About

We are young, passionate, feet-on-the-ground dreamers, inviting creative spirits and angelic muses to guide us so Maine may always be the artiest, most lovable place in America. Amen.

Founded in 2019 by friends and collaborators Reed Stone McLean, Daniel Sipe, and Karlë Woods, Lights Out Gallery has worked tirelessly to promote art in Maine. Incorporated as a 501c3 nonprofit in 2021, the organization’s mission centers on expanding what is possible in Maine as a contemporary arts destination in conversation with regional, national, and international arts. Lights Out has pursued its mission through the work of documenting and exhibiting the work of Maine artists, and by building a rural community arts center that is rapidly becoming a regional hub for art and artists.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Mission

Our mission is to connect Maine artists and their circles to a broader community. We feature emerging and established artists alongside one another to encourage conversation, collaboration, and camaraderie.

Vision

From Lights Out’s central hub, in the town of Norway, to Maine statewide, we amplify the diverse community of artists in one of our country's more rural states. By featuring, documenting, and supporting artists from all stages of their careers, and increasing access to local arts, education, and community, we expand what is possible in Maine as a contemporary arts destination in conversation with regional, national, and international arts.

Interviews

At its founding, Lights Out recognized a gap in Maine’s cultural environment, and sought to promote and archive the lives and works of Maine artists through the production of short-form documentaries. In three years, the organization has made great gains in mapping Maine’s cultural community, creating an anthology of over 80 short films chronicling the extraordinary creative contributions of artists whose perspectives might otherwise have been lost to history. The team’s work to gather and share Maine artