Transcription of Tammy Ackerman for the show Mill Town Creativity #201
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to Love Maine Radio show number 201, Mill Town Creativity, airing for the first time on Sunday July 19, 2015. Maine’s industrial mills have employed multiple generations of families through the manufacturing of products such as paper, shoes, and textiles. Although many are no longer used in that capacity, they are experiencing a rebirth and once again becoming centers of creativity and commerce.
Today we explore this subject with Biddeford mill aficionados Tammy Ackerman, co-founder of the community arts organization Engine Inc. and Angelrox founder and fashion designer Roxi Suger. Thank for joining us.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in Biddeford being that half of my family is from that area, and this individual that is across the microphone from me today has also spent a considerable amount of time in Biddeford probably more than me honestly. This is Tammy Ackerman she’s the co-founder and executive director of Engine Incorporated, a community arts organization based in Biddeford. She has served as the board president for the Heart of Biddeford, a Main Street, Maine organization, and she has lived in Maine for nine years. Thanks so much for coming in and also for doing all this great stuff in Biddeford.
Tammy: Thanks for having me.
Lisa: Tammy, where’d you come from?
Tammy: Well, originally I’m a South Dakotan, one of the few that have left the state I think. Then most recently before I came to Maine I was Nevada for ten years in Reno.
Lisa: Why Maine? That seems like a desperate mix of states?
Tammy: They’re not dissimilar by any means. There’s a lot of similarities between like the geographic disparity and everything, population. Why Maine? That is the most frequently asked question for me. It was a bit of a dart throw to be quite honest. I’d never really spent any time in New England and specifically Maine before coming here. It was a desire for some change. When I left Nevada or when I was thinking about leaving Nevada, the housing market was at it’s height. I was living on the fringe on the perimeter of Reno and I really wanted to live in a historic downtown or a downtown that had some character and realized quickly that downtown Reno was just untouchable. A little one-thousand foot bungalows are going for $400,000.00 at that time. This is at the height of the housing bubble, right. My then partner and I at the time decided to take a trip or the country and start looking for a different community. We started out in Nevada, went up through Canada, and dropped down through Vermont and Maine, and ironically enough I drove through Biddeford and wanted to go to the old Reny’s Department store that was on Main Street because my partner was a big fan of Carhartts and looked like the Reny store. I got my first glimpse of Biddeford and it’s mills and was just blown away by the architecture.
Lisa: Well, that’s interesting. Is Reny still in Biddeford by the way?
Tammy: They are not. They moved to Saco for more parking.
Lisa: Okay. All right. It’s interesting that Reny’s would bring you into the Biddeford area but that somehow there was something about Biddeford that kept you there.
Tammy: Yes and what kept me there, if I might, is the Heart of Biddeford actually. The Main Street organization, which you mentioned in my bio, there’s a really great group of people working to revitalize downtown Biddeford. They put out like an all hands on deck campaign to recruit me when I showed up there. I got involved from day one volunteering in the downtown area and working on the design committee of the Heart of Biddeford so taking a look at the parks and the store fronts and things live that, and I just haven’t turned back since that day.
Lisa: What is your background?
Tammy: In art and graphic design. I’m a visual person. I like architecture. I wanted to be an architect, but I chickened out when I was in college. Turned to graphic design as a career which I was doing pretty much up until last year in addition to Engine, but Engine has decided to take all my time.
Lisa: Well, I think that’s actually not the worst thing to be taking your time because it seems like all of the things that you’ve done are so creative in nature and Engine is a very creative organization. For people who aren’t familiar describe it?
Tammy: Well, Engine is a little bit of a hybrid, but we call it a community arts organization because we’re based and embedded in the community. We focus on attracting creative people into the downtown area specifically to show them just like I became aware of how beautiful the downtown area is or could be and so the gallery acts as an attractor in that respect. It also supports the arts community, so we mostly focus on emerging artists and early career artists for the most part. Then the back end of the space, physically anyway, is our arts education piece. That is there to serve the community and specifically youth. We act in two different ways there as an asset to the community but also an attractor for economic and community development, and then outside of what happens within our own space we coordinate the monthly art walk. We’re working on a public art program. We’re part of the city’s comprehensive planning committee because I really think the arts should have a voice at the table politically speaking in planning. That’s what we are. I would say if I had to compare it to something that people know in Portland, we’re a combination of Creative Portland, Space Gallery, and maybe a little tiny bit Aspirational to Mecca but in our specific area.
Lisa: I’m assuming that it helps people who are creative to have associations with other individuals who are creative specifically in places like Biddeford which are rising up and re-imagining themselves.
Tammy: Yes, I think the community piece is the biggest piece for me. We put on really nice shows, and we do a great job with the gallery and that kind of thing. It’s really about people coming into that space and meeting people that they would’ve never met before or someone who’s not familiar with art or a little intimidated by it to be able to have a conversation around what it’s all about. It’s really the social and community aspect that’s the most important thing to me, and I don’t mean to downplay the other pieces of what we do, but it’s community building.
Lisa: Well, tell me about some of your artists?
Tammy: Well, let’s see we’ve shown a whole gambit of artists from Lauren Fensterstock, who she hasn’t had a solo show there maybe she will someday, but she’s been part of a couple group shows. She’s probably one of the more well-known artists at least in the Portland area. All the way to a community show where it’s an open call, free for all kind of thing that everybody and their kid and their grandma can participate in and it’s so well received. We had over a 150 pieces this year that we didn’t have anyway more wall space at all. We’re not really carving out a name for ourselves in terms of the specific artists that we show. We try to have a broad appeal and reach both ends of the spectrum in terms of the art.
Lisa: What about the educational programs that you run?
Tammy: Our focus there has been moving toward the design related fields because, number one, that’s my background but I’m not trying to impose my own perspective on it necessarily but I do feel that art is valuable. Art education is valuable no matter what. I don’t argue that point at all. Design is something more accessible for people meaning graphic design, video game design, 3D design, architecture things like that that lead to career paths is really where we’re hoping to focus our attention. How to build a website and make it look good not just have a website? The applied arts I guess is really the focus.
Lisa: Have you had some that have been more popular than others?
Tammy: Anything to do with 3D printing and design tends to be the most popular. Then after school kid’s programming just in general but with a maker focus, so not just we’re going to have a … Not just, I don’t mean to downplay that, but it’s not just focused on the arts and craft side of it but lets make and let’s integrate some technology and lets integrate some math and that all STEM focus that’s in education right now. We’re trying to make it steam by putting that A in the equation. The A can be a little tricky for some people that don’t necessarily think the arts are valuable. We can’t make a good acronym of putting a D in there for design. I guess it could be steamed. The D is really what a lot of people can relate to because these are careers that people understand and sometimes the poor artists get kind of, “Oh, what do you know. That’s not a good career path.” It is a good career path. You just have to reframe the way people think about it.
Lisa: That’s a really good point. I know that when my daughter said that she wanted to be an art history major, for example which required some studio art, there were various people who said, “Well, what are you going to do with that major?” I said, “Abby, just do what you love because something will come of that”, and that’s really the important thing where we’ve gotten very focused on something that leads to something. Well, sometimes something leads somewhere and then somewhere else and then somewhere else. I think what you’re describing is there are other things that are out there that aren’t just straight path.
Tammy: Right. I mean if I knew when I was eighteen going into college to be an artist that I would be the director of an arts organization and an arts administrator writing grants and all this good stuff, I would’ve never thought about that as a career path. It took me a long time to get there, but I’m glad I did.
Lisa: You also live in that area. You live in Biddeford, Saco area. How does that match up to growing up in South Dakota?
Tammy: Yes, well, in terms of just the architecture of place, I grew up in a town that had a great downtown. We spent a lot time there. Our monolithic pieces of architecture were grain silos. When I saw the mills here, it’s like this is the same industry. Well, it’s an industry just a different manifestation of it. I’ve always been a fan of like these great pieces of architecture in the world. South Dakota is a similar state to Maine, in that, it’s very rural. It’s a lot of poverty. There’s only a few city centers to speak of really. I grew up in one of the three, which was in a town of twenty-five thousand people, which is not really a city in a lot of people’s eyes, but it had that feel of a more urban environment. Nevada was similar. There’s Las Vegas which of course is huge and sprawling and I would never live there. Reno had more of that historic character, and then there’s very few other significant size towns in Nevada, very rural, not the same kind of rural not agricultural but very rural and a lot of poverty again. I seem to pick these states that have similarities in their demographics.
Lisa: All right. I’ve spent many Thanksgivings and Christmases and other family holidays in the Biddeford area and I would describe the people that I’ve met as very hard working. They have some tenacity to them at least the relatives who used to work in the mill. I know that there was tenacity there. I know that there were long days and big families and lots of mouths to feed. I’m wondering what your sense of the people is?
Tammy: It’s an interesting community. I’ve not been exposed to the Yankee mentality before moving here which is I think one of somewhat reserve to begin with. Having lived in Nevada, it has more of a, “Hey, everybody, it’s California. We’re all smiling, happy, and outgoing.” Here my experience has been one of more reserve at first at least until you prove that you’re not out to exploit or take anything. That’s been a big challenge quite honestly. It’s a new concept for Biddeford to have an arts organization in the downtown. Historically there’s been a lot of theater and performing arts with vaudeville and whatnot over the years but not a huge focus on the visual arts. I think the perception of Engine has been why do we need that? That’ll be an ongoing thing I think for anyone really but for us in particular in the type of town that we’re in to really show the value of what we’re doing around community and around education.
Lisa: Why is it called Engine?
Tammy: I think the reason we called it that is just the sort of like start-up nature of it. We’re go to start something here. We’re going to drive it forward and propel the creative community, which is our tag line. It had a mechanical feel to it or an industrial feel a little bit to it. I didn’t think that we needed a name that was conceptual. I guess it is but everyone can relate to a Engine. It frequently gets used in conversations, and I’m always like, yes, this is the right name the Engine of the economy or whatever it might be.
Lisa: Yes, and it seems to have almost an industrial feel to it in thinking about the mills and the brick and the drive that was needed to be able to power all of the [loons 00:15:43]. I think that probably there is something to it. It’s a little bit grittier than perhaps other titles might be.
Tammy: Right. We want to be a continuation of Biddeford’s evolution not disrupt it in a way that makes it into something different. That’s where you can either be successful or not in how you approach things. What I mean by that I guess is that Biddeford and Saco have always been manufacturing towns and at the height of their glory they were the leaders on the East Coast. What we’re trying to do is just reframe that conversation around the idea of making in a different way. The Fab Lab, the fabrication lab, the 3D printing, and the digital fabrication stuff is all meant to empower people to be able to make and not have to necessarily leave that to someone else especially kids. We’re trying to spark the creativity that then leads to innovation and hopefully they’ll go off and do something great in their lives too and not just think that they have to settle for something that maybe isn’t what they aspire to.
Lisa: When I was speaking to Jane Bianco of the Farnsworth Museum, she mentioned this idea of creativity as being really anything that you are actually using your brain to wrap itself around, so we think about something like a painting or something like sculpture as being a creative pursuit. There are lots of other things that you do over the course of a life that can be considered creative.
Tammy: Yes. I think that’s the value of the arts in general is that you see things in a different way and you start to experience other things and you talk to other people and it broadens your horizons. It helps you create a better network of people that might have differing perspectives. I think that’s always healthy. The visualization piece, the ability to work out problems visually and have an understanding of spacial relationships, I think is all very valuable. Thinking like an artist, artists are disrupters. They do things that don’t always follow the mainstream. Being able to think like that creatively whatever your field might be, if it’s an accountant or someone working in food service whatever it might be, if you can think like an artist and a designer, then it makes you more resourceful in whatever your career path is.
Lisa: How has thinking like an artist influenced your life?
Tammy: I think that what it’s done for me is that it makes me open to different ideas and relationships. I mean we all have our biases, right. I can probably list ten of them that I have and you try to work through those but what I think that it does is it sort of … You look at all the options on the table versus like it’s got to be that way because this is what it has been or this is what I’ve been told. Thinking like a designer, thinking like an artist you look at all the different options that are available to you and then you have a conversation with the community or with your peers or whoever it might be that you’re working with and you work on those together. There’s more of a collaborative nature in it I think. I mean artists can exist in a vacuum. They certainly can. They can do their thing. The artists that change the world are good at disrupting and collaborating.
Lisa: When we were speaking with Bill Seeley from Bates, and he does work with the philosophy of art, he was mentioning that, and of course I think you know this to be true I know this to be true anyway, but that people who are artists don’t necessarily get recognition for their art until after maybe they’ve passed away or maybe they’re much older. How can we reconcile that so that people aren’t waiting for the next Monet to die? Does this make sense? How can we encourage people to exist and somehow create art and creating a sustainable livelihood for themselves?
Tammy: That is the question how can we do that? I think it’s a difficult thing. I think there’s a lot of supply in the world. There’s a lot of art in the world. A lot of art from what you might say is good art, to bad art, to all kinds of art. There are artists like I mentioned Lauren earlier who’s definitely on a career trajectory that has been quite successful. I would imagine she would continue on that. Those are far and few artists that really make it to that pinnacle. I guess I would try to re-shift the focus from defining what success is to the individual, so I think if an artist is practicing and it gives them something, if they get satisfaction or feel more whole because of it, then that’s success in my book.
If you want to sell your art, that’s a different thing. It’s a whole other world. Sometimes you have to change your art or look to what the market might be looking for. Tenacity is important, and so people get demoralized by having a show and nothing sells. They don’t realize commercial success, but you have to reframe that and think your work is great. You put on a good show. Hopefully that’s fulfilling to you for that alone. Just because you don’t sell anything doesn’t mean that it’s not worth while. I mean you can go into the creative fields. You can go into graphic design and more of the applied arts fields if you want to be commercially successful, but I think there’s a lot of emphasis on selling work. I think it’s very important and I think artists can work to be more professional and present a more professional image, but I don’t think that’s the end all to being an artist.
