Nat May

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My next guest is an individual who has been on Love Maine Radio before in a different capacity. This is Nat May, who is the executive director and co founder of the Hunoks Artist Colony, a retreat located in western Maine that offers time and space for artists to work on their practice. He's also the former director of Space Gallery and has been selected to curate the Portland Museum of Art's Biennial exhibition, which opens next year. Thanks for coming in today.

Nat May:

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The last time I talked to you it was about the Space Gallery and it was probably getting towards the end of your time there. This has been a pretty big transition for you because you were there for many years.

Nat May:

I was at space for about 13 years. That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how's it been?

Nat May:

It's been nice to have a change. I was very busy in my work at Space and I have a lot more free time now. I'm rediscovering what it means to cook dinner at home and spend a little more time in my garden, and I've had a little more opportunity to work on some projects that I started working on while I was at Space. And Hugh Noakes is one of those. One of those projects. It's an artist residency that we started five years ago. And so now that I'm. Now that I've left space, I have more time to devote to that and working with the artists there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, let's talk about that. Where is Hughen Oaks located?

Nat May:

It's in Lovell on the shores of Keizer Lake. It's a beautiful, beautiful property that was established about 100 years ago by an American painter named Douglas Volk and his wife, Marian Larrabee. He was a. An art educator. He was the first president of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and she was a textile artist. And they fell in love with Maine and wanted to spend summers here. And they created this retreat space for themselves and for their friends to come. And we know that John Calvin Stevens spent some time there in the summers. Marsden Hartley spent some time there. And so it has this really rich history of being a place for artists to escape their regular daily lives and come and repose and relax and think and create.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did you get involved?

Nat May:

The property was given as a bequest to the University of Maine foundation by the last family member in the Volk family. And there was a request in the. The will that for the first 15 years after Jesse Volk's death, they support art and learning with the property. And so Joe Malone was working with them, and he was on the space board at the time. And he waltzed into Space Gallery one first Friday and saw Jessica Tomlinson and me standing in the corner talking about whatever we were talking about. And he said, you know, I have this. I know about this property that's in western Maine, and we need to do something with the arts there. Do you have any ideas for us? We went and looked at the property. Andy Graham was on the board at Space at the same time, and he and his wife, Anne Riesenberg, have a place on Level, so they were familiar with the area. We just very quickly threw together a proposal asking the Umaine foundation to open up some of the cabins for artists to come. There are no studio spaces, but they are fully functional living spaces with bedrooms and kitchens and dining rooms. And it took about a month. And they said, sure, this sounds good. So we did a test year in 2012, just inviting artists that we knew would be willing to be experimenting with us because we didn't really know how comfortable it was or how good the facilities were. And then the next year, we continued and we established a more legitimate application process. We invited an independent jury to make the selections for the artists, and that's how we've continued ever since. So this is our fifth official summer with the application process.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How many people are you able to bring in?

Nat May:

Every year, we can accommodate about 50 artists. We have four cabins that the artists live in, and we don't require that people share living space. We do encourage collaborative applications, which is not a thing that a lot of residencies are prepared to do. And we do have a couple buildings that are big enough for larger groups. So there's a theater collective in Portland called Lorem Ipsum that's been a few times eight or nine people go and they work on devising their next play together. There was a collective of experimental filmmakers from mostly from the Northeast that had first been brought together by PS1 in New York, and they were looking for a place to gather one summer, and so they came. So depending on how many groups there are, we can have 50 to 60 artists there throughout the summer. And we're only open for 14 weeks, mostly because of bugs on the early end and cold on the other end.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How about you and your own creative process? How has leaving space and working on this, opening up a space for other artists in Lovell? How has this helped you with your own creativity?

