From July 30 to August 3 of 2025, Surf Point Foundation—a nomination-based artists’ residency in York, on Maine’s southern coast—welcomed three gallerists from the New Art Dealers Alliance (a nonprofit trade organization of arts professionals “dedicated to the cultivation, support, and advancement of new voices in contemporary art”) to take part in a pilot program geared toward expanding opportunities for Maine-area artists. The gallerists offered studio visits to selected artists, spent regenerative time on-site at Surf Point, and presented a public panel discussion (along with NADA executive director Heather Hubbs) as part of Surf Point’s Community Day, the eleventh in a series of twice-annual free, public events on the site of the residency. The NADA collaboration is described by Surf Point as “gently combat(ing) the gravitational pull that keeps many talented artists from showing beyond regional circles.” With the implosions of a suite of big-name galleries, declining sales and secondary markets, art advisory meltdowns, and uncertain futures for both historically art-associated places and entire urban ecosystems in the background, NADA and Surf Point worked to shine a light on the people on the ground, often sidelined by these seismic art-world events: regional artists, working with single-minded focus in their studios to confront language-resistant, ragged questions of the eye and mind.
Summer can be a complex time for year-round Maine artists. The influx of art-world visitors, and the activities that surround them, can be energizing, fostering a sense of connection with wider art worlds. In contrast, the same phenomena can lead to a heightened recognition of how access to the resources that support artists (cultural, financial, social) is often marked by imbalance. The NADA x Surf Point pilot program aims to address this dynamic, on a small and personal scale. The three NADA members, while in residence at Surf Point, offered studio visits to a group of fifteen Maine and New Hampshire artists, selected from a field of 150 applicants to an open call for regional studio visit participants. Lauren Marinaro of Marinaro Gallery (New York), Alex Nazari of Gattopardo (Los Angeles), and Nicoletta Pollara of Night Gallery (Los Angeles) visited the studios of Elana Adler, Tad Beck, Leon Benn, Eleanor Conover, Chad Etting, Sam Finkelstein, Carrie Gundersdorf, Dylan Hausthor, Dusty Knight, Will Sears, Rachel Sperry, Hannah Secord Wade, Emilie Stark-Menneg, Barbara Sullivan, and Ellen Weitkamp in the last glittering days of July and the first golden weekend of August.
With the spotlight from the three NADA gallerists comes a flicker of art-world centrality, maybe made more obvious in its juxtaposition to Maine’s literal and psychic distance from New York and LA, or maybe already integrated into the artist’s outlook. “I think about the NYC/Maine dynamic all the time,” said Dylan Hausthor, a photographer based in Rockland.
“There are a lot of reasons why I decided not to be an artist in NYC (or any other major metro area), and I’m simultaneously wary of and interested in how artists in Maine can learn from what’s happening in upstate NY. That said, though, I am also feeling very aware of how much the art world, especially in major metro areas, feels so precarious. Artists need the art world and I hope that we can find any type of stable symbiosis with gallery spaces,” Hausthor said. Hausthor underscores the idea that an outside versus inside dynamic can be challenged by artists’ self-determined actions; anchoring oneself outside of large cities and markets can sometimes be a decisive creative choice rather than basic fate. Artists’ major life decisions subsequently help drive a new geography of relevance and critical focus.
The notion of northern New England as external to, or excluded from, art-world centers, both historically and in the age of digital ubiquity, is also called into question. “I think social media and the internet begin to challenge the idea that by living in a rural area, we cannot participate with centers of artistic thought and production that occur in places like New York and LA,” Brunswick-area painter Eleanor Conover observed. But the reality of an actual site visit, in which artworks are physically experienced, can be crucial to the functioning of this digitally fueled accessibility. “While sharing photographs of work broadens access, a lot of nuance is lost in this model of efficiency. Studio visits are a unique pillar of dialogue that artists, curators, and gallerists should continue to use as a framework for genuine conversation and introductions to artists—particularly by seeing the work in the context that it is being made,” Conover said. And in a wider sense, coastal northern New England, while sometimes feeling isolated (especially in wintertime), is already a known quantity in the arts. “As far as rural places go, Maine does not feel as peripheral to the ‘art world(s)’ as other places I’ve lived. We are not practicing alone: I feel so lucky to be part of such an engaged, supportive, and ambitious artistic community here.”
