Transcription of Maine on Film, #88
Speaker 1: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. Recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street Portland, Maine. Download past shows and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on itunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedics Specialists, Mike Lepage and Beth Franklin of Re/Max Heritage, Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes and Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 88, Maine on Film. Airing for the first time on Sunday, May 19th 2013. From the rocky coast to the western mountain, Maine is home to vistas wild and wonderful. It is also home to the Maine Media Workshop and College in Rockport where photographers hone their skills in order to fully capture Maine’s great beauty.
This week we celebrate the school’s 40th anniversary with internationally-known photographer, Barbara Goodbody and Meg Weston, president of the Maine Media Workshops and College. There is beauty in looking beyond. Most of us are guilty of seeing things for what we believe them to be rather than on what they are. We are startled when they’re revealed to be more. We are startled when we realize that we are capable of understanding things in new ways and in sharing this understanding with others.
I began the journey to doctorhood at the tender age of 17, the year that I graduated from high school. As a premed student, my time was spent examining things from a scientific perspective. I took classes in Calculus and Organic Chemistry, Biology and Physics. I continue the scientific path for medical school residency and fellowship education.
I was trained to see people as interesting puzzles that required solving. I was trained to see the world as a larger ecosystem, within which my fellow human creatures and I existed. Several years ago, I began to look beyond what I had been trained to see. Carrying my camera with me while running, I paid careful attention to my surroundings taking shots that would represent the beauty of the ecosystem in which I lived.
I was amazed by how much there was to notice and how much I had been missing. At about the same time, I took up the study of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. Again, I was astounded at how much more there was to understand about my fellow humans. I have never been able to return to a strictly scientific medical practice nor have I been able to return to a strictly scientific way of living.
I am dazzled daily by the beauty that surrounds me. I am challenged daily to look beyond. We hope that you will also look beyond today as you listen to our conversation with internationally-known photographer Barbara Goodbody and Meg Weston, the president of Maine Media Workshops and College. Thank you for joining us.
In one of my first conversations with Barbara Goodbody, she said to me, “Well, you know there are no coincidences.” I thought, this is a woman I can relate to. I said, “You know, that’s how I live my life too.” In the studio with me today, I have Barbara Goodbody who is an internationally-known photographer. Also a member of the board of directors for the Maine Media Workshops. I think we’re going to have a great conversation. Thanks for coming in Barbara.
Barbara: You’re more than welcome.
Dr. Lisa: Barbara, you are from the Midwest originally but you’ve lived in Maine a long time.
Barbara: I have. I was born in the Midwest in Indiana. My father was a career naval officer in World War Two. We traveled a lot. My husband and I moved here from Washington in 1973, Washington D.C. I live in Cumberland and have been in the same house since we moved here. Raised three children and I’m happy to be here.
Dr. Lisa: 1973, that’s a long time to commit to the State of Maine. What was it about Maine that drew you here and kept you here?
Barbara: It’s a good question. It’s a good question. I had no experience with New Englanders. I had grown up traveling as a Navy Junior. Most of my life was spent in the mid-Atlantic state in Annapolis, Maryland. Then when my husband and I met in New York City and we move to Washington D.C. back where I had also gone to high school and junior college.
I was a happy camper there until we got involved in the Ed Muskie presidential campaign and met some good Mainers. They convinced my husband to move us to Maine. I’ve been here eversince.
Dr. Lisa: You’re still finding good Mainers. This is one of the reasons why I met you as Susan Grisanti who is the editor for Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design. She said, “This is a photographer.” She’s truly insightful and has a lot of connections with other people in the State of Maine. Then my conversations with you, it’s clear that you continue to be so interested in the community. You were telling me about recently seeing a talk at CIEE.
Barbara: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Talk to me about that.
Barbara: A number of years ago, about seven years ago, I was curious. I travel quite a bit. I have one son in Boulder, a daughter in New York and grew up in a Midwestern family that loved to travel. That’s in my blood and also a Navy Junior which gets back to last week. I was on a plane from Maine to Colorado to see my son. All these kids got on the airplane in Minneapolis.
