Sal Scaglione and Dana Heacock, Abacus Gallery

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sal Scaglione and Dana Haycock are the owners of Abacus Gallery, which was started in 1971 as a small shop and now has grown to five locations around Maine. I love your store and thank you for coming in today.

Dana Heacock:

Well, thanks.

Sal Scaglione:

Thank you for having us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So on a technicality, I guess you were not born in Maine. Your store was not born in Maine,

Dana Heacock:

I should say only on a technicality.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And this was in your your mother's garage?

Dana Heacock:

Well, not quite. We practically lived there. We rented a little store space in town in Bennington, Vermont. It was 8ft wide. It had been a taxi dispatch stand.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how did that happen? What was it about? Why did you decide you wanted to start that initial store back in 1971?

Sal Scaglione:

Well, let's see. I think it was because we were at risd, Rhode Island School of Design, and we had this sort of vision of buying and selling things. Always had that sort of longing to do something like that, not knowing much about how to go about doing it. The space that we rented in Bennington just sort of came up. I drove by and thought, well, wouldn't this be great? And of course we had practically less than no money. And so we cobbled together the interior by taking out a staircase. Our landlady at that time gave us permission to take down her chicken coop and we used the boards to cover the walls and followed trucks to the dump that were disposing of two by fours and all sorts of used things and we dragged them back to the little space and made Shelving and counter and actually got things from our classmates at RISD to sell on consignment.

Dana Heacock:

Back then, we put up posters on canvas advertising that students could give us their work after it was graded and we'd pay them after we sold it if we sold it. But we were truly just kids. I was only six months done with being a teenager when the store opened.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What did you focus on when you were at risd?

Dana Heacock:

So I was in the architecture department and I changed my focus about every semester.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So yours was broadly based?

Dana Heacock:

Yes, it was.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what did you end up doing with your architecture background, Sal?

Sal Scaglione:

I never graduated as an architect, but desire sort of a closet architect. And what we're doing now, we've designed and built several of her own houses and the stores that we're in. So we're using it in that sense. So I'm getting to actually do what I thought I was going to do in a sort of. In a different way, but very rewarding.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where are you originally from?

Sal Scaglione:

A suburb of Cleveland.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you're originally. Dana, you're originally from Vermont?

Dana Heacock:

No.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Oh, okay.

Dana Heacock:

No. Vermont was just a tiny little piece of my life. I was born about three miles from

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

here in Portland at Mercy or Maine Med.

Dana Heacock:

In Maine Med, which all those years ago was called Portland General Hospital.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how did you. Somehow I know how you ended up down in Rhode island, but how did you end up in Bennington?

Dana Heacock:

My family had moved there from Farmington, Maine, back in the 1970s, and it was all brand new to me, and I loved to go back from school and visit just because there was an excitement of a new place. I didn't know Vermont very well at the time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did each of you get interested in art and architecture?

Dana Heacock:

For me, I think that's always been there. When I was probably 13, 14 years old, I used to do charcoal drawings of area lighthouses and sell them. My mom was always a big influence on me. She was always painting and exhibiting her paintings in local outdoor artist shows.

Sal Scaglione:

And I had probably more unusual beginning. I used to lie on my stomach in the living room and pretend I was designing things with undersides of furniture and putting things together and building things mentally and physically with little parts and thinking, oh, there must be something wrong with me. And until I went to risd, where I found all the people who thought like I did, I thought, okay, well, this is validation. And that was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. And of course, that's where we met. Dana and I met.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When did you first.

Sal Scaglione:

When did you first meet, it was 1969.

Dana Heacock:

We were both in the same small dormitory building on the RISD campus. So I'm sure we met within days of school beginning.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's a fairly significant chunk of time that you've now been together.

Sal Scaglione:

Yes, that's being kind.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you met before I was born and I'm somewhat oldish or at the very least middle aged.

Sal Scaglione:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So somehow you've been able to not only create a business, but grow a business and maintain a good relationship with one another. I'm assuming because you're still here.

Sal Scaglione:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How were you able to do that?

Dana Heacock:

Well, it's challenging at times, that's for sure. There's not a lot of separate time because we work together and live together.

