Why Portland, Maine?

Portland is a paradox. It is at once a totally accessible and visitor friendly place with many appealing qualities at first glance, and also an insider’s treasure trove. What Portland shows to tourists on Commercial Street and the Old Port is on a par with many scenic New England towns—and the food is considerably better. But just below the surface, in neighborhoods all over Portland and its surrounding towns, people are hard at work making amazing stuff. And some of that stuff is as good as you will find anywhere and exerts a cultural influence wildly disproportionate to our scale as a metropolis. Case in point, writer Mike Paterniti. If you are familiar with this site you have seen his photo with his partner Sara Corbett on the slideshow of “People to Watch” on our home page, and you may have watched the audio slideshow about their life and work in Portland that it links to. You may have heard them mentioned in some posts as founders of The Telling Room. But, again, that’s just the surface. To get an idea of what kind of writer Mike really is—he is in fact a “writer’s writer—have a look at the two part interview on Neiman Storyboard about narrative voice and storytelling. [Neiman Storyboard is a project of the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.] Although the overt purpose of the interview is to talk about how Mike immerses himself in his reporting and then through instinct and experiment finds the right narrative voice and storytelling devices that best suit each subject, some of the most revealing bits are told by Sara in an introduction about his idiosyncratic writing process: “He listens to music when he writes – really loud music, same song over and over again, usually one song per story. He drinks insane amounts of Starbucks iced tea while on deadline. He has a surfboard, and when he’s on deadline he loads his surfboard into our minivan – which basically means that nobody else in our family, which includes three kids and a dog, can fit in the minivan – and keeps it there, not because he’s going to actually manage to go surfing but it serves as some very oversized talisman that tells him someday he’ll get his story done and feel free again.” The range of his subjects is wide and strange, from driving cross-country with Einstein’s brain (which, as an article in Harper’s entitled, “Driving Mr. Albert,” won the National Magazine Award for feature writing and then became a book by the same name), to the book he is currently working on about his quest in Spain to taste the world’s most expensive cheese (and the amazing story and storyteller he discovered in the process.) What is most striking, though, is how deep his practice is. Most journalists are doing a good job if they get the facts right and get their copy in on time. Paterniti brings to his magazine articles the story telling craft of the novelist while retaining the veracity and atmosphere of his subjects. Yet as intense as his process is, he is also a father and the partner of a writer of equal accomplishment. What makes this more than another eccentric artist story is how he ends the interview, “My wife does the same work, so we switch off… The juggle day in and day out is so tricky. And it has to do with both of us learning, or beginning to learn, how to allow the other to do whatever he or she needs to. So there are times when that person needs to be off the clock to get that writing done, and they can’t be carrying the guilt of not being at home. You have to just take it off of them for the period that they’re out there, because they’ll be doing the same for you when you’re gone. It would be harder if she didn’t get what I do or if I didn’t get what she does.” People come to Portland seeking this kind of balance where the ease of life allows for the intensity of work. It’s no vacation, but it can be a pretty great life.

Fore Street Restaurant, photo by Vilseskogen/flickr.com

Bring it on! That’s the message of a blog post yesterday by fashion designer Brook Delorme of Brook There in Portland (not incidentally, one of our “People to Watch.”). Titled simply “Competition,” Brook makes the point that as more and better designers come to Portland, the prospects will be better for all of the designers here, and particularly for the ones that that understand what they distinctively have to offer. Not only will there be even more of a design community, but that community will attract the businesses and customers that designers need to succeed: “If a city becomes known for a consumer item, such as designer clothing, it becomes a destination—seeing the streets of Portland filled with more designers (clothing or otherwise) gives the city an individuality, draws more business, more shoppers, and more suppliers.” Competition breeds innovation, of course, but Brook goes farther to say that, “The second part of competition, especially with a creative product—is that there really is no competition. Everything is different, and speaks to different people, to a different market. Coco Chanel was not a ‘better’ designer than Dior, just addressed a different need. In a creative world, there is room and need for a variety of visions, and true creativity is financially rewarded….as long as you find the market.” Roxanne Quimby seems to be thinking along similar lines to Brook in terms of the opportunity for fashion design and manufacturing in Portland with her introduction of the Quimby Colony. In an interview this summer by Peter A.Smith in the Maine Magazine, Quimby said, “I had heard that Mayor Bloomberg was interested in downsizing the Garment District in New York from 2 million square feet to 200,000, because he wanted more hotels and restaurants. So, I thought, ‘Well, we’re not that far from New York. Maybe Portland could have this center of commerce around garments.’ We used to have textile mills in Maine. We won’t do it on this big textile scale like they did, and pollute the rivers, and everything else, but just support little independent designers who are doing micro-businesses, carving out little niches for themselves.” We have already seen this with the food scene (shrewdly, the other focus of the Quimby Colony) and the prospect of the fashion scene attaining that level of density and national recognition would be good for all of Portland’s businesses, not just Brooks.