One of the facilitators, chaperons sat next to me and I said, “Where are all these kids going?” She said, “We’re going to peacejam.” I said, “What is peacejam?” She said, “Well, it’s an organization founded by a young couple in Denver, Colorado. They rallied their team Nobel Peace Prize laureates together, created the laureates themselves, created a Global Call to Action document. They committed themselves to meeting with high school students who create their own projects based on this Global Call to Action document in their own community.”
I said, “Well, who’s going to be there?” They said, “About 3,000 kids from across the country. It’s an international organization and 10 Nobel Peace Prize laureates including the Dalai Lama.” I said, “Cool.” I’ve never heard of it. That’s unusual for me. I got back to Maine. I called the headquarters and I said, “i’ve never heard of you in Northern New England. What’s happened?” They said, “Well, just recently we had a volunteer for the New England region. He’s in Connecticut and he’s promised to organize peacejam. What’s more, we have one program that is functioning at Mount View High School in Thorndike, Maine.”
There’s a little bit of a long story. Last week Leymah Gbowee, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate from Liberia was asked by Cathy Lee on her Women in Justice Lecture Series to come and speak in Maine. I said, “If she’s a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate that’s committed to peacejam, I want to meet her.” For the last seven years, we’ve been trying to get more interest in the State of Maine and find more people. It’s flowing and happening that two programs going on now.
Cathy Lee has founded the Women in Justice Lecture Series. Cathy Roberts who is now the chapter coordinator for peacejam in the State of Maine and I had lunch. I got them together and we had lunch at the Cumberland Club. Leymah had said, “i’ll come to Maine but I want to meet with students in Maine while I’m here.” The three of us talked and we thought that this was a great opportunity for all of us. Cathy Lee arranged for CIEE to have a reception.
John Palo thought that was a great idea. Leymah came and gave fantastic lecture which they had to move to the Westbrook Center for the Arts because they had over 800 people at her lecture. The Women in Justice Lecture is very exciting to know there is such concern for this in our state.
Dr. Lisa: What types of work is she doing in Liberia?
Barbara: I think it was about 2007, she had had enough … Charles Taylor was their dictator, president. He was a brutal dictator. She decided that if she was able to rally women in Liberia together in a peaceful protest against him that maybe it can make a difference. She rallied both Christian and Muslim women together.
They’re all dressed in white. They peacefully would make their presence known and sometimes with a strong voice. It’s a great documentary that’s been made by Abby Disney about her work and librarian how she helped bring down that dictator. It’s called the Pray the Devil Back to Hell.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve done work in India and you’ve used the work that you’ve done in India to raise awareness. Tell me about that.
Barbara: When I first went to the Maine photographic workshop in 1986, I gave myself a 50th birthday present and spent two weeks there totally terrified. It was harder for me to buy a good camera than it would have been to spend more money on two dresses. I went up there and had a great experience. It’s a fantastic place. I started going back to more workshops. The next year I had in a work with a young man who lives in Camden. We became great friends. He and his wife continued to be great friends of mine 26 years later.
He had been invited. He is an ethnologist. He had been invited by this Mesonian to be the study leader on a travel trip to India. He said, “My wife doesn’t like to go on these work trips with me but if you come with me on this Mesonian trip,” he said, “I’d like a photo buddy and I will take you into the village at sunrise and we will begin to photograph together before the formal trip begins.”
I said, “Okay.” That just took a great leap of faith and signed up for the trip. He honored that promise and we would get up before sunrise and before the tour started and that we would go into the villages and photograph. It was total magic. We continued being great friends. I traveled with him five or six more times in India and four more on my own. It enriched my life more than I can ever imagine. It was really life-changing.
Dr. Lisa: That is a big leap of faith, a big leap personally because you’ve taken up this interest in photography and you really just jump right in at age 50. You’ve traveled across the world not once but multiple times. Not everybody has that adventurous spirit. Where do you think that comes from in you?
Barbara: I laugh about it when people say that. I learned that my great … this is a great story. My mother, when we first move to Maine, I thought I had no connection in New England. My mother said to me, “I remember my mother saying how much she loved Portland, Maine.” I said, “Mother, what do you mean? Your mother is from Indiana and her parents were from Indiana, weren’t they?”
