| PenBay Pilot

• Alone Week 4: Zach fashions a Duck Hunter 3000 out of driftwood

• Alone Week 3: Things start to get serious for Zach

• Appleton survivalist Zachary Fowler competes on new season of the History show 'Alone'

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Sparrow, Jami and Zachary Fowler of Appleton, Maine. (Photo courtesy Zachary Fowler)

ROCKPORT—In the last few years it seems as though one had to slog through sleet and snow just to make it to the Banff Mountain Film Festival, held annually at the Strom Auditorium at Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport.

For lovers of extreme outdoor sports and daring filmmaking, this is a treat to have in Rockport as the festival is shown in 40 countries across the globe.

This year’s lineup includes 17 new films spread over two nights, ranging from shorts to longer features and from outdoor superhuman feats to heart-tugging documentaries.

Jeff Boggs, manager and buyer for Maine Sport Outfitters, runs the festival every year. This year, Boggs predicts they’ll be able to squeeze in two shows in between snow storms.

“The feature films have a nautical theme this year," he said.

There are also two dog-centered films he thinks audiences will love. Since the film festival is taking place both weekend nights, he’s got a few film favorites he recommends:

Friday Night

Sea Gypsies: The Far Side Of The World

The vessel is Infinity, a 120-ft hand-built sailing ketch, crewed by a community of wanderers. The journey – a 12,800-kilometre Pacific crossing from New Zealand to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica, weather permitting.

Boggs said: “This film epitomizes the spirit of adventure.featuring a crazy crew sailing from New Zealand to Patagonia via the wild winter seas off Antarctica. I'm looking forward to settling into my seat and watching all the films, but this one gets my blood pumping!”

Dog Power

Get a fascinating view of the world of dog-powered sports and the special bond between dogs and their humans. Both share a passion for living, working and playing together outside in different forms of the sled-dog and musher relationship.

Saturday Night

Four Mums in a Boat

When four middle-aged working British mums announced they wanted to row the Atlantic Ocean, their families thought they had lost their minds.

Ace and the Desert Dog

For his 60th birthday, adventure photographer Ace Kvale and his dog, Genghis Khan, set out on a 60-day trek in Utah’s canyon country.

Maine Sport Outfitters is selling tickets online until Thursday night. Or you can buy them in person at Maine Sport in Rockport and Camden.Go to www.mainesport.com, click on "Buy Your Banff Tickets Online Now!" For more info on the lineup visit: Banff Mountain Film Festival films.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

2017 Banff Film Festival’s annual stop at Strom Auditorium at CHRHS Feb. 10 & 11. (Photo: Ines Papert, Senja Island, Norway © Thomas Senf)

Burlesque dancing, like many other fringe art forms, enjoys a mysterious, titillating reputation, because most people only have a vague idea of what it’s all about. Burlesque embodied a particular female performance usually in a variety show featuring bawdy comedy and a bit of a striptease. Going back the 1860s, it became a staple of Prohibition entertainment, until it phased out roughly the 1950s.

Today, the costumes might be similar (lots of corsetry, feathers and pasties), but the art form has morphed into a representation of female empowerment. From Belfast to Rockland, a group of burlesque enthusiasts has emerged, reviving the dance form with classes and, eventually, a public performance.

Jenny Cobuzzi, a professional dancer with a Broadway and Las Vegas-style show background, recently moved back to Maine from New York City. Before she left for New York, she had been running burlesque classes at the Belfast Dance Studio since 2013.

“When I came back to Maine in 2016, I heard there was more interest in burlesque up in this area,” she said. “And dancer, Jessica Libby from Swing and Sway in Rockland was running a class, as well.”

True to the ideal of the burlesque art form, neither woman saw the other as competition, but, instead worked collaboratively, with a third woman, Rae MacNair, a fan of burlesque, to offer classes in both areas and to set up a network. MacNair serves as the liaison between the two dance instructors and runs a closed Facebook page for burlesque enthusiasts in the Midcoast with approximately 20 members.

“It’s my goal to have it be a very supportive environment so women can express themselves artistically,” said MacNair.

Libby added, “I ran my first class this past December for about nine women, and I call it my ‘Inner Diva Class’ because I feel like a lot of women either don’t know how to or feel like it’s not acceptable to be sexy, so this is an opportunity to let them get more comfortable with themselves and feel OK about themselves.”

Cobuzzi said: “Burlesque has really changed over the years. It started as a parody and transformed into showing a little leg, then into showing a little more than leg. It really incorporates the art of the tease. For me, it’s not about just being sexy. I’m a dance/movement therapist, so I’m really interested in having a place for women to come in, start to feel comfortable with their bodies, start to own their sexuality and be able to express themselves by integrating all of those pieces.”

A typical class in Belfast and Rockland runs about one hour in which Cobuzzi and Libby teach the participants classic burlesque moves. (See our accompanying video for several G-rated moves!)

“Some women come in shy and some come in rarin’ to go,” said Cobuzzi. “They’re usually worried about how much dance experience they need, and I always reassure them they need to have none; they just need to have fun.”