Burt’s Bees founder and multi-foundation philanthropist, Roxanne Quimby, will speak at the Portland Regional Chamber’s Egg & Issues breakfast on Wednesday, December 8 from 7-9 am at the Holiday Inn By The Bay, 88 Spring St., in Portland. Quimby is possessed by two grand passions, art and nature. After she sold Burt’s Bees in 2003, she put her energy into two foundations, the Quimby Family Foundation, with a mission “to advance wilderness values and to increase access to the arts throughout Maine,” and Elliotsville Plantation, “a non-profit foundation established for the acquisition and conservation of land and the preservation of open space for the benefit of the public and for the conduct of educational and stewardship programs in furtherance of land conservation.” Quimby has now conserved approximately 120,000 acres of wild lands in Maine’s north country and has just been appointed by President Obama to sit on the board of the National Parks Foundation. Her most recent project swings the pendulum back towards the arts, specifically in Portland. Her non-profit urban artist-in-residence program, The Quimby Colony, focuses on fashion/costume/textile design and the culinary arts. The Colony is located in the former Roma Restaurant building at 769 Congress St., and has already hosted it’s first fashion/costume/textile fellows as well as numerous fashion/performance events and readings by authors on culinary subjects (in collaboration with Rabelais). In her Eggs & Issues talk, Quimby “will describe how this venture can help Portland fulfill a vision of itself as a creative, artistic community and a destination for artists and their patrons. She will also discuss the creative economy and its role in our community and the need for jobs to help the economy make a turn for the better.” Music to our ears. You can register for the event through the Chamber’s event page.

Fresh, local, seasonal—you hear it a lot—but Maine chefs do it better. That’s the delicious argument of “Fresh from Maine,” a gorgeous (and locally produced) new cookbook by writer Michael S. Sanders and photographer Russell French. The book is also beautifully designed by Lucian Burg of LUDesign (who had a major hand in the look of liveworkportland) which makes for an additional amuse bouche. Sanders and French, both founding members of Slow Food Portland, have surveyed the food scene from Kittery to Mount Desert Island for chefs who make the most of what the coast and farms of Maine has to offer. The book includes more than 50 recipes by 20 chefs and runs the gamut from Town Hill Bistro‘s Maine Shrimp and Peaky-Toe Crab Salad, to Bar Lola‘s Pan-Roasted Striped Bass with Endive and Orange, to Hugo‘s Braised Oxtails and Caoila‘s Panna Cotta with Raspberry Sauce. Steve Corry of 555‘s iconic Truffled Lobster Mac ‘n Cheese (above) is pictured in the book, but the recipe actually resides on the Table Arts Media‘s website with other premium content from the book and the author’s combined culinary archives, and is available to people who buy the book or subscribe to the site. The recipes are mostly fairly straight forward in the Maine style, but the ingredients are quite particular. The emphasis of the book is on the personalities of the different chefs, their novel approaches to food and how they finish and plate their dishes. They have a second edition and other projects in the pipeline, so we can count on not only more great food, but more great media about it. Perfect inspiration for cooking and eating out both, and proudly produced in Portland.

Spiced Lamb Loin with Carrot Puree, Hugo’s, Portland, Maine

Grilled Calamari with White Bean and Spinich Salad from Cailoa’s, Portland, Maine

Pan Roasted Striped Bass with Endive and Orange, Bar Lola, Portland, Maine

Photographs by Russell French from Fresh from Maine

The writer’s art is solitary and time-consuming, and what we see on the page rarely reveals the often torturous process of the writing itself. Live storytelling, by contrast, lets it all hang out. Taking a page from our newly extroverted printmakers at this Fall’s Block Party, The Telling Room, in association with the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, and SPACE Gallery is presenting Slant, the first in a new series of “off-the-cuff storytelling events.” This Friday, November 12, at 7:30 pm at SPACE Gallery, the Telling Room has invited “notable members of the Portland community to come tell their stories about ‘leaving.’” The title of the series comes from Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” and that’s what Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz, award-winning non-fiction writer Liz Peavey, performer and educator Gretchen Berg, and longtime Portland arts and cultural booster and unofficial mayor of Commercial Street Cyrus Hagge, among others, will attempt to do as they tell real ten-minute stories to a live audience without notes or props. Fans of The Moth Radio Hour on MPBN and Pecha Kucha will surely want to attend.

Anyone with more than passing contact with children these past few years has probably been dragooned into buying copious liters of Diet Coke and batons of Mentos candies to provioion an important “science experiment.” The experiment the kids are experiencing, the extreme chemical reaction between the artificially sweetened carbonated soda and the waxy coated oblate spheroid bonbons is only partially physical science. The bigger experiment is that they know about it at all and remember the two brands associated with the viral videos that started the craze. Well, the geniuses that made all that happen, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Volz of Eepybird are headquartered just an hour north of Portland, in Buckfield, Maine, and they’re still at it, exploring the viral powers of everyday objects, from sticky notes to shampoo.  Next week, you’ll be able to hear from the first hand as they moderate the third and final part of the Creative Toolbox Series at USM, in collaboration with the Maine Center for Creativity.“Nurturing Creativity in Your Business” will be held on Wednesday, November 17, 5:30–7:30pm, at University of Southern Maine, Lee Community Hall in the Wishcamper Center on the Portland Campus. Promises to be effervescent.