It turned out that my great grandfather, Marion Crosley had been a Universalist minister here in Portland, Maine in about 1895. He had a church and his responsibility which has now been torn down. I understand a Universalist church. He’d also been a trustee of Westbrook Seminary which is now a part of University of New England.
His wife, my grandmother whose name was Mehitable Crosley, I believe really didn’t like the role of a Universalist minister, although she performed it very well. They lived up on 47 North Street in the eastside I learned later. So she would take groups of women and men I guess to tours. They’d get on a steamer and then they get on a train and she wrote about it. She wrote about taking the group into the hounds and turkey in the 19th century.
I said, “Okay.” This must be part of the reason that I have that in my genetic history. Also, my paternal great grandmother also was a great traveler. Grandmother was also a great traveler, so both my maternal and my paternal. Women in that era were always involved and interested in the world.
Dr. Lisa: We’ll return to our program in a moment. On the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we’ve long understood the important link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the subject is Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Tom: My son likes to create stop-motion videos. My wife loves to capture beauty in a photo shoot take. One daughter loves to edit and make inspiring images and one uses her talent to draw her favorite characters. We have truly entered an age where images are words. They speak to us and we use them to convey meaning we could never get into words.
We have time to take in the beauty of a picture and quickly understand the relationships of people in a photo. We see what we can’t hear. We show what we can’t say. That is the world we live in. As I speak to you every Sunday, I can only half-communicate all I want to say.
At Shepard Financial, we help you create the vision; the vision that inspires you to go, to unlock and get connected to the beauty around you. We help you edit your life and find the combinations that inspire you. You are our favorite character. We like to draw you into our family. You’ll find our offices in Yarmouth and Harpswell and online at shepardfinancialmaine.com. Come and see us.
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Dr. Lisa: The mindset I get from you is that you don’t really have the same feeling of being bounded of boundaries that it’s just as easy to go to India or it’s just as easy to take photography up. It doesn’t seem that you have this fear that so often holds people back from doing things in their lives. Something interests you and you follow through. You call up and you say, “I’m interested in this.”
Barbara: Doesn’t everybody?
Dr. Lisa: Not everybody does. That is the thing.
Barbara: I don’t know where that comes from. My mother’s brother, my uncle, was a great explorer. His wife was a member of the Society for Women Geographers. She introduced me to that organization. I became a member of that. I went to 12 different schools before I graduated from high school. It’s probably easier for me to explore than it is for me to root myself and stay in one place.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve done both. You lived in Maine since 1973. You are both grounded and you are an explorer. You’re a mother and a grandmother and a woman who has had to look outside of the traditional roles of being a woman. When you took up this photography at age 50, you could just easily have decided you’re going to stay home and take care of the grandkids but that’s not what you wanted to do.
Barbara: i’ve always been interested in travel. I call my home here in Cumberland my safe harbor and that made me feel much more comfortable because we’re nautical state. We know what it’s like to pull up anchor and sail away. It’s good to have a safe harbor to come home to and Maine’s been that for me.
Dr. Lisa: The Maine Photographic Workshop is now a Maine Media Workshops. That has also provided a home for you of sorts. You’ve become very involved in supporting and furthering their mission. You started this whole process 36 years ago?
Barbara: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Why is this so important to you?
Barbara: In midlife, I wasn’t quite sure what my next was going to be. My husband we’re in the process of a divorce. I didn’t know what the next step was. I went to see a therapist here in Portland. I didn’t know that his specialty was art therapy. He asked me, he said, “What do you like to do creatively?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Anything.” He said, “Painting, gardening, singing, what is it in your soul that you’d like?” I said, “I’d always like to be a better photographer.”
He said, “Well, why aren’t you?” I said, “Because I can never photograph like them.” He said, “Who’s them?” I said, “Those National Geographic and Life’s photographers set were on my parent’s coffee table during the war.” He said, “Well,” and I said, “Well, there is a photo workshop i’ve heard of in Rockport and I suppose I could go there.” That’s when he said, “Well, is there any reason why you can’t?” I said, “No.” That’s when I signed up for the workshop.
I think that one of the most important shifts for me was tapping into my own creative soul. I was terrified, absolutely terrified that I wouldn’t be able to paint a picture on my wall much less than anybody else’s.
