“Island Girl (Sofie Lilian Nathan Dowling),” by Janet Badger; linocut, 2009.

Working Waterfront

A ‘Great’ island portrait project

While artists-in-residence at the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation on Great Cranberry Island in 2009, photojournalist Rebecca Buyers and artist Janet Best Badger teamed up to chronicle the lives and visages of a group of islanders. While Badger drew their portraits, Buyers interviewed them. Their project gained attention and admirers through exhibitions at… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Creativity thrives in salty, island environments

The sun is sinking and fills the kitchen with an orange glow, signaling the end of a long week. Lobster traps hauled and stacked, gear shifted from one spot in the ocean to another. Lunches made in the dark and fishing boots brought in to dry. Nights of nodding off… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Evidence of insanity: Black swans and B-O-A-T

I’ve been a boat owner for well over 50 years. So I should know something about the rocks and shoals that lie in wait for someone like me, right? The costs? The heartbreak? The disasters that lurk out there on, in or under the water? I thought I did—all of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Saco Bay conference addressed timely concerns

More than 100 people attended the second annual SOS Saco Bay Coastal Conference on Sept. 27. The full day conference featured classroom sessions, a trade show, and outdoor field stations on the beach. Save Our Shores Saco Bay, a non-profit advocacy group committed to the restoration and preservation of its… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Port Clyde’s loss is seared in pain

We can watch live satellite images of a typhoon on the other side of the planet. We can record thousands of photographs in a device not much bigger than a deck of playing cards. We can inject a genetic replica of a virus to boost immunity. But something as elemental… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Maine islands are the frontier

For those of you who track island life, you’ll likely know there are 15 year-round, unbridged islands along the Maine coast. Distinguished by their differences more than their commonalities, these islands span the coast from Cliff Island, the smallest of the Casco Bay islands, to Matinicus, the most distant island… SEE MORE

Diana Young’s "Boom Island," (2023) tempera, 16 by 20 inches. PHOTO: MICHAEL HALLAHAN

Working Waterfront

Diana Young’s Penobscot River view

In the half century Diana Young has lived in Bangor—she and husband Jim moved there in 1973—she has painted all over the Queen City, so many different scenes she should be declared painter laureate. Her views are always animated, full of a kind of motion that often compels one to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

When teens can say ‘I know Maine’

In 7th grade Gavin Bradstreet looked like a choir-boy angel with a moon-shaped face and round glasses, but looks were deceptive and the school found him “a handful.” Now he is on his way to college, with greater aspirations than he or his family could have imagined seven years ago.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

An island musical legacy

On a Tuesday evening earlier this summer, representatives of the Jeff Tolman Music Award, a 501(c)3, presented themselves at a select board meeting to make an unreasonable request: that they might close and be given free rein of the only—and very busy—town parking lot, from noon and through the evening,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

That pause between summer and fall

I’m at my laptop on a Tuesday, wracking my brain for a subject to write about. It is Bruce’s birthday. I promised to bake an orange cake with orange chocolate frosting and I’m starting to get anxious. I’m fully confident in my bread-baking capabilities, but cakes are not my forte.… SEE MORE