Lisa: I would think that if you are thinking like an artist and you’re attempting to think disruptively or even just thinking it and not even attempting to think that way just the way that you are looking at the world and then simultaneously you’re also trying to be commercially successful and trying to shift the way that you work so that you’re doing what other people find attractive, I think that would be a very interesting dichotomy to try to live.
Tammy: I think it’s a hard one. I would encourage people to air on the … Not air but focus on the later or the former of just doing what they want to do. They have to redefine what success is. If they want something different, then of course you’re going to have to shift and do something different to support yourself if that’s really what you want to do. I don’t advocate for that. I advocate for people doing what they want to do and being the best at that that they can be just what’s in their ability.
Lisa: What would you consider to be some of your biggest successes?
Tammy: I think the fact that we’ve made it five years in the community that we’re in is a success and that we’re growing. There are always challenges. We’re a nonprofit. We have all the same challenges that every other nonprofit has in terms of funding and capacity all that good stuff. I think one of the greatest successes is that we’ve survived five years and that people really know who we are in a short time. I’ve been a cheerleader and an advocate for Biddeford for the past nine years and you start to hear it when people like you guys call and ask me to be interviewed. I was on the stage with the director of the National Endowment For The Arts a couple of years ago and to even be considered to be in that role means that we’re doing something right. We’re calling attention to a community that needs it, a community that has been under valued I guess, for lack of a better word. There’s still a stigma attached to Biddeford. People are afraid to come downtown. It’s just absolutely ridiculous. It really is. I mean if you’ve spent anytime there recently there’s all this energy and different people walking around on the street. Overcoming that misconception about what Biddeford is has been my mission for the past nine years.
Lisa: What would you consider to be your biggest challenges that are facing Engine over the next let’s say five years?
Tammy: Well, I think given that our mission and our focus has been to help at least downtown Biddeford realize economic and community vitality, there’s always the threat of the housing and real estate boom that will push some of the traditional businesses out of the way because they can’t afford to be in that area. I mean Portland’s having the same conversations and more so even than we are. If you look at communities that revitalize themselves either by having had artists in the community or being able to focus on that intentionally as part of revitalization, how do you keep that? In the next five years I feel like Biddeford’s really going to … It’s already happening. There’s a bit of a real estate speculation going on for good reason. It is like the last community on the coast of southern Maine that hasn’t really gone off so to speak. I think the threat is affordability. Not that Engine can necessarily do much about that, but we own a building. We hope to own other builds at some point in the future and to make them affordable so that we can keep the artists and the designers and the creative economy in the community that helped build it.
Lisa: You’re currently working through some renovations.
Tammy: We are. Am I dusty? Currently, we’re moving out of our existing space the one that we started up in. We’re moving into a second space that’s not one that we own. It’s about three times bigger and a little less expensive, and so it’ll allow us to stretch out a little bit more. It’s directly across from the building that we were gifted back in 2011 I believe it was by the Reny family. That ties the story together, right? We own the former Reny’s Department store. It’s an eighteen-thousand square foot somewhat dilapidated historic building. It’s absolutely beautiful. It’s got this white marble facade that is so unique to the area. It’s a long process. Even at a nominal amount of money per square foot it’s a couple million dollars that we’re looking at to do this project. We’re starting. We’re picking away at it. Our hope is to occupy that building in the next couple of years at least in some way and potentially stay in the space across the street and do something slightly different in that space. We’re trying to occupy lower Main Street.
Lisa: I like it. You’re occupying the lower Main Street Biddeford with art.
Tammy: Yes, art and creativity and good design hopefully and energy activating those spaces so that there are tons of different people from kids to grandmothers and grandfathers coming in there and parts of the community that really need some aspirations and hope. We hope to just make it a big melting pot of creativity.
Lisa: Tammy, how can people find out about Engine?
Tammy: Well, we are all over the web. We have a website, feedtheengine.org. We’re on Facebook. We tweet every once in a while when I have the energy for it. You can pretty much walk onto Main Street and say, “Hey, where’s Tammy?”, and someone, if you ask five people, someone will know where I’m at.
Lisa: Well, I encourage people to spend some time in Biddeford see what’s going on down there. There’s a lot I know that’s definitely the case. We’ve been speaking with Tammy Ackerman, who is the co-founder and executive director of Engine Incorporated, a community arts organization based in Biddeford. I really appreciate all the work you’re doing for my family’s hometown. It’s great stuff, and I look forward to spending some time down there myself and seeing what’s going on.
Tammy: Excellent. I’m a great tour guide.
Lisa: Thanks, Tammy.
Tammy: Thank you.