We’re proud to announce that Creative Portland has hired Jennifer Hutchins to be our executive director. Jennifer will oversee all aspects of the Creative Portland Corporation including Portland Arts and Cultural Alliance (PACA) and LiveWork Portland. See the story in the Portland Press Herald: “‘This announcement caps a very successful year for both organizations,’ Andy Graham, Creative Portland board president and owner of Portland Color, said in a press release issued late today. ‘By combining our resources, we want to promote and expand Portland’s creative community and attract talented, motivated people who want to live, work, and set up shop in this exciting, beautiful coastal city.’ Hutchins is director of communications and external affairs for the USM Muskie School and is a co-author of the seminal study, ‘Maine’s Creative Economy: Measurement and Analysis,’ conducted by the Muskie School for Gov. John Baldacci’s inaugural Blaine House Summit on the Creative Economy in 2004. Previously, she has been marketing director of Portland Stage Company and an Artsave representative for People For the American Way in Washington, D.C.” Look for great things in the year ahead!

It had to happen. I read about “The Guru of Giggling” in the New Yorker and figured it was only a matter of time. Portland now has it’s own “Certified Laughter Coach,” Katie West of the Levity Institute. When Andy Graham talks about bringing “more joy” to Portland, I imagine he’s talking about more interesting people, parties, movies, art, music, even fresher food, better beer, intelligent conversation, communion with nature—all the things the experience economy can bring. Katie West and Laughter Guru, Dr. Madan Kataria, have another, and much simpler idea. Just laugh! Train yourself to laugh more, laugh with other people, workout your biceps of whimsy. West thinks that this is more than mere knee slapping, “The Levity Project is a social movement seeking to create societal change towards a more buoyant and joyful society through public acts of play, laughter, and celebration. The goal is to bring people together who see themselves as agents of change to create a deeper understanding that joy, play, laughter, and freedom are integral to individual and collective success.” Sounds better than moaning about politics, the economy or the weather.

Something must have gone viral recently at the offices of Maine Home + Design and The Maine Mag, because a good chunk of the mastheads of the two magazines have added themselves to CreativePortland.Me, a new visual directory of our creative economy. What is it for? We’re not quite sure yet, but seeing all of the faces add up (142 at the most recent count) just makes us happy. We’re all creative individuals, but some of us also work at the kind of creative companies that we want to see more of here. To clarify, we want MORE of them, but we also want to SEE more of the ones that are already here. So here’s a Walt Whitman-esque call to the leaders of the creative companies of Portland to set the example (like Kevin Thomas of MH+D/MM) and encourage their staff to add themselves as well: VIA! Perry & Banks! CD&M! Aurora Pictures! Angela Adams! Rogues Gallery! Maine College of Art! Portland Museum of Art! Portland Symphony! Portland Ballet! WMPG! Gateway Mastering! Acoustic Artisans! The State Theatre! The Portland Phoenix! The Bollard! Maine Today Media! Maine Studios! Reverb! Mowbi! Eventective! And then there are foundations, associations and other kinds of less formal communities that we would love to have join en masse: SPACE Gallery members! Portland Music Foundation! Portland Society of Architects! Slow Food Portland! The Telling Room! Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance! Tech Maine! Maine Film & Video Association! Maine Film Collaborative! Maine AIGA! Maine Businesses for Sustainability! Of course, independent creative agents are the core of the creative economy, so when we call your tag, please stand up and be counted: Architectural Designers! Artists! Audio Producers! Chefs! Crafters! Dancers! Designers! Educators! Event Producers! Fashion Designers! Illustrators! Marketers! Musicians! Photographers! Video Producers! Web Developers! Writers! (If we missed your specialty, please let us know and we’ll craft a new tag.) We could go on in hope of including everyone, but you get the point: go to CreativePortland.Me and add yourself! (And tell your friends, co-workers and collaborators!)

There are many great food blogs in Portland, the encyclopedic Portland Food Map, the gonzo Portland Food Coma, the photo driven Portland Town and dozens more, but for the most part they are about recommendation and celebration, not critical thinking. Hospitality marketing guru Dawn Hagin loves Portland’s food, but doesn’t pull her punches. Her blog, Appetite Portland, reminds me of cookbook author Corinne Trang‘s description of dinner around her half Vietnamese/half French family’s table: one was expected to talk about—and criticize—the flavors of the food as you were eating, and such scrutiny was considered respectful to the food and the person who cooked it. In her introduction to the blog, Dawn refers to Portland as a “culinary ‘big city in a small skin’,” and it is clear that she is enjoying her self-assigned task of eating her way through town. Even when she’s a big fan of a place, like Bar Lola, she will remind you that their pork belly appetizer, “While good, … lacked the profoundly delicious nature of everything that followed. Slightly too charred, the belly couldn’t match the lusciousness of the “Japanese Big Mac” I enjoyed recently at Pai Men [Miyake].” It is the combination of creativity and editing that makes for anything truly great. Although everyone won’t agree with all of Hagin’s opinions, the fact that she is expressing them strongly, and constructively, is a testament to how highly developed the food scene in Portland has become. The more our creative communities develop, the more critical we will become of them, and that’s a good thing.