Sal Scaglione:

But all in all it's a good thing. So we're still here. In fact, this is how I got to Maine. The first time I came to Maine was an overnight trip. A classmate of ours allowed us to use her boyfriend's Volkswagen Bug to drive up to Maine. Dan said, you need to see Maine. So it was February, course the best time to come to Maine for your first time. And we drove up in the Volkswagen Bug and Dana thought we could stay at his grandparents cabin because he thought he knew where the key was, but it was boarded up and not happening. We stayed in the Volkswagen Bug in February. It's not the easiest thing to do, of course. They had no heat in them, you had to drive them around. So that's what we did. That was my first trip to Maine. And as we left Booth Bay Harbor, I said, well, I really did love it and I'll be back again, I'm sure, and here I am.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that is how you started your first main store in Boothbay harbor was because you had a family connection up in that area.

Dana Heacock:

Our little store in Vermont was not on a road to success. It was very small scale, like kids with a lemonade stand. And I knew from growing up and summering at Ocean Point that Booth Bay harbor was the one place I knew that there were lots and lots of people. And at that time it just seemed to make a lot of sense to be located there.

Sal Scaglione:

We each did other jobs to support the store. When we started in Bennington, it honestly was not viable. We did all sorts of things from house cleaning to we worked for a concert flautist who had a repair shop and we made pads for him and we, we sprung concert flutes. We did anything, anything to survive. That's what we did.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How many years did you need to keep having these Dual careers.

Dana Heacock:

Well, because we started so small, it took a number of years. I think it was in the seventh year that we had the store that we were able to move to a bigger location in Booth Bay Harbor. And at that point, everything began to change. It began to grow quickly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Having been inside Abacus, I've noticed there's quite a variety of different things that you offer. Very small, very beautiful things. Artwork. How do you curate the things that come into the store?

Dana Heacock:

I suppose one thing they have in common is they're just things that we think are really cool. Some of Those things are 10 or 15 or $20, and some of them are much more expensive. And I want the stores to be an environment where anybody can come in and enjoy it. I don't want it to be up on a pedestal. It's supposed to be fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I think that. That. I think you've accomplished that because I'll go into one of your stores in Kennebunkport or Booth Bay harbor or here in Portland, and I'll notice you have some very affordable things by the cash register. You'll have some jewelry. I think I bought a bracelet when I was in a gunquit once. Then you have some larger items that people buy, presumably for things like weddings and the birth of babies. And it seems very. It just makes art more accessible, it seems. Was that a goal?

Sal Scaglione:

Definitely, yes, absolutely. I think we want everyone to be able to come in and enjoy, even if they don't, if they're not buying, to enjoy the whole experience. But then if somebody chooses to buy, we like the idea of having something in wide, wide price range, so everyone can take something home.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have lovely prints and calendars that are associated with your store. How did those come to be?

Sal Scaglione:

That is Dana's artwork. And we publish a calendar that we've been publishing for decades, and we sell it in our stores, and we actually sell it around. Around the country also. It's the Dana Haycock calendar. And that has been the springboard for fine art prints, Giclee prints on watercolor paper or on canvas, available in all kinds of sizes, from six by sixes up to very large canvases. So that's been very successful. And he is. He's the artist for that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How far in advance do you create your. Are they paintings that are made into

Dana Heacock:

the originals or paintings? Yes, and I start working about a year ahead of when a calendar is printed. But that calendar is already a year ahead because it's being sold. So now I'm working on 2019,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

and it seems like there seems to be a theme that goes along with these calendars. Is that something that is intentional?

Dana Heacock:

They're supposed to evoke a feeling of the month without being overly literal about it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if you've been doing this for decades, how do you continue to swap it up? I mean, we all think of February as being hearts and candies and flowers, but you can't. I'm assuming you'd want to do something different every year. So how do you figure that out?

Dana Heacock:

I try to collect images wherever I go, so sometimes I'll just see something, and it just speaks to me as a calendar poster. I try to save it as a digital photo image so I can work from it later in my studio.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have always loved calendars, and I love the type of calendar that you create, So I get one every year. But when you started this, we were less in a digital age, and we've evolved into this really digital age. And yet I still am drawn to your calendars. And I'm guessing other people are because they're sold across the country. Does that surprise you?

Dana Heacock:

No. I think as the world moves more and more into a very techy place, I think people are always craving things that have a human connection.

Sal Scaglione:

I think they buy them, they want them in their homes. They're. They're a piece of art first, and they're a calendar second. And it's not the kind of thing, you know, that gotten from the insurance company, where you're going to put the little notes for the. The appointments and write in them. So I think people want this little piece of art, and it's great because they change the art every month because of what it is. So they're changing the art and to look forward to the next month.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's funny because my grandmother, who lives in Cape Porpoise, I started buying her these calendars, and one year I was a little late in actually giving her a Christmas gift, which is always a calendar. She's like, oh, I'm so relieved, because every year I look forward to getting this calendar as I guess this piece of art that you're describing, like, it actually has become an important ritual and an important thing between the two of us. So I wonder how many other people out there have that same emotional response to this.