The typical age range of Cobuzzi’s classes is from 20 years old to 60 years old.

“Every once in a while a teenage girl will join, if it’s fine with her parents,” Cobuzzi said and added, “We had a 74-year-old woman join our class who had a ton of fun, but she said her body hurt from all the moves she practiced.”

To join the Midcoast burlesque troupe, search for Midcoast Burly on Facebook and request to join. All requests are accepted.

For more information on Cobuzzi’s next classes with Belfast Dance Studio email midcoastburlesque@gmail.com

For more information with Libby’s next classes with Swing and Sway visit www.swingnsway.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Behind the Slides, our ongoing feature, is where we meet up with an artist who presented at a PechaKucha event and find out the deeper story beneath the images they chose to portray. Dave Morrison was one of the presenters at the most recent PechaKucha Night held at Rockport Opera House January 27. His presentation was about the art of building an electric blue guitar. Morrison has published 11 books of poetry including Clubland (poems about rock & roll bars in verse and meter, Fighting Cock Press 2011) and Cancer Poems (JukeBooks 2015), plus a CD (Poetry Rocks - Mishara Music).

Note: Morrison’s slides appear in the right column. Click on the photos to match them with the actual slide notes (in italics). Beneath the slide notes will be the deeper story.

Boston

I worked hard, I wrote lots of songs, good songs, and played pretty much every club and college in New England. But at some point I lost the simple joy and replaced it with the compulsion to 'make it', which proved to be a fatal shift. Bands broke up, friends moved on, and I dragged my dream from town to town.

I started playing in clubs around Boston when I was 17, and I thought I had found the one thing that I was equipped to do, so I put all my eggs in that one flimsy basket. It was, I discovered, a lot easier to do when one is young.

Poetry

So, I began to write, which had its advantages; I didn't need much gear, or a van, or rehearsal space, I didn't have to keep a band together. I became a 40-year old freshman at the New School, nights. I wrote novels and short stories and finally, at the gentle urging of my much smarter wife, poetry.

Works with a long arc were hard for me, but poetry was more like songwriting, or even photojournalism— it was about capturing a moment.

New Direction

And then the poems...stopped. I was so tired that I don't know if I cared, I didn't know if it mattered. I questioned my reasons for writing poetry; I questioned its value. This left me with no creative outlet, until the day I saw an ad on Facebook for an Australian company called Pit Bull that said the magic words— build your own guitar.

During being treated for cancer I wrote, but it felt like it used up whatever poetry was in me. I knew that I needed some sort of project to keep me from howling at the moon.

Wonderboy

By embracing this project I would overcome years of being impatient and compulsive, I would learn care and craftsmanship, I would be deliberate. I realized that the logical and satisfying conclusion to the story had to be me playing Wonderboy, onstage, with a band; the circle completed, me back in my element, just like Roy Hobbs returning to baseball as an older man.

As my father used to say, 'you can talk yourself into anything'. I wanted to get un-lost, and I wanted a single thing to accomplish that, I wanted my own mythology.

Guitar Parts

At last, the kit arrived. It did not glow with mystical power, like the Ark of the Covenant; it was a box of parts, the Hamburger Helper of guitars. The neck and body looked pretty good, the hardware on the cheap side. It contained everything I would need, except tools and patience and skill. It was time to begin.

Reality was delivered to the Camden post office. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it — it was a sort of kit, like the models we used to build as kids. It would only be as good as I made it.

The Blue Guitar

I had an idea for the head stock shape — I made a template on paper using a cat food can and a nickel to draw the curves. I cut it out with a coping saw, smoothed it with sandpaper wrapped around a broomstick. The first coat of stain brought out the wood grain nicely. The whole process took less than two hours. It was very satisfying, and I learned nothing.

I learned much more when things began to go wrong, when things became difficult. Reality is funny like that. the notion was to write a sort of memoir about the process, both interior and exterior.

For more information about Pecha Kucha visit them on Facebook.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Dave Morrison presents at Pecha Kucha. (Photo by Michael O’Neil)

BELFAST—The former Crosby High School on 96 Church Street in Belfast is one of those residential monoliths one might pass by for 20 years and forget it’s there. But this past December, Belfast resident Kiril Lozanov, purchased the 38,000-square-foot building with big plans to renovate it into a community building that promises huge potential for Belfast’s creative economy.

Built in 1923, the William G. Crosby School was featured in the 1957 movie, Peyton Place and remained a school until 1993, when it was purchased by the National Theatre Workshop for the Handicapped, a nonprofit that spent $3.5 million to renovate it. After several years in disrepair, the Workshop put the school on the market in 2013.

After several unsuccessful attempts to sell, then auction, the building off, Lozanov decided to take a look at its potential.

“I’d heard a lot about this school and I knew I had to see it for myself,” he said. “So, it took three hours to walk through all of the spaces and by the end, I said, ‘I’m getting this.’”

Lozanov plans to converts the top floor of 14 residential rooms into long-term co-housing, the second floor for shared office space and “office and residential pods” as well as dance space. The first floor, with its enormous theater, will be used for public performances and its commercial kitchen for a public restaurant.