Conover’s point about a vibrant year-round regional community, influenced by the specificity of the local environment, is important. Lauren Marinaro agreed: “It’s been rewarding to see how supportive the community is towards each other and get a better insight into the historical lineage of artists in Maine.” Maine has been noteworthy for the energy of its art-oriented groups for the past two centuries and was a haven for American Modernist painters in the early nineteenth century in particular. The museums and galleries in the area are currently on an upward trajectory, gaining national attention. As Hannah Secord Wade, a Woolwich-based painter, says, “Maine has a long history of artists coming here to work; the artistic community is very open and supportive, and it feels like there is a lot of energy here right now.” At the same time, it’s important to recognize that there are multiple arts communities in the region (as in any region). These communities and the people who build them—sometimes overlapping and collaborative, sometimes more solitary or dissenting in nature—have diverse goals and motivations and differing degrees of access to social and material resources. Issues of access are especially relevant in a historical situation marked by extreme disparities of wealth, power, and mobility. Many artists in northern New England are not in a financial position, state of health, or family structure that allows them to visit big-city museums and galleries with regularity, and many lack the credentials and connections that could help forge a successful bid for a professional studio visit or similar opportunity. This lack of access does not diminish the quality of their work, but it may impact the status and visibility of their accomplishments. The organizers of the pilot NADA x Surf Point collaboration, on the strength of the energy that Secord Wade points out, are taking a direct approach to addressing some of these obstacles.
Since gaining and maintaining visibility outside of New England is a key challenge, the NADA x Surf Point studio visits help provide a window facing larger art worlds. The openness of the application process (free, and involving only three images and a short optional text) means that the work of every artist who applies is witnessed, although only a relatively small number of studios can be visited by the gallerists during their short Maine visit. As in any creative field, competition is inevitable, so how might wider regional communities benefit from the kind of art-industry attention offered to the fifteen selected artists? One answer may lie in the idea that good fortune often radiates outward, especially when artists are connected by shared geography and interests; under the right conditions, a light that shines on a small group also illuminates others nearby. The growth and positivity that can come out of programs like the NADA studio visits (as well as similar opportunities) have the capacity to spread optimism and generative energy, filling the overlapping bubbles of the Maine/NH art world’s complex Venn diagram of connections with potential. Nurturing this potential so it blooms and grows in various ways is a process that will look unique for every individual artist. Perhaps with these ideas in mind, Surf Point has been intentional about its public programs, free and open to all, at its regularly occurring Surf Point Community Day events.
On Saturday, August 2, an unusually lovely summer day provided the perfect occasion to visit Surf Point, and Community Day unfolded with generosity of spirit. Rachel Alexandrou of Giant Daughter provided foraged treats from the local landscape, including black trumpet jam on crackers and milkweed cordial. Mary Kocol led an anthotype workshop in the former studio of the late artist Beverly Hallam, one of the original residents of Surf Point. A reliable favorite at Community Days is the Wild Knoll Foundation Garden, a testament to innovative, nature-based creative labor, created by artist Carly Glovinski on the stone foundation where writer May Sarton’s home once stood. The site was activated this year by an electrifying installation of paintings and objects by Baltimore artist Phaan Howng, made with the idea of “an optimistic post-apocalyptic future where plants take over” and installed in the garden landscape in subversive alignment with the flowers, trees, and stone walls. Howng’s installation underscored the sense that being an active member of a creative community comes down to having the drive to make things, talk about it, and talk to people about the things they make.
This embrace of agency and curiosity was reflected in the keynote event, a panel discussion with Hubbs, Marinaro, Nazari, and Pollara of NADA along with Surf Point executive director Yael Reinharz and artist board member Tessa Greene O’Brien, who was instrumental in dreaming up and jumpstarting the collaboration. The gallerists emphasized that, for artists, succeeding in their chosen field means prioritizing curiosity, thoughtfully seeking connections with both local and national resources, and being reflective about what kind of opportunity is interesting and generative for every individual. There is always something to show up for, no matter where an artist is planted, and a rapidly changing art world means that new models for recognition and opportunity will be forced to emerge. Surf Point Community Days, which occur twice a year and welcome anyone who would like to connect, are one such opportunity for learning, growing, sharing, and showing up. The next Community Day is October 11, and you are invited.