Nat May:

I guess I don't think of it in those terms necessarily. It takes creativity to make these things work. But I really think about myself more as a connector where I. I am privileged to identify resources that are available and privileged to know about artists that need the resources. And somehow it's worked out that I've been able to put those two things together. And there's always more need than there are resources. So I really enjoy the hunt, looking around for various kinds of support for the artists, whether it's straight up cash or space or time or material support or volunteer labor or housing or a meal or a cocktail or a little bit of love and feedback or writing about their work or helping them edit their artist statement. I mean, there's so many ways people can help artists with their practice. And I don't know any artists who are working concertedly, working alone. Everybody needs another human to share their work with. And you don't have to be a career arts administrator to provide services to artists, which is so exciting to me. You know, we see people's families supporting them in their careers, but friends and neighbors can also do the same.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I need to apologize if you took it as though I was saying the work that you do doesn't require creativity. Oh, no. I think that you're right. There's absolutely the sense that we have that people who are artists are, and I'm putting this in quotations, artists are the ones who are creative, but creativity exists in every field. Really.

Nat May:

Oh, sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In the type of work that you're doing and the type of work that artists do. The type of work that we do on the radio show. Really?

Nat May:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell me about the work that you are doing with the Portland Museum of art and the 2018 biennial.

Nat May:

Yeah, it's exciting. The museum invited me over the winter and it's a totally different scale project than I'm used to, partly because museums just work at a different pace and a different timeline than an art space would, would use typically. So they invited me, you know, early in the year with basically with a year's notice to work on this show, which is longer than I'm accustomed to in my experiences with Space Gallery. But for the museum, it's a, it feels tight, you know, because a lot of what they're planning is three years out, typically. And so feeling a little bit self conscious about being a lone voice curator, I asked Jessica May about putting together a team that would work on the show together. And she was really into that idea and so was Mark Bessear. And so Mark and I are working together with Teresa Secord, who's a Penobscot basket maker, who was a participant in the last Biennial. And she is a national treasure. Really smart woman who knows all about Native American arts and really indigenous arts nationally and beyond the U.S. borders. And she works as a consultant but also has a really active practice. So it's, it's been great having her eye as we're looking at artists and potential participants. And then we also invited Sarah Werkner, who's the co director of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, which is a really well known institution that's been around for 70 plus years. Sarah lives most of the year in New York City, but spends the summers in Maine. And I don't know if you know much about their program, but they invite, I think, 60 artists to spend nine weeks there each summer, going deep, exploring their creative practice. And they really welcome experimentation and artists who are trying new things. And it's a totally safe space there for them to just kind of go wild in whatever direction they need to go in. So Sarah has connections to tons of people that I wouldn't have and knows about tons of folks that I wouldn't have. And she has an incredible eye and so even last week, we were having a chat about our list of folks that we're looking at, and it was so fun to really talk about the work that people are doing. And Teresa has her perspective, and Sarah has her perspective, and I have my perspective. And I think we're. And, sorry, Mark wasn't on that particular call, but, you know, of course Mark has his perspective. And I think when you're doing this kind of work, it's really important to listen to what other people see and think and feel. And that's where the curating is actually the most fun. So I'm really glad that there's a group of smart people working on this with me. And it doesn't feel as scary

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

for those who are listening, who don't really know that much about the museum or the Biennial. Define that a little bit for us.

Nat May:

Sure. So the Portland Museum of Art is the largest museum in Portland. I actually don't know if it's larger than the Colby Museum or not, but it's been around for a long time. It has an amazing collection of American art, European art objects, and contemporary art. And this is the 10th biennial for the museum. And the Biennial is a show that happens every two years. And it's a group show that is typically inclusive of people who live in Maine and work in Maine or have some other connection to Maine. The only operating guideline from the museum, the only directive from them to me, was to create something that includes living artists who have a meaningful connection to Maine. And I think that question of what does meaningful mean? Is interesting to think about, but not actually that interesting to debate, if you know what I mean. I'm okay with it being fuzzy. And I think what's fun and what's challenging about the Biennial is that sometimes it feels like it's the best entry point for an artist to experience working with the museum. You know, not all artists are going to get a solo museum show. There aren't a ton of curated museum shows of living artists that will likely include very many people in a certain area, let's say. So I think people see the Biennial as their shot for getting seen by the museum and the museum visitors. And so that's exciting. It's also challenging because there are capacity issues. We can't put everybody in, and, you know, not everyone's ready for that. So we're challenged with putting together a group of artists and works that work well together and that do have that relationship to main and hopefully will also have enough other threads tying the works together.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How many Works make it into the Biennial every year?