The residential areas on the third floor, renovated by the Workshop, are all handicap-accessible with the majority of rooms sharing a common bathroom area.

The set up is ideal for families and single people of all ages and backgrounds, but because of potential allergies, pets cannot be allowed.

There’s one integrated apartment with its own bathroom, which Lozanov said would be ideal for one family. He, himself, will occupy one of the shared rooms and share it with his kids. The school also houses a working elevator, but Lozanov is not sure if they will be needed.

The building is naturally suited for multi-use purposes. Lozanov envisions the office pods on the second floor will be based on the hostel concept of shared open living space within one room among digital nomads. Each partitioned-off pod would have a bed and a desk.

“I want it to be efficient, but at the same time, affordable,” said Lozanov. All residents and office pod residents would have access to shared bathrooms and a shared kitchen on the third floor.

“Everybody will share in the cooking, which will save everyone an enormous amount of time and resources.”

All space will be rentable, not owner-occupied.

Lozanov said the roof needs extensive repairs, along with the boiler system and sprinkler system. Because of water damage from the roof, many of the interior walls and ceiling have mold issues and will need to be reconstructed. He’s looking into grants to help alleviate some of these costs and hopes work will be completed within five years.

The real jewel of The Crosby School is the gigantic theater with its original wooden seats, balcony and enormous wooden stage.

“This would be for concerts, for music, for performances, poetry, dancing, anything you can think of. I want it to be used for everybody who needs a space like this in the community.”

Behind the stage are dressing rooms for both men and women, as well as a fully equipped backstage with a moveable stage, so that theater troupes can perform outdoor shows on the school’s property.

“Community living is important for everyone,” he said.

A Bulgarian native, he moved to the United States in 1998. As a resident of the Belfast Co-housing and Ecovillage, he knows first hand its benefits.

“It’s an element that has been missing in today’s society. In the old days, that’s all there was. When I go back to Bulgaria, I always joke with my mother who lives about a 10-minute walk away from the store, that it takes an hour, because she stops and talks with everyone. You get to know people and feel like you’re part of something.”

The restaurant concept is another way to gather people in the community to socialize. He hasn’t yet contracted a chef or restaurant yet, but he wants the food to be locally sourced.

Penobscot Bay Pilot will follow up with this story when more progress on the building has been completed.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

We’re down to the home stretch, with Appleton resident Zachary Fowler making it to the last episode on the HISTORY survivalist show, Alone. After nine episodes and 74 days surviving alone in the Patagonia wilderness, Zach has managed to hang on along with two other female contestants, Megan and Carleigh. Next week’s final episode will determine the winner of $500,000.

Pilot: I’ll bet there was a lot of cheering at Thresher’s Brewery last night when all of the folks coming out to watch your show week after week realized you still hadn’t tapped out.

Zach: They were loving it. It was funny. Not only were they cheering, but they were yelling at the TV screen, “Don’t give up!”

Pilot: It’s interesting; pretty much every episode we see you with an upbeat attitude, yet this is the first time we’ve seen you frustrated, angry and feeling a little desperate about your situation. What was happening this episode?

Zach: I had so many good days out there, but this episode showed one day that everything went wrong. I called it my “Zero Day.” It literally was the only day I came up with nothing. It was just ridiculous. The lake rose so much; I lost most of my dock. I couldn’t get the fire going. It had been raining for days and I hadn’t caught any fish. I was exhausted. I was so hungry. I was like ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’ I hung out down at that dock until dark hoping I could just catch one more fish and it didn’t happen. So, I made it back up to shelter and ended up burning my boot insert in the fire a bit. I was trying to dry out my feet because they were wet. I had a leak in my shelter that I hadn’t taken care of and it was leaking on my head as I was trying to go to sleep. So I ended up having to fix that and stay up til one ‘o clock, extremely exhausted.

Pilot: Tell us what did chronic hunger do to you?

Zach: By the time of this last episode, I was eating about a fish a day, and the days I didn’t have a fish, I had fish head soup. So, I hadn’t actually experienced extreme hunger until that Zero Day. And by then I’d probably gone seven days without a fish. I’d had dandelion roots and grubs, but you get to a certain point, like Dave, where you think you’re doing well, you’re doing okay. But, the reality is, your body is consuming itself to give itself energy. You can only go through so much of that before you start to degrade. I was sleeping up to 12 hours a night to make up for the lack of calories I was getting. I was at the point where I was starting to get euphoric and not making good decisions that contributed to that Zero Day.

Pilot: That long in the wilderness, did you have any spiritual breakthrough or moment where you had absolute clarity or a new insight about yourself?

Zach: After that bad day, I realized I’d been just waiting for it to be over. You heard me say “I wish the others would hurry up and just quit.” And when I said that, I thought about it and realized I wasn’t going to make it any further if that’s all I was doing—waiting for it to be over. So, I rededicated myself and repurposed my mental strength to making the best of my situation there. So, that next day, you saw me going back down to the lake and dragging that log out to repair my dock. It was a boost of mental and physical effort to retrain my will to stay there.