Dana Heacock:

We get a lot of similar feedback from people. He's being humble. I find it especially rewarding. I've had a number of medical institutions choose my artwork to use to decorate lobbies and treatment rooms, a number of them around Maine. So my artwork is out There in front of a lot of people because of those places.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the things about being in the arts is that there is the need to support artists. I mean, you can't have art and be a working artist without somebody to actually buy your work. It feels to me like one of the things you're doing is making it possible for people to continue to work as artists by having their pieces in your store.

Dana Heacock:

Oh, I know from talking to a lot of the people we buy from that abacus is the number one account for some of these people anywhere, which is rewarding, but also a little bit scary.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. That's some pressure on you.

Dana Heacock:

I would say.

Sal Scaglione:

A little bit of pressure, yes. But it is. It really is rewarding to know that you're are helping people. It's part of their living and makes us feel good to know that we buy from literally hundreds of sources. So it's good to know that people appreciate people who are making things appreciate a place to be able to sell to and be part of their lives.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did it come to be called Abacus?

Sal Scaglione:

It's a little bit of a funny story. When we were trying to name our first store back in. In Bennington, Vermont, of course, you go through all the same things. You're toying with names. And we like the idea of the. The texture and the visuals of an abacus. And we joked about it because it began with an A and a B. And I said, we can always be first in the phone book. Of course, now we don't even have phone books. And what's more ironic is back then, when we had our little store, we didn't even have a phone. If anyone had to call us. There was a phone. Phone booth outside of our door, and we gave people that number. And people walking by would hear the phone ring and answer it. And somebody would say, you see that little door over there? Could you go in and ask the two guys if they could come out to the phone? That was our first phone, so we didn't really have a listing back then either.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems as though having talked to people who own their own businesses, there's often not much of a downtime. You don't get to go to work at 9 and leave at 5. You are often.

Dana Heacock:

That's the downside. You definitely need to love what you do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how do you make that work? After decades of doing this?

Dana Heacock:

It's a question we're still asking

Sal Scaglione:

you kind of take the little moments, or there's an hour here, two hours there.

Dana Heacock:

You need to see the Work, not as a work. When you're working for yourself. What we do feels like this wonderful lifelong hobby.

Sal Scaglione:

We also look at all of our stores. I enjoy working in them. I love being out there with, with the people because sometimes you get a little bit behind the scenes. You're, you're, you're taken away from what it is that you used to do at the beginning. So I love being in the stores. They're like our living rooms. It's like having five living rooms and you get to meet all these wonderful people and some have become lifelong friends.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do each of your stores have a different style or a different feel to them? I mean, if you talk about them being like your living room I've been in, I want to say at least three of them. They have a similarity. But do they feel different to you?

Dana Heacock:

They do sometimes. I think that grows out of the building or the space that they're located in. It gives them part of the feeling that they have.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if you were describing the stores that you have in each of the various places, what comes up for you? Actually, now I'm thinking about it. I've been in the Freeport store too. So you have Booth Bay Harbor, Kennebunkport, Portland, Freeport and Ogunquit. I've been in all of your stores actually. So I have a sense of what each of them feels like. What do they feel like to each of you?

Dana Heacock:

Booth Bay always feels like going home because we spent so many years there in the early days, just the two of us ran the shop. And because it's in a building that at one time was a house and has separate rooms, I think there are four, four or five different rooms that comprise the store. Customers tell us this too. They think it just feels homey.

Sal Scaglione:

The store in Booth Bay, actually the first space we were in when we rented the space before we owned the building is what is now the print. The print room where we show a lot of Dana's work. There are a few other things in there, but that was the first store in Booth Bay Harbor. Very small, it was about 500 square feet. And we actually lived in the back of it in about 150 square feet of it. Back then. That's where we, if you can call it living in there. But that's where we slept. And it was the, the minimal stock room and everything. And we used to take our showers down at the tugboat, in at the pay. Pay showers because we didn't have those facilities in our building. So every morning we'd take Our quarters and go down, and that's where we went. And if the water was cold, it didn't matter because we only allotted one quarter for the day. That was it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Wow, that's very impressive.

Sal Scaglione:

Very, very humble beginnings.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I guess so. So what was the next store after that?

Dana Heacock:

Portland.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And when you think about that store, how would you. How does that feel to you? How would you describe.