Dr. Lisa: Barbara, how can people find out about your photography and the other work that you’re doing?
Barbara: My photography? Currently, i’ve been honored this year in my decade. I was invited to one of the exhibitions of a series of four exhibitions at the University of New England Westbrook Campus Art Gallery. It’s one of the Maine women pioneers in the arts. That exhibition is up at the moment and will be up through May. I agonized over what I was going to put in for months and at least they’re very interesting process for me. That’s one way.
Dr. Lisa: I am thrilled that you and I, we’re able to intersect that coincidental moment that we had recently at the cellar door. Serious, I’m thrilled that you agreed to come in and spend time with me today and bless our listeners with your wisdom on so many different levels personal, professional and that you’ve also been willing to share so much. Thank you for coming in. We’ve been talking with …
Barbara: Lisa, thank you. It’s been fun.
Dr. Lisa: It has been. It’s been a lot of fun. For our listeners, we’ve been talking with Barbara Goodbody, internationally-known photographer and member of the board of directors for the Maine Media Workshops.
The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: Many times when I’m working with a client in nature and in their land and landscape, I will make them acutely aware of the directions and what the powers of those directions really mean. We are a north-based society. We live in North America. We are very head-based. We have a very head-based energy. It’s a place of the White Buffalo. It’s a place of wisdom. It also is a place of great conflict.
The south is the place of child, the place of innocence, trust, love, understanding. Hence, you have South America. Those people are very emotional. They emote. The east is all about new beginnings, about bringing new things into our lives. It’s a wonderful direction because it’s all about hope and promise.
Then you have the west which is really about moving into the darkness. Really it’s the most powerful direction of all. It really evokes the sense of perhaps a little sense of intimidation and fear and trepidation and fear. We always end up coming back up to the east again. It’s a full cycle.
You can honor these directions in your landscape and really call attention to these places. Really try to understand how powerful these directions really are. I am Ted Carter. If you’d like, you can contact me at [email protected].
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Dr. Lisa: Yesterday, I had a very interesting conversation with a woman about the difference between left brain and right brain and how we see the world. This woman is with me in the studio today. I think we’re going to explore this topic a little bit more. She has been able to see the world using both her left brain and her right brain. This is Meg Weston who is the president of Maine Media Workshops and College which is up the mid-Coast from us and is celebrating four years. Thanks for coming in.
Meg: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.
Dr. Lisa: Meg, you have had a variety of different incarnations of yourself. You started out your professional career as a communications major in college and you’ve worked in business. You’ve worked in education. Tell me a little bit about your path?
Meg: When I graduated from college, I went to work for Bicknell Photo Service. I really followed a business career in advertising and marketing. Bicknell was bought by Konica Corporation, a Japanese company in 1988. Shortly thereafter, I became president of that US photo-finishing operations for Konica. We added more plans and grew our business. I had a wonderful business career. We’ve been international focused, working for a Japanese-owned company.
When I left there in 1997, it was to run the Portland Press Herald in Maine Sunday Telegram. I had a short period time in the newspaper and the media business which was very exciting because it was the time when people were really thinking about newspapers and the shifting nature of them and there was a vision about newspapers as being a news source but multiple outlets whether it’s on the internet or whether it’s on television or through direct marketing. That was very exciting.
After that, I got to run in as rarely digital imaging company with R&D in Tel Aviv and operations in the US and Japan. I consulted for a while. I became involved as a volunteer. Governor King appointed me to the board of trustees for the University of Maine System. I served on that board for 10 years and as Chair for two years.
After I’d left there, I’d became vice-president of advancement at the University of Southern Maine. I was in-charge of development and marketing for USM. I left there to apply for this position as president of Maine Media Workshops and College in Rockport which I feel is a position where all of my experience and my passion comes together.
Dr. Lisa: Amidst of that you also an MFA, a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Lesley College.
Meg: I did. In 2001, I went through a change. I had shut down a business that is rarely digital imaging company which I was really got caught in the .com buzz. I thought about my life and thought I don’t want to keep doing something that i’ve always done before.
