Inside StudioWorks with its first artist in residence Christine Wong Yap from New York City

Betting on art as the centerpiece of an economic comeback, the Tides Institute & Museum of Art’s Artsipelago will rebrand and connect a number of established efforts as well as develop artist live/work space and studio space to drive arts participation and ultimately talent retention in this rural, multicultural, coastal archipelago.

ArtPlace recently spoke with Hugh French, Director of the Tides Institute & Museum of Art, about what has been going on since last spring.

ArtPlace So what has been happening with your efforts in the last six months?

Hugh French A lot. Let me give a couple of examples: Our historic downtown StudioWorks building which suffered a partial collapse in April was completed to a point where we could open the ground floor studio space on June 1st--just in time for the arrival of our first month-long artist in residence from New York City. The building's second floor was not nearly ready for its planned use as artist housing. But were given free use of the fully restored first floor of a nearby former Civil War veterans hall for artist housing. This building will be gifted to us by the owners in January, 2014. The owners said that they wanted to give the building to us because we are changing the face of this community. The building combined with our other two buildings will create a downtown arts campus for us.

Even though they're in the beginning stages, StudioWorks and the artist residency program are achieving great success and providing additional activity and synergy to Eastport's small downtown. We've continued work on the StudioWorks building thanks, in part, by securing $190,000 in federal CDBG funding an $50,000 in federal Rural Development funding. We now have installed a state of the art wood pellet boiler and radiant heating system in the building - a first for Eastport and its downtown. StudioWorks now serves as an high energy efficient historic building demonstration model. This weaves another element into making StudioWorks viable and sustainable over the long term.

In addition, we arranged to have what became a hugely successful stand alone camera obscura installation along the waterfront of Eastport's downtown for three months this past summer. It was located directly across the street from StudioWorks. The camera obscura structure was on loan to us by its creator, an artist living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Getting the structure across the border wasn't any problem as it was considered a pre-fab structure. Getting the artist across the border to give a talk here was a bit more difficult.

Most recently, an article appeared about our efforts in "The Atlantic." It's part of extended reporting on Eastport by "The Atlantic" as part its "American Futures" series that examines what is going on in a number of communities across the U.S. The writer told us that when they were planning the series, people told them that they were most interested in how the arts were revitalizing communities. This was very gratifying to us to hear and for us to serve as an example of this was happening here in Eastport.