Nat May:

Well, historically, there have been as many as 70 artists included and as few as 17. There was one year where it was small. The last couple years, there have been about 30. I'm hoping this year that it's in the low 20s. My personal preference is to let the. Let the work have a little bit of room. I don't want everything to feel too crowded. Unfortunately, that does. That does feel limiting just in terms of the number of people. There's so many artists that meet the criteria that are doing really amazing work, and we just. We can't include everybody. But that's. That's just how life is in almost anything that you work on. And I think it's worth noting, too, that I think sometimes there's this notion that a Biennial is this objective evaluation of who's doing what kind of work, and that there is this rubric that allows us to assign a best of label to the work. And I reject that notion that there is any such objective qualification of artwork that's superlative in that manner. I mean, I think you can talk about work that's successful or unsuccessful, and frankly, we do use the term sometimes this is good, or this doesn't feel like it's that good, or this is finished and this doesn't feel finished, or the artist has fully explored this thing that they're working on, or they need to do a little more work. But I hope that people can open themselves up to seeing the show for what it is and not jump to that conclusion of, oh, this is what Nat thinks is the best, or this is what the team thinks is the best, because there will always be work that might be even my personal favorite or really important that just can't fit in for a variety of reasons.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So, logistically, this show opens up sometime in 2018, late January. Late January. And how long does it run?

Nat May:

It runs until early June, so there's a lot of chance to go and see it. And one thing I'm excited to attempt to do is to include some performance. I don't believe that's something that has been included in the Portland Museum Biennial before. What that means is to be determined. And then we've already started having conversations about tangential programs and activities and learning opportunities that we can do to complement the show. I think there are always folks who are satisfied by looking at, you know, visual artwork. There's always also a community of people who benefit from a little more context. And so whether it's inviting people in to help interpret what's going on with the show or to be writing about it, or to be doing leading discussions. Those are the kinds of activities, I think, that actually make for a richer experience engaging with the work. And I also hope that the show warrants multiple viewings.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It sounds like you are looking at art in a really broad way. So you talked about performing arts, and it sounds like this is going to incorporate lots of different art forms, paintings, maybe sculpture. Is that accurate?

Nat May:

I hope so. It should have 2D work in a variety of mediums. It should have 3D work. It should have some video, multimedia work. Because we're talking about a smaller number of participants. I'm not sure we'll adequately check off all the boxes of each kind of artwork that's being made. And then I guess the other thing I didn't say was that where as a team, we're particularly interested in trying to bring in a broader range of voices from the artists themselves and make it feel like it's a diverse show of people, especially folks who maybe aren't well represented in the museum world. I did my own research looking at the the names of the participants of past Biennials. And you can't always determine gender identity by the names, but just thinking in a general male to female ratio, it's always been pretty balanced, which I think is a positive achievement for a museum. Museums tend to have male dominated collections, male dominated shows. And so even just seeing that there have been a number of women included is a good start. I'm proud of the museum for that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Obviously it's early ish on in the process as you're doing this now, so I won't ask you to reveal any names of the upcoming Biennial. And that'll be a nice surprise for people who go in in January. Who are some of the names that really stand out to you from the last Biennial.