My mother died when she was 48 years old. I was just turning 50. I really thought, we don’t have forever. What is it that I haven’t done, haven’t explored that I really want to do? For me, that was about my own creativity. I started studying photography as a fine art with John Paul Caponigro up in the mid-Coast.
Then a friend of mine said to me, she said, “You know, you got wonderful connections in the business world and you’re very supported by your friendships but the artistic side of you is really not that well-supported.” I thought about that and I thought I’d love to write. I’d really always wanted to write but I don’t have that structure around me. I decided to go back for an MFA degree. I chose Lesley because I could take an interdisciplinary approach and do focus on my creative writing but still do my photography.
Dr. Lisa: It is really, I keep using the word fascinating. I think it’s fascinating to me because it does seem like everything just keep wrapping around and keeps wrapping around and keeps wrapping around. It’s almost like you were dancing around the idea of photography and writing. You were doing business around all of these things until you finally got to that core and you started doing these things more yourself for yourself.
Meg: I think it’s a good description. I’ve been thinking lately how the core of who we are is planted really early in life. For me, that whole essence of creativity is so important as sort of that wellspring or that source of what feeds us and nourishes us and allows us to grow and be vital way up into our later years in life.
Coming back to that source has been really important for me. I find creativity everywhere. I found business really creative. I went to my high school reunion a few years back and somebody showed me my elementary school yearbook. In the elementary school yearbook, they asked everybody, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” On my niche said I wanted to be a writer.
I had forgotten that. I gotten just wrapped up in all the other things that I’m interested in in life and wanted to do. In some ways, I’m come back to those roots.
Dr. Lisa: I do think that that happens. I think that sometimes we end up doing things that we’re good at because we know we’re good at them. Other people tell us we’re good at them and other people say, you can make money doing this. You can make a living doing this.
Just because we’re good at them doesn’t mean that that’s what we should be doing. It takes a lot of courage to come back to that place where you’ll say, “Okay, I know I’m good at all of these things but this is where my passions lie.” How did you get back to that place?
Meg: I think because both of my parents died at early ages. I spent time thinking about what’s important to me in my life. That is part of what brought me back to those elements that whether it’s the photography or the writing or those elements of creativity that I see people. I’m inspired every day in my work by people at all ages of lives that come there and get inspiration. They find that energy and source from that whether they’re faculty or the students or whatever.
For me, it’s been important in my life this well. For me, it’s been about integration. That’s why this job feels so right to me because I get to integrate my business experience and my fund raising experience and my marketing experience, plus my passion for photography and all of these things together and for education.
Dr. Lisa: That is I think I reference the right-brain and left-brain as I was introducing you. That’s in the conversation that we had had yesterday about the need for creativity within business. I think you’re actually right that it’s not one side or another side. You have to follow one side or another side. It’s that you have to find the connections. You have to be able to do both to really proceed in the world.
Meg: I think that’s very true. We each find that connection or that integration in different ways. I was thinking if I was driving down here about one of the inspiring students that came to our workshop last summer. She wrote in her evaluation something like, “I’m 73 years old. I’ve been an artist all my life. I was feeling tired and worn out and in a rot. I came here and I was so inspired after week that I just want to go out and take on the world.” That’s what I think I look for and all of us look for wherever we find that in life.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about that. She found this at Maine Media Workshops and College. This is why you’re now the president there. This is why you’re helping them celebrate 40 years. This is why this has become such a passion for you because it’s not just about you. It’s about brining other people into the fold.
Meg: It’s not about me at all really. Even though for me, it just feels so right. For all the people that come there, no matter what walk of life, I believe that we teach the art and craft of visual storytelling. We allow people in that process of telling their story whatever that story is, whatever medium, whether they’re filmmakers, whether they’re photographers, whether they’re designers or book artist, whatever that is, they have a story to tell.
It might be very personal. It might about the environment. It may be a documentary or an advocacy story. It may be abstract but we give them tools and inspiration and an opportunity to leave the distractions of their everyday life and just immerse themselves in that whether it’s for a week or for four weeks for a nine-month long certificate program or the three-yearlong MFA degree program. That’s the opportunity that they have.
They join a community. We refer to it as under the tent because when you come to Maine Media, you’re not only studying and work with other folks but you also eat the meals. In the summertime, you’re eating meals outside at picnic tables under the tent. It’s what happens under the tent. It’s what happens when you connect with other passionate people. You find that inner source of inspiration in yourself.