Dana Heacock:

Just feels like Portland because it's red brick, which always speaks of Portland.

Sal Scaglione:

To me, it was. It seemed very. A very different side of what we. What we did from Booth Bay harbor because it was in the city, so it felt much more urban. And it was another. Another adventure, another challenge for us.

Dana Heacock:

And the next store, the next one was Freeport. I think at the time we opened the store in Freeport, we felt that two stores were just about all we could handle. And we'd been on a trip out to the Pacific Northwest and fell in love with some of the island communities in Puget Sound. And like often happens when we travel, we start imagining what would it be like if we had a store out here. And because we were already thinking about it, when we returned to Maine, we found the for sale sign on the little building, and I think we were already primed mentally. We both just like to build things. I think that's our primary impetus for doing anything. We like to build things. And that building was a sad little building with a lot of potential.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So then what came next? Was it a Gunquit or Kennebunkport?

Dana Heacock:

Kennebunkport.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kennebunkport. Tell me about that.

Sal Scaglione:

That was. Well, the original one was a little bit smaller. We're in the same space now, and we had the need to expand. And the restaurant next door, fortunately, was going to be for sale in the same building. So we bought the restaurant, sold off all the equipment, and expanded the store into what that one is now. So it's. I don't know how many thousand square feet, but it's fairly large, and it's worked out very well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And so a gunkwit is your baby.

Sal Scaglione:

A Gunkwood is the new. New. I say new. It's bought that building about 10. About 10 years ago. And it was. I happened to be delivering something down south of there, and I drove past through town and saw the for sale sign on. It used to be Joe Allen's restaurant from New York, and we used to eat there out on their deck. And I saw the sign. I pulled in the parking lot and called Dana immediately. And I said, guess what? And he said, I don't know. This is. It's going to be very expensive.

Dana Heacock:

Well, most of the space we had looked in a gonquit over the years a number of times. And the problem is that being the little beach town that it is, a lot of the retail store spaces that were for rent were just way too small to do what we wanted to do. So when this building came up, it felt like this was the one chance to come in here and do a large store.

Sal Scaglione:

So we repeated. We repeated buying a restaurant. We bought it, the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel, sold off all the equipment, and then proceeded to completely gut and change the entire building, taking out floors and actually lowering part of the floor, one of it in one of the areas, and just went for it. Just said, okay, we're gonna. We're gonna just do this. And of course, a lot of people thought it was a little sketchy being on the other side of the street. And we said, well, we'll take our chances. I think it'll work.

Dana Heacock:

It's been kind of fun being in a Gonquit because now it feels like we're the anchor store right in the center, center of town, where in a town like Freeport with 300 national retailers, we still feel like the two little kids playing store.

Sal Scaglione:

So about two years ago, we did something that we sort of had in the back of our minds when we bought the building and we added a couple thousand square feet. We added what looks like another building to the end of this building, and it gave us a little bit different space. It's sort of modern, little industrial cement floor and has a mezzanine. And it just. It feels. It feels good. So now the building looks like three separate little buildings that we've remodeled, redone, and moved our store into it. So we're very happy with it. It's been very successful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And now it seems like the paving project down there has come to an end. So that must be a relief for you.

Sal Scaglione:

Yes, it is over. It is definitely over, and we're all happy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Any more stores that you have in your. In your thoughts and your minds? It seems like if something comes up, then

Dana Heacock:

we'll never say never, but I think we have our hands full.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about you, Sal? Would you agree with that?

Sal Scaglione:

I would have to agree with that, yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your coming in today and talking with me. It's interesting because as you're talking, I feel like my mom would always date things based on her children. And I told you that I have nine younger brothers and sister And I feel like it's almost as if you can. You're talking about your five children, that you're dating them according to, like, what stage you were in your life and artistically. So that's kind of an interesting conversation for me to have.

Sal Scaglione:

It is. That is how we think of it. And we have, of course, a wonderful crew everywhere. And they've become part of the family. They're all part of the family. And that's another rewarding part of having the stores, getting to know all of them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Sal Scaglione and Dana Haycock, who are the owners of Abacus Gallery, which was started in 1971 as a small shop in a different state, but soon followed by five stores here in the state of Maine. I really appreciate you taking time out of your very, very busy schedules to come in and talk to me today and also appreciate the fact that, that you're bringing art to people like me and others throughout the state and really around the world. Thank you.

Dana Heacock:

Well, we're glad that you like what we do.

Sal Scaglione:

Thank you.

Dana Heacock:

Com.