Watch to see what happens in the last episode, and what happens to Zach in HISTORY’s next episode of Alone, airing Thursday at 9 p.m.

• Alone Week 7: A bird sacrifice for Zach

• Alone Week 4: Zach fashions a Duck Hunter 3000 out of driftwood

• Alone Week 3: Things start to get serious for Zach

• Appleton survivalist Zachary Fowler competes on new season of the History show 'Alone'

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Zachary Fowler in one of the early episodes of ‘Alone.’ (Screenshot by Kay Stephens)

ELLSWORTH— Rachael Beal and her soon-to-be daughter in law, Rebecca Blackington, from Ellsworth, were unable to attend the Maine marches the day after the Inauguration, but the activism of women around the world made a deep impression on them both.

“Watching these women go to all of these marches was so powerful that I felt moved to do something,” said Beal.

Beal, who is disabled, and Becca Blackington, who is currently unemployed, wondered what could they do to contribute to women’s causes.

“Becca is the knitter and we were just so inspired by the number of pink ‘kitty’ hats women were wearing around the world,” said Beal. “I thought why not make them ourselves? It’s something we really feel strongly about.”

The now iconic “kitty” hat is a symbolic knit hat with pointy cat ears, protesting President Donald J. Trump’s on-air use of a vulgar term where he bragged about grabbing women "by the p---y" in television footage from 2005.

“We’re calling it the “Kitty Cat Hat” because that’s a nicer term, said Beal. Ironically, Blackington’s Facebook page for her knitting projects is called Knittin’ Kittens.

After figuring out how to do the pattern herself, Blackington has made dozens of hats in the last few days out of pink acrylic yarn In two days since the hats were announced for sale on Facebook, she has received more than a dozen orders.

At 23, Blackington has been knitting since she was nine years old. It takes about three to four hours to knit each one and this side gig has now become her full time job.

The Kitty Cat Hat’s are selling for $15 through the Facebook page and Beal, who is doing the marketing, has also arranged for them to be sold in a Rockland store called The Flower Goddess.

Beal said that a $1 from each hat sold will be earmarked for women’s charities in Maine and nationally.

“As Maine women, we want you to know that even though we live in Maine, we won't be silent,” said Beal. “Our voices will be heard and the march for change will continue on with determination, hard work and a sea of pink.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

The “Kitty Cat” Hat is a nicer term for the iconic women’s protest hat. (Photo courtesy Rachael Beal)

PORT CLYDE—After 40-plus years in the fishing industry, you’d think you’d run out of things to say about it, but not commercial fisherman and owner of Port Clyde Fresh Catch, Glen Libby.

“The fishing industry has changed since the 1970s due to various technologies and from a personal standpoint, it was either change with it or keep complaining about it,” said Libby, “which was literally driving me crazy.”

He teamed up with Antonia Small, a fine art and documentary photographer, who had been photographing aspects of the fishing culture for several years. Together, they’ve produced a first person account called Caught, about life in the Port Clyde fishing communities; specifically what it’s like to go from being a fisherman struggling with a depleted fishery to starting a innovative fishing cooperative that allows local fishermen to sell directly to their community through CSA-like shares, farmer’s market and individual orders.

“I call it the World According to Glen,” he said.

Caught is an account of the beauty, fragility and profound change that characterizes fishing, fishing families, and the communities who depend on them in the 21st Century. Based in the tiny village of Port Clyde, but reaching globally, Caught chronicles the struggle to transform a way of life for all who depend on our planet’s bounty. Small’s black and white photographs convey not only the details of the fishing world, but also the emotional resonances when a way of life is being forced to change.

Caught is also about how Libby had to develop an entirely different set of business skills into order to keep up with the fisheries’ evolution. “

We had to learn how to figure out price fish and actually generate a profit,” said Libby. “We all had a fishing background, but nobody had any experience in marketing.”

In one of the book’s chapters, he discusses what it was like to start a business and try to advertise for “fish cutters” — not exactly a common skill in this day and age.

“We thought we would just advertise to hire fish cutters and said, ‘well, we’ll just put the ad in the paper: that’s solved, people will be calling.’ Nope. Nobody called and we realized because nobody knows how to do it. We had to teach ourselves how to do it.”

Libby purchased 1,500 pounds of small grey sole, “which is arguably the hardest fish to cut,” he admitted.

He took the fish to Port Clyde Fish Catch and taught himself how to cut through all of that fish.

“And of course, these things had a shelf life,” he said.

It took him the better part of five days.

As the company president, he knew he couldn’t be spending the bulk of his time doing this, yet the realities of the industry were there.

“Even today, I do most of the fish cutting,” he said.

Libby and Small recently had a reading a the Jackson Memorial Library in Port Clyde with more than 40 in attendance.

“Most of them were my neighbors and customers,” he said.

To learn more about the book and when to catch Libby and Small in their next public talk visit its publisher wracklinebooks.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

A portrait of Port Clyde fisherman Glen Libby at work. Photo courtesy Antonia Small, the book’s photographer.

We’re now down to the last two episodes of A&E Networks' HISTORY survivalist show, Alone. This past episode revealed that Appleton resident Zachary Fowler has not yet thrown in the towel. After 72 days surviving alone in the Patagonia Wilderness, he’s up against the last four contestants.

Pilot: When you saw that foreshadow of the boat rescue coming, did you know who it was going to be?

Zach: Actually, no, at first I thought it would be Dave, because he was so skinny. But, you never know. The show switches it up so much. I thought maybe someone might have gotten hurt. When I heard Callie’s voice over the radio, man, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It actually broke my heart a little bit to see her drop out.

Pilot: Speaking of which, as we’ve all invested in you over these last eight weeks, seeing you break down at the end a little kind of the last show gave us a heart tug as well. Was it hard to watch that flashback to your family?

Zach: Oh yeah, watching that episode last night brought back huge emotions. That was so tough to say goodbye to them on the side of the road like that. I was feeling it just as strong watching it all over again last night.

Pilot: Megan had to miss her 6-year-old’s birthday. After 72 days, did you miss any important milestones?

I missed Sparrow’s first birthday, but we’re not crazy big birthday people. I usually forget everybody’s birthday all year long and then make up for it at Christmas time.

Pilot: What did you make in this show?

The wizard staff was like my journal. So, I grabbed a stick and began carving my entire story on it. I made hash marks for each day with a bigger one for each Sunday. Then, I made symbols of different things I’d achieved, or important things that happened, such as a carving of the sun for the first day the sun had finally come out. Then, I had a daily carving with symbols for whether I got my fire going that day, and one for my physical state. For example, if I chopped firewood, I’d carve a little log symbol times 10. Every time I got a fish, I’d carve a symbol. A line down the middle of the fish meant it was a rainbow trout or two hash marks meant it was a paint trout. The next symbols were emotional. I’d carve three little people (Jamie, Abby and Sparrow) if I was really missing them that day.

In the show you’ll also see a little wand I carved for Sparrow and one for Jamie, which she actually uses to wind yarn upon. See his past Makery and Mischief video in which his daughter uses this “magic wand.”

Pilot: You were looking pretty skinny in this episode. How many pounds did you lose?

Zach: At that point, I was down 50 pounds.

The last two episodes are going to be exciting! Stay tuned to watch Zach in HISTORY’s next episode of Alone, airing Thursday at 9 p.m.

• Alone Week 4: Zach fashions a Duck Hunter 3000 out of driftwood

• Alone Week 3: Things start to get serious for Zach

• Appleton survivalist Zachary Fowler competes on new season of the History show 'Alone'

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Zachary Fowler, a master of sawing logs. (Photo courtesy Zachary Fowler)

BELFAST — One of the questions Maine Arts Commission Executive Director Julie Richard asked a crowd of about 25 artists at Waterfall Arts last week was “what has changed for better or worse” for Maine artists in the last 15 years? As part of a traveling Maine Arts Iditarod, which hit Belfast on Jan. 26, the first session of the day focused on Connecting Creativity and Cultural Equity in Maine.

Several participants in the audience thought the Midcoast’s strengths included the emergence of a Creative Economy, a resurgence in cultural planning, an increase in technology and digital connections and an interest in globalization.

However, for every positive, there’s a negative, and in the last 15 years, several Midcoast residents said they’ve seen a steep decrease in affordable housing, which makes it extremely difficult for artists inspired by Maine to actually live here. There were multiple arts education teachers in the audience who’d seen drastic cuts in arts education spending in schools, first hand, whereas others expressed the frustration of a bureaucracy that demands more collected data to prove that arts education is beneficial, or “works.”

A special education teacher said, “When you work with kids in this field, you know that art education works. They become better students; they are more excited to learn and become more inclusive with one another.”

Economics, not surprisingly, are still the heart of most artist’s woes. As another audience member put it, “I feel as Mainers, we’ve never quite gotten out of the Great Recession. People are still holding tight to their pocketbooks and with the uncertainty of this administration change, no one knows when the scatological element is going to hit the oscillating blades, you know?”

David Estey, a Belfast artist said, “One of the positives has been the Maine Arts Commission and the whole notion of the Creativity Economy. There have been a lot of advancements in the arts in the last 15 years. In talking to the local businesses, I can tell you that business owners have seen the difference that has made in Belfast — particularly in how much money people have spent on art. In terms of where we are after the last decade, Belfast has enjoyed a reputation for the arts, but now things are shifting a bit, so we’ve got to pay attention to keeping the arts up front and making those connections with businesses.”

Brenda Harrington, Belfast Free Library’s adult programming coordinator, is heavily involved with area artists and writers. She routinely curates from a list of first-time exhibitors to established artists who apply to show their work library’s Barbara Kramer Gallery. She’s also responsible for Maine Writers Talk about.... series.

“There has been an explosion of interest in the arts in the last 10-15 years,” said Harrington. “I have so many artists who come to the library wanting to exhibit in the gallery. But, also in terms of adult programming, it has grown as well, both in interest from the public and in artist/writer participation. But as mentioned in the first session, money is always an issue to support artists. It’s hard to get grant money. We’re all cheerleaders for each other, that’s one thing I’ve noticed.”

Part of the morning session also included some little-known resources from the National Endowment for the Arts, specifically, its Creativity Connects, a three-part-initiative including an infrastructure report, Bright Spots (successful projects across the country where arts and non-arts collaborators work to further common goals, which you can contribute to) and where artists can find information on Artworks Grants.

For more information visit: mainearts.maine.gov

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

The crowd for the Maine Arts Iditarod, a traveling day-long program from the Maine Arts Commission to examine connections in the creative sector to other sectors. (Photo by Kay Stephens)

BELFAST— Inside Bowens Tavern in Belfast, a local’s joint with wood paneled walls and sports usually on the tube, it seems an unlikely scenario to see easels set up all around. The TV is off. Instead of drinks, plastic cups are filled with blue or purple watered down acrylic paint as people gather around to enjoy a couple of hours to explore their inner artist.

Amiee Twigg, of Searsport, a.k.a. the Paint Chic, is the one-woman operation behind pop-up Paint Nights in the Midcoast this winter, providing private paint night events, private art lessons and commissioned work.

A single mother of four, Twigg, 36, also juggles a second job. On a weeknight last week, after she finished her day job at athenahealth, she gathered all of her materials, paints, easels and brushes and headed to Bowens to host her first public Paint Night. Inside the tavern, the sold-out crowd, mostly women, sat behind their easels eagerly awaiting her instruction.

Creating a relaxed atmosphere, Twigg spent the first part of the evening with some instruction and allowed the participants to make the artistic vision their own. With the nighttime scene of northern lights as the Paint Night’s theme, Twigg offered some techniques, before turning the participants loose on their own painting.

“I give everybody a photo to go by at first; but, then, I don’t allow them to look at the photo again once they’ve started,” she explained. “Otherwise, they get stuck on comparing what they think they should be painting to the original photo.”

Living the artist life with two jobs in Maine is fairly standard, but Twigg has pushed through far harder obstacles than this.

When she was 17, her mother, who was single, developed cancer. Twigg decided to be partially homeschooled at that point, so she could take care of her mother and two younger sisters and earn some money for the family with parttime jobs. All while raising three daughters, as well as foster children — and even through her cancer treatments — her mother pushed Twigg to pursue her artistic talents.

“Growing up, my grandfather was very supportive of the arts and bought me all of my art supplies and my mother really pushed me to develop my skills,” Twigg recalled.

Twigg’s mother passed away just nine months shy of Twigg’s graduation.

Her father, stationed in the Navy, made the difficult decision not to uproot all three girls from the stability of their hometown of Fort Fairfield in Aroostook County, so he placed them with three different family friends in Fort Fairfield to allow them to stay in their same school.

“I dropped out of my advanced art in high school because my mother had been such a driving force for me,” said Twigg. “I felt I didn’t have anybody left to create for. After I turned 18, my younger sister left the home she’d been staying in and came to live with me, so I could take care of her for awhile.”

Fast forward through two marriages and four children. Twigg was doing her best to survive and yet, the one thing that fed her through the long, struggling years, was art.

“I was very lost for a long time,” she said. “My mother’s passing was a huge loss for our whole community.”

At 25, she put herself through college at University of Maine at Presque Isle and earned her bachelor’s degree in art education.

“It was the first time I’d picked up a paint brush in a long time,” she said. “When I did pick up painting again, it was like coming home. It felt like suddenly I could take a deep breath again.”

She moved to the Midcoast several years ago. With the help of a friend, she was encouraged to start teaching art in private parties.

“It’s so personal to me, all of my feelings and emotions into a piece, so it was hard to put myself out there,” she said. “So, I started Paint Nights for just friends about a year and a half ago.”

The Bowens Tavern Night was her first public event and it went extraordinarily well, so much, in fact, that within days of announcing her next Paint Night there in February, it has sold out.

“This doesn't feel like a job to me because it's what makes me complete and I'm not whole without it,” she said.

Her next public offering, Parents and Picassos, is a Paint Night geared toward a parent and child pair. For more information on upcoming Paint Nights, visit her Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

For the last six weeks, Penobscot Bay Pilot has been following Appleton resident Zachary Fowler, a contestant on A&E Networks' HISTORY survivalist show, Alone unscripted series and every Thursday night we’re waiting to see if he made the cut. Well, he’s still hanging strong. After two months surviving alone in the Patagonia Wilderness, he’s up against five other contestants with only three episodes to go!

Pilot: Poor Greg who tapped out this episode due to extreme hypothermia. When he said his dreams of retirement are gone, his dreams of building a house for his daughter dashed and all he has to look forward to now is going back to drywall. Did that hit home for you?

Zach: Yeah, it did. I feel the same way. I wanted to be able to come back to build a house for my family. [Note: Zach, like the rest of the contestants, still do not know who has won the $500,000 prize.]

Pilot: Do you have empathy watching the circumstances in which the other contestants have to tap out?

Zach: Um, yeah. I do now. But, when I was out there, there were a few moments when it would be snowing or sleeting and I was having a bad day and hoped they were too, and that it would be enough to make them tap out.

Pilot: In this episode you made what is called an arapuca bird trap used by the Guarani people of South America. How did you know how to make that?

Zach: I read about it in an old book and I tried making one at home first. When I was in Patagonia and saw that little bird poking around I decided I was going to make one and have him for dinner.

Pilot: What else did you make this episode?

Zach: I made a fire blower and chopsticks. The fire blower was a hollow bamboo tube that worked as bellows. You blow it into the embers and it sparks up pretty quickly. I saw that someone had made one is Season 2 of Alone, so I wasn’t going to do it. But, after a couple of days thinking of projects to do, and after making this, I decided l’d never go camping without a fire blower again. What a difference that little piece of tubing makes.

Pilot: After dancing around with that bird and it outsmarting your trap this episode, you finally trapped it and had it for dinner. Only 20 calories and a few grams of protein came from it; was it worth it?

Zach: There was so much more to it than that. It wasn’t just dinner. I felt like it was my daughter’s spirit bird, a sparrow. We chased each other around and he escaped my trap several times. It was a battle and I finally got him and had him for dinner and achievement wise, it was worth so much more than the calories I got.

Pilot: How are you making your Makery and Mischief videos in the yurt?

Zach: I actually have a Macbook Pro that my brother gave me and edit them on it. I either fire up the generator and work on videos at home or I’ll go to the library and work on them.

Stay tuned to watch Zach in HISTORY’s next episode of Alone, airing Thursday at 9 p.m.

Related stories:

• Alone Week 4: Zach fashions a Duck Hunter 3000 out of driftwood

• Alone Week 3: Things start to get serious for Zach

• Appleton survivalist Zachary Fowler competes on new season of the History show 'Alone'

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Zachary Fowler at the boatyard where he works in Maine. (Photo courtesy Zachary Fowler)

BELFAST— A trend in Portland, where food truck owners test the waters by going mobile with a small menu and then take it to the next level with restaurant space, has taken hold in Belfast, where two new restaurants are slated to open.

Neighborhood

Four years ago, Seth Whited and Sarah Waldron were co-owners and operators of the Good ‘N’ You food truck in the back parking lot of Rollie’s Bar and Grill. They served up healthy, locally sourced Mexican and Mediterranean fare before they chose to close in 2016.

On Jan. 20, Whited and Waldron will open their first restaurant, called Neighborhood, at 132 High St., formerly home to La Vida’s Mexican restaurant.

“We realized by our fourth year in the food truck, we’d just outgrown the space. And we took a break in order to figure out how to make that happen in a bigger space,” said Waldron.

The name Neighborhood conjures up a friendly locals watering hole, something Whited felt was representative of his experience growing up in Belfast and living there.

“I feel very strongly about our community here and really proud to be a part of it,” he said.

The restaurant has been repainted a cool grey, with artwork on the walls by Whited and Waldron, as well local artists like John Byrer. The split level bar was completely handmade by Whited in a small parquet design of Douglas fir.

“Our hope is that people will see this bar as an extension of the dining room and a place to come just for the drinks,” said Bar Manager John Poto, who has created a diverse cocktail list using house infused spirits such as a five pepper tequila and and ingredients such as balsam, lavender, ginger and cilantro.

“We’re trying to match some of the cocktails with flavors coming out of the kitchen. The beer is all local with a tap dedicated to Marshall Wharf, where Whited previously worked (and whom we covered in a “What’s In That Cocktail” story), as well as a small wine list with more of a focus on South America.

Fans of Good ‘N’ You’s food will see that Neighborhood’s lunch menu is nearly exactly the same.

“We wanted to make sure that people have their old favorites back,” said Whited, who said that like the lunch menu, the dinner menu will still be locally sourced. “I want people to know their food is coming from a place that they trust.”

He also said he imagines the menu to be simple, comfort food with offerings such as shrimp and grits and braised short ribs.

For more information and updates visit: Neighborhood

The Hoot

Anna Wagner, former food truck operator of Wags Wagon, which coincidentally took over the Good ‘N’ You food truck and location in Belfast, decided also to put the permanent brakes on the food truck and instead expand her menu to a new restaurant space. A resident of Northport, she saw the opportunity and bought the multi-colored, long-vacant former Dos Amigos building on Route 1, in Northport.

Taking a break from working with her father to renovate the older building, which had been sitting on the real estate market for a few years, Wagner took a few minutes to speak about her new restaurant venture, which she wants to call The Hoot.

“Basically I’m hoping to have a coffee shop with lounge, serving breakfast and lunch with occasional pop-up dinners,” Wagner said. “I’m mostly a morning person, so I’m building the coffee lounge around more of a daytime feel.

Wags Wagon featured sandwiches and salads with a menu heavy on locally sourced meats and cheeses, which Wagner said, might still end up on the menu.

“I’m still working on the menu, seeing what people want and build it around that,” she said.

As for the neon green and pink colors of the old Mexican eatery, Wagner said she’s going to tone it down and side it with cedar shingles. Wagner anticipates the work on the building structure and interior will be done in the spring, when she can start focusing on the kitchen and the menu.

Penobscot Bay Pilot will update this story when the new venture opens.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Sarah Waldron and Seth Whited, co-owners and operators of the newest downtown Belfast restaurant, Neighborhood. (Photo by Kay Stephens)

BELFAST — Last year, when I was traveling around Scotland with a tour bus called Rabbie’s, our guide told us what the name meant.

“First of all, it’s not pronounced Rabies,” he said. Turns out like most clueless Yanks, I didn’t know the name was a Scottish diminutive for Robert, and that the company was an affectionate nod to Scotland’s most famous poet and lyricist, Robert Burns.

I also didn’t know that around every Jan. 25, pubs and restaurants all around Scotland (and the world) fill with extremely enthusiastic “Rabbie” Burns’ fans and that everyone looks forward to eating haggis, ceilidh dancing, singing songs, reciting poetry and of course throwing down the good whisky. (Another fun fact: only in Scotland do you spell whisky without the ‘e’.)

The Maine Celtic Celebration wants all the local Scots and Scots-at-heart to have the same celebration, and on Jan. 21, they’ll host Burns Night at The Waldo County Shrine Club on Northport Avenue in Belfast.

“The program starts with the piping of the haggis in which the centerpiece of the feast is ceremoniously carried into the room,” said Burns Night representative Claudia Luchetti. “Next will come the ‘Address to a Haggis,’ one of Burns’ more famous poems.” (See accompanying video to hear the original dialect of the poem.)

“It’s written in Old Scottish so it’s a little hard to understand exactly what it means. The address this year will be given in authentic dialect by James Rodden, a recent Scottish immigrant and former member of Scotland's Black Watch regiment. Once the Address is recited, the haggis will be ‘smote’ and chopped up so that people can taste it,” she said. “Then our host Chris Brinn will invite audience members to give toasts to the lads and lassies. He will also lead a group of local Celtic musicians.”

Beyond haggis, other local organizations have contributed food for the evening including smoked salmon from Ducktrap River, State of Maine cheeses, soup from the Belfast Co-op and appetizers from Darbys Restaurant and The Penobscot Shores kitchen.

The Burns Night will start with a traditional Scotch tasting led by Barry Grant from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Advance registration required. Tickets are $30 in advance or $35 at the door for the entire event, including the whisky tasting. Barry will offer interesting details about various single malt Scotch whiskies as the samples are tasted.

If you want to skip the whisky tasting and just come for the food and entertainment, the doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the program begins at 6 p.m. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door for the food and entertainment. Advance tickets are available on line at mainecelticcelebration.com.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Another week has gone by for us, but for those hanging tough on the A&E Networks' History survivalist show, Alone, it's been 50 days. Appleton resident, Zachary Fowler, is still in the running among six other contestants as they try to survive, all alone, in the Patagonia wilderness.

Pilot: We didn’t even get to see you once in this week’s episode! Were you bummed?

Zach: No, Dan got left out of two whole episodes before. I thought it was bound to happen.

Pilot: Callie got bitten by a Chilean recluse spider and used her herbal medicine knowledge to try and make a poultice. Did you have any of that kind of knowledge before you went to Patagonia?

Zach: Just the same as Callie; I knew where to find plantain and Old Man’s Beard. They grow all over the world and both are very antibiotic. I had to use it myself almost every day. I’d eat a leaf of plaintain every day for the vitamins and I’d chew it up and place it on my fingers because they were so dry and cracked because of the lack of fat in my diet. It would make it better for a few hours and I’d have to apply it twice a day for about 20 minutes.

Pilot: 50 days in, were you losing considerable weight like every one else?

Zach: I was eating about one fish a day; I was doing pretty well with my fishing. At the same time, there’s not a lot of fat and calories in one fish, so my body was consuming all of its extra reserves quickly.

Pilot: On the last episode, you mentioned you had dyslexia and you’ve worked hard to overcome that. Can you elaborate?

Zach: The adversity I went through in school made me have to strive harder at things. I realized I was weak in the area of reading, but that much more gifted when it comes to working with my hands. I'm a maker, so I strive that work well with my niche. You know, I wouldn't try write a novel on literature.

Pilot: Dan tapped out! We didn’t see that coming, did you?

Zach: It’s a long 50 days that people don’t see watching the show. I understand. I was missing my family something fierce by 50 days. But, at the same time, I was staying in Patagonia for them. Our yurt is wonderful, but we outgrew that over a year ago. So, as much as I missed them, they were my drive to stay out there. Dan didn’t seem to have that same drive. He was secure in that he’d done as much as he could and wanted to be with his family more.

Check out Zach’s latest DIY match-lighting slingshot video. Stay tuned to watch him in the History’s next episode of Alone, airing Thursday at 9 p.m.

Related stories:

• Alone Week 4: Zach fashions a Duck Hunter 3000 out of driftwood

• Alone Week 3: Things start to get serious for Zach