people, you know, putting up a log cabin in the woods that maybe happened in the 70s, but I think that there's an enormous consciousness about food. You know, we have, for the first time in Maine, had more farmers this past year than we've had in the previous year. So reversing a long decline, the growth of farmers markets, bakeries, processed foods, you know, custom cheeses and local bakery goods, all those things point to, I think, this deep yearning that people have to be in Maine, be connected to their environment, earn a living in new ways that are sustainable. So I think our journey really is one of how do you live well here in Maine and earn a living? In June's case, it's been through the arts. In my case, it's been first through my company, which was one of the first big recycling companies in New England, which I sold back in the 1990s, and then now back working for a conservation organization like the Nature Conservancy. So it's been a journey of trying to make a living here and to do it in a way that contributes to our economy, but also is one that is global and not parochial.

June LaCombe:

And, you know, so many of these artists are living close to the land. They're following their passion. They're creating great work, and there are patrons who are supporting that work and allowing them to continue to create. We have many, many friends who are growing their own food, have built their own homes. You know, so there's. There is that. And in. In Maine, all around us, is there

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

also a deep yearning for art, for beauty?

Bill Ginn:

I think so. I mean, look. I mean, Maine has always been a place where the arts have thrived. You know, start. Let's start back with the red paint Indians and the pictographs on the rocks in Machias, for example, an amazing, you know, beautiful examples of primitive art, but one that obviously deep, was deeply felt. And now through Winslow Homer, through the Zorax, through all the history of people who have been deeply influenced and connected to Maine and its environment. So Maine and the arts and its environment are completely inseparable. People have come here for inspiration for forever. And I don't think that's changing. In fact, I think it's deepening. If you ask, well, what. You know, if we build a new economy for Maine, what is the, you know, what is the future? I think you have to say it's in the creative economy. You know, it's. Sadly, it's not in the pulp and paper industry. Those mills are gone. Or in the decline. It's not in making shoes. You know, the capital going forward is a different way of using our natural resources for sustainability. We could be the breadbasket for New England. Here in Maine, we have the land, we have the resources, and we have the People who care about those issues. We spend a fair portion of our summers along the coast of Maine where, you know, the lobster industry still thrives. There are 14 year round islands that are not connected to the mainland, that have thriving populations that depend on how we steward our natural resources. So art and the environment and living in Maine are so tied together and have been for 7,000 years.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm assuming you have thoughts on this as well, given your significant connection to.

June LaCombe:

Well, I have a sense that art has. Certainly sculpture has ancient roots. And it's actually the same role that sculpture has in our lives today. It is to celebrate beauty. It's. The sensual kind of appreciation of form and it's revealing something about our inner nature. I think art has always given heart to environmental issues and it really does empower each individual who lives with art and creates art. It empowers them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me about your house off the coast of Maine. We've talked about your house that's in the woods. Tell me about your island home.

Bill Ginn:

Well, we, we had the good fortune to buy a property on an island in Penobscot Bay called Eagle Island. And it's a wonderful island that still has a year round population of only a few people, but a family that's lived there for over 200 years. Some of the very first settlers on the Maine coast. And so we, when we first thought about building a place, I mean, June lived for an entire summer in a tent on the shore, just trying to think about where we would like to build a house with our two little kids at the time. And one of the choices, obviously when you build a house and you're on an island and not connecting to the mainland is where does your energy come from? Historically a lot of people would have a gas refrigerator, for example, and gas lights. We thought about that and we thought, wow, that's not really a great answer to be lugging cylinders of propane on boats across the world. So we decided that we would explore what was then a very nascent industry, photovoltaic solar. And so we put our first system of now, I mean, we're sort of in our third generation of solar systems on this house because technology has gotten so much better and people want more energy. By the way, you know, no one had ever heard of a cell phone or a laptop when we first came

June LaCombe:

in, comes to visit and plugs in.

