Place
Harbor Works is a photography gallery of landscape and seascape stories located in a Civil War-era home overlooking Cundy’s Harbor, one of Maine’s last working waterfronts. Taking the name for the physical structures that shelter all harbors—the granite breakwaters and piers that here bear the impressions of Maine’s quarrymen—Harbor Works represents places inhabited by families whose histories are deeply connected to the raw necessities of life: fuels and metals, livestock and fisheries, timber, grains, and fibers. As a village whose livelihood stems from America’s oldest industry—the once bountiful North Atlantic fishery that gave impetus to the exploration and settlement of the continent—Cundy’s Harbor embodies the essence of this Gallery.
Situated on the Holbrook Working Waterfront, a non-profit, historical property whose commercial wharf and general store were saved from the prospect of private development, Harbor Works is dedicated to exhibits that document a vanishing America. The Italianate-style Holbrook-Trufant House, whose north end comprises the Gallery, lends itself to storytelling. The modest Crow’s Room and Galley, flanked by a narrow black walnut stairway and 1890’s brass porthole that are reminiscent of an early schooner, offer an intimate space for visual narratives of family, community and culture, while the spacious Captain’s Room, crested by a high tin ceiling, provides a handsome setting for photo essays about industry, craft and work. A welcoming breezeway with large panel images and feature artist statement introduces visitors to each display.
Surrounded by a tenacious community that continues to survive the development of the coast of Maine, Harbor Works is an appropriate place for stories that portray the working waterfront. From widely-acclaimed features like Olive Pierce’s Up River to the Harbor Log, visitors have an opportunity to learn about the daily reality of places like Cundy’s Harbor. Lending intensity and authenticity to the exhibits is the activity on the wharves, which serve a large fleet of boats for lobstering, shrimping and fin-fishing. At a time when only twenty miles of working waterfront remain along Maine’s 3,500 mile coast, the presence of fishermen landing 500-pound tuna or unloading herring from a 95-foot purseiner is inspiring and instructive. Pick-up trucks and seafood delivery vans lining the roadway, motors gurgling on the water and the sharp voices of lobstermen underscore the impression of work, while the moist salt air, tinged by bait and mud flat, filters through the Gallery’s abundant windows.
As a rural gallery in a country that is now overwhelmingly metropolitan—where farms and fishing communities are home to less than three million people (one percent of the national population) and where many towns have lost their productive foundations—Harbor Works has unique challenges and opportunities. Undeterred by the increasing commercialization of the Maine coast, it strives to engage socially conscious visitors with collections of an unexpected realism that speaks of another side to America. Often overlooked for the many galleries whose eclectic displays idealize the seascape, it distinguishes itself with unsentimental narratives that provide a context for understanding the working waterfront. Though its historic home occupies the end of the public road, the Gallery offers an ideal location for place-based educational exhibits. Far from art walks and photo fests, it reaches out to the local community with documentary programs like YouthWorks, which encourages children of commercial fishing families to tell their stories through pictures.
Welcoming visitors by land and sea, Harbor Works will engage anyone interested in the nature of place. Contemplate the stories as you walk through the intimate rooms of one of coastal Maine’s most historic homes. See the Gallery’s permanent, framed collection of real photo postcards documenting working landscapes and seascapes from a century ago. Browse through the small visual arts library of books and periodicals on landscape, culture and work. Join the occasional events, including opening receptions, hosted on a spacious lawn overlooking the harbor, where one may hear children returning home from hand-hauling their traps, learn how federal regulations are affecting ground fisherman or catch the latest gossip about a local lobster feud. Enjoy a visit to the 1930’s-era Holbrook Store and stop for lunch at the Holbrook wharf below the Gallery. Surrounded by the elements, a half mile of working waterfront and a cluster of century-old cottages, Harbor Works is a memorable experience.