Nat May:

Oh, gosh. You know, I think that. For me, it's nice to see people that feel like it's a surprise to include them. I think two, just two people that just that stood out for me were Emily Stark Menig, who did an installation piece that was really quite space consumptive. Maybe a little bit challenging for some folks to read and to understand what's going on. But there was a lot in there to look at and to see and to think about. And she's, she's younger and I appreciated that Alison Ferris thought to include her and her voice. I think she has amazing potential and talent and, you know, I'm looking forward to continuing to watch what she does and Similar. Miles Spadone is also a younger artist who makes really beautiful ceramic pieces that are non traditional forms, highly, highly refined surfaces, polished surfaces, I mean, just. They just look almost like machine made. And it didn't feel like, you know, this is a thing that you would normally see in an art show or in a biennial show, or it's not, you know, I like work like that that doesn't remind you of anybody else's work. It feels like it has some singular element about it that really makes it stand out. So I hope we can include other folks like that whose work doesn't feel like it's in a category or in a pool of lots of similar work.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Some people associate museums with painting, essentially Winslow Homer and some of the other main painters that are currently populating the Portland Museum of Art. You're talking about art in a really broad way, which is the way that you probably thought about art when you were at the Space Gallery as well. How do you kind of bridge that divide for people who are thinking, I'm going to the art museum, I'm going to see a painting on the wall, and you are going to present them with this Biennial as something that's not that.

Nat May:

Well, I think we just have to get them to go there and look. But I don't, I don't even think we need to wait for them to go to a museum to broaden that perspective. And I do think that we, in whatever we're talking about, we tend to simplify and oversimplify and over categorize whatever we're talking about, just because it's easier to have shorthand in language. Even though I might say a thing, I really mean a broader scope of things. But I'm just using the, I'm using the short marker. And unfortunately, those short markers become substitutes for the whole sometimes. So that's why I think when people talk about art, you know, like, you know, if you, if you need a graphic representation of art, people always use a brush or a palette. And it's, you know, I don't know how many artists, I'm sure plenty of artists still use brushes and palettes and paint and oil paint, but what's the percentage of art that's created with those tools? It's not the majority, for sure. And so it's always a challenge to remind people that there's more there. But it's all around us, and I think we have to point to it all around us. And I've had people over the years, especially in my work at Space, when I Tell them what I do for a job. People sometimes say, I don't know anything about, or I'm intimidated by. I don't know anything about art. I'm intimidated by art. And I try to think about what are the intersections with art that they already are encountering. You know, I mean, I would argue that when you, when you binge on some new show on Netflix for six hours, you're, you're engaging with art pretty deeply. You know, it's, you've got acting, you've got screenwriting, you've got cinematography. I mean, those are, those are, those are real art practices, you know, but we just don't talk about it in that way. So I hope that we can do a good job of inviting people in. I think it's a challenge that museums have generally, and I'm really heartened by the fact that there's a trend in the museum world and just in art institutions generally to not only think about bringing people in, but there's a trend about thinking about how to bring your museum outward. The PMA is opening up their outdoor sculpture garden and actually making a space in the fence that's traditionally been there so that people can walk in and have a closer look at the work. And that's huge. That actually means something a lot, I think, for the community to feel invited in and take some ownership actually over the fact that it's there for us to look at. Or even the Big seven, the Robert Indiana seven that sits in front of the museum. You know, that's an art piece that the museum acquired and they put it right out there for us to like, look at up close and experience. So hopefully, even though that's a, that's a 2D, or rather a 3D object based thing, hopefully those little moments help us expand our thinking beyond Winslow Homer painting, seascape, landscape, etc.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I look forward to what you and your group are going to come up with for the Biennial, so I'll make sure that I'm there in January to see it. 2018 seems a long time from now, but it's probably not.

Nat May:

It's not. But winter seems like a long time from now, right?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank goodness for that. I've been speaking with Nat May, who is the executive director and co founder of the Hughen Oaks Artist Colony and who has been selected to curate the Portland Museum of Art's Biennial exhibition, which opens next year. Thanks so much for coming in.

Nat May:

Oh, it's been fun. Thank you for having me.