Bill Ginn:

Now everyone comes and they want to plug in, so you need a system to do it. So for 25 years we've been running all of our refrigeration all of our communications, electricity, lights, using photovoltaic system. And we've probably run our generator. We have a generator, but we've probably run it maybe, I don't know, one or two times in the last 10 years. I'm not even sure it would start because the system is so reliable and, you know, it has no moving parts.

June LaCombe:

Bill and I designed this house on a napkin and we designed it to really relate to the land. And it was built with solar power. The carpenters put a solar collector on top of a garden way cart and filled the garden way cart with batteries and plugged into the solar collectors in order to run all their equipment. So there was never even a generator. It was built with solar power. It's worked for this for these last years.

Bill Ginn:

One of the things that's interesting is that, you know, when we first hooked our first refrigerator up, we had to go to California to get this really fancy, incredibly expensive refrigerator that used a tiny, tiny amount of electricity compared to the refrigerators that you could buy then. Now today, just about any GE refrigerator meets the same standard. And so that's a wonderful thing. Right now we see, rather than just these little niche things that you can, you know, you can have to go far away places to buy. Now you can get an energy efficient refrigerator right off the shelf that will work great with solar systems. So we've seen a lot of things change. Systems get better and more reliable and, and a lot of the energy use has, rather than getting more demanding, has become less demanding over the years. So people should take heart by that kind of evolution. And so 25 years, we've made it work. We've made a lot of improvements, and today it's just as relevant and even better than it was 25 years ago when we started.

June LaCombe:

The house is a weathered shingle gray house, shingled roof, and the solar collectors are on a block. And they're very, they're quite aesthetic. You don't see the collectors from the shore or coming up along the trails, but they're, you know, they're, they're, you know, they're aesthetically pleasing. They're not in any way, not. And they have created our power for the last 25 years.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you also have solar panels at your farmhouse?

Bill Ginn:

Yep. So, I mean, obviously it was sort of odd that we had this solar system on our island home, but we'd never done anything on our house in Powno. We had this old historic cape. So we spent a long time trying to make it more energy efficient and put new windows in. And we put a pellet furnace in to replace oil. But we hadn't addressed the electric issue. So about four years ago, we finally took the plunge and put in a system that revision energy help spec for us that provides all of our power for our and more. In fact, one of the things about net metering is that you kind of accumulate in your bank account your excess power and you can keep it for a year. And we have about 4,000 kilowatt hours of excess power in our bank right now.

June LaCombe:

I've ordered an electric car.

Bill Ginn:

Yeah, we need to have more uses for electricity, frankly, because our system has been so productive and so effective in delivering energy. And this is just the beginning of what's ahead of us. You know, there's so many advances in batteries, in demand management, in new ways of using solar that we're going to see in the future. Just profound changes that are going to make it really exciting for a Maine and it's going to change how we think about energy.

June LaCombe:

As you approach our old farmhouse, you had never that was built in the 1850s. You'd never think that it was all solar. And we have fans going all the time that are keeping our horses cool and keeping the bugs from our old horses standing up in the barn. We have electric heaters under our peacock and peahen waterers all through the winter, so they're drinking warm and unfrozen water. But it's a great system. It's a beautiful system and again, it works.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

People who are interested in in seeing your solar can actually go to your farm and experience the sculptures by appointment, of course, through the fall. And I encourage people to do that because having been out there, really is a lovely spot for lots of different reasons. The sculptures and the gardens and the revisions that you've made to your property, it's really very beautiful. If people are interested in seeing the work that you've done with the sculpture in a larger exhibition, then they can go to the loud home farm at the Wells Reserve through October. And of course we will have an article about you and Maine Magazine and all the wonderful things that you're doing. I really appreciate your coming in and talking with us today. I've been speaking with June Lacombe, who is an independent arts consultant specializing in New England sculpture, and her husband, Bill Ginn, who is the executive vice president of the Nature Conservancy. Thanks so much for coming in today.

June LaCombe:

Thank you.

Bill Ginn:

Pleasure to be here.