Dr. Lisa: We in the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast hope that our listeners enjoy their own work lives to the same extent we do and fully embrace everyday. As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: No matter what we do for work, there’s always a busy season and it’s very easy to become overwhelmed by all that needs doing. This is when one word needs to come to mind, perspective. When we need to remember that no matter what, we all work hard to do our best and get things done efficiently and in a timely manner.
At the end of the day, we need to look at what we’ve accomplished for the day and not obsess with what we didn’t get done. Our to-do list or our inbox will never be empty. If it ever was, that would be disappointing, don’t you think? The nature of your in-basket is that it’s meant to have things in it. In fact, it could be argued that a full basket is essential for success. It means your time is in demand.
A favorite line from a John Lennon song I sing to my girls is, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” It rings so true. When it gets hectic, we need to acknowledge the fact that nothing is more important than our own sense of happiness and inner peace. Very little in our lives it truly falls into the emergency category. I’ll bet some fall into urgency but there is a significant difference.
If we stay focus and prioritize, it will all get done. It always does. When it gets a bit crazy in work or in life, remind yourself of what you’ve accomplished during that day. You’ll be amazed and feel good about what’s coming down the pike for tomorrow. I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike lepage and Beth Franklin of Re/Max Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With Re/Max Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com.
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Dr. Lisa: We have now youtube where anybody can film anything and put it out there in the world. We have Instagram and anybody can pursue their own visual artistry. I think people, even adults, kids and adults are coming to the table at this knowledge that doesn’t have to be either or. They don’t have to choose business or finance or being an artist.
Meg: I think that’s true. I certainly haven’t … it took me a while in my life to stop dividing my life between the business person that was Meg and the artist. My photography has been around photographic volcanoes around the world. I didn’t let a lot of people know that. That was a very private thing. That was what I did on vacation. To be able to come together in a place in life where it’s not an either or. That it’s important to be both ends in the world.
It’s wonderful that you can be a business person and an artist and it is important to be both. That those things feed each other.
Dr. Lisa: I love that photographing volcanoes was your almost a dirty little secret. Of all the things that people worry about other people knowing about them that is very interesting. Why volcanoes? First of all, why did you feel it had to be so private? Why did you pick volcanoes?
Meg: A lot of kids when they’re young are fascinated by volcanoes or dinosaurs or music. We all play an instrument when we’re young. Then we grow up and we forget about those things. For me, I didn’t forget about it. As I said, my mother was a scientist and an artist. She graduated from Bernard with a degree in chemistry. Yet she was a housewife if you will in that era. She became a potter. She used her chemistry in glazes.
She introduced me to the wonders of science. She introduced me to the Island of Surtsey that erupted in 1963. I looked at those photographs in National Geographic magazine and I was just in awe. It was magic. It was something being created out of nothing. This land that came up from underneath the ocean and the colors, the red, that lava flowing into the ocean.
Maybe by passion for photography was also related to this fascination with what can happen in the natural world. I didn’t lose that later in life but this is something I want to see and I used to go out and see. The second part of your question was why was that a secret. When I was in business, there weren’t a lot of women in business. There weren’t a lot of women certainly at the levels. It was very important to me to pave that path if you will or to be accepted.
In that day and age, we wore blue or gray or black suits so you look like a man. You did the things that were accepted in that realm. That interest didn’t seem to fit. I thought that that’s not something that people need to know about me. They need to know that I’m competent, that I’m capable, that I can get results, that I can grow a business and that I understand the numbers.
Those were the things that were important and the rest of it I thought, “That’s my private life.” It’s lovely to get through an age in life when they’re both the same, that they’re both important and that you don’t have to hide who you are. Who you are is the essence of what you bring to your work.
Dr. Lisa: It is a funny social commentary considering how many people say. I won’t gender specify but feel like they can talk about golf or talk about sports or talk about lots of other things that have nothing to do with work and they can bring that into the workplace. Yet as you’re a woman, so this happened to be you. You didn’t feel like you could bring your art into the workplace. To me, it’s just a funny cultural thing.
Meg: It is funny because my work was about photography. It was about consumer photography or media. I had learned to play golf too. I could talk about golf and enjoy it because working for a Japanese company, they all when they visited wanted to play golf. That’s okay. I lost it on some other sports metaphors.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about what is going on. It’s been 40 years now Maine Media Workshops and College. You’re doing some really interesting things this years, some really exciting things that I think people are going to want to hear about.
Meg: It’s great. Forty years ago, this was a vision from the founder of the school, a man named David Lyman who created Maine Photographic Workshops. Then a few years later, he added filmmaking and broadcast and really expanded that. People have been coming to this somewhat out of the place in Rockport, Maine from all over the world, 44 different countries around the world for 40 years.
It’s just wonderful to honor that history. We have some things going on this summer. For instance, we have a photography show with CMCA that’s called Mentor, 40 photographers, 40 years. It will exhibit some of the photographers who have been with the workshops or taught at the workshops over the years and the people that they’ve mentored who have then gone out on to teach and mentor other people. It’s that concentric circles that go out into the world.
We’ll also have the filmmaking mentor even featuring one of the wonderful filmmakers who have taught at the colleges and somebody that they’ve mentored. We’ll have an alumni weekend and we’ll have a galley in Union Hall. Those are things really about the 40th anniversary.
What I get excited about is also the future of the school. We’ve launched two new programs. I talked a little bit about the professional certificate and visual storytelling. We also have a new independent film certificate program. That’s a modular program. People can come there and study for four weeks and learn basics of filmmaking. They can come back for six weeks and do a more advanced class. Then they can come back and do a series of master level workshops with professional filmmakers.
Then they can come back. They can do them sequentially or they can come back year after year and produce their own film using those wonderful, incredible facilities that we have soundstage and equipment and all of that or go out into the world and have a field experience that with our networks and our connections that we help place them in.
We have launched these two new programs this year which is very exciting. We have our MFA degree low-residency degree program which is really the gem of what we teach. I’m still excited that we have guest faculty that come in. Cig Harvey is coming in May to be a guest faculty. She’s just a wonderful, vibrant photographer. I don’t know if you know her work. It’s just incredible work.
Ross Katz is coming who did Lost in Translation to be the filmmaking guest faculty. Our core faculty is just wonderfully gifted. I’m just very excited about the programs that we have and the way we’re thinking about our longer terms programs and our workshop programs and how they integrate that word again but how they intersect that somebody might come for a week and decide may want to stay for the 12-week residency program.
They may come for that and decide they want to stay for a year or they may have come and say, “I want to study for three years and be part of an artistic community that really supports me in my art.” Those intersections between all of the things that we do short term, longer term, weekend, weeklong, three-yearlong, whether you’re coming as a young artist and you’re 14 years old or you’re coming at 72 years old and finding a source of inspiration that you’ve been doing year after year.
I love the fact that we do all of that. I’m looking forward to the future of the school. It’s a very exciting time for us.
Dr. Lisa: How do people find about Maine Media Workshops and College?
Meg: I believe word of mouth is the number one way. We certainly have a large alumni base for over 40 years of being in business then people feel so strongly about it. They come back time and time and they tell their friends to come. That’s one way. We have a website that’s mainemedia.edu. Certainly people come to the website. They sign up for our newsletter and our mailing list on our newsletter comes. We advertise in different places. We certainly use Google Adwords to get the message out. We try to get the message out in a variety of different forms. We’re very active on our Facebook pages. A lot of people come to us through that.
Dr. Lisa: It’s been my pleasure to have you in talking to me today about the Maine Media Workshops and College and the 40 years and the celebration. I’ve been speaking with Meg Weston who is photographer herself and also president of Maine Media Workshops and College and also a volcano enthusiast. Thanks for coming in and being with me today.
Meg: Thank you so much for having me, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 88, Maine on Film. Our guests have included Barbara Goodbody and Meg Weston. For more information on our guests, visit doctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and wellbeing on the Bountiful Blog, bountiful-blog.org.
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This is Dr. Lisa Belisle hoping that you have enjoyed our show, Maine on Film about the Maine Media Workshops and College. We also hope that you will take the time to look beyond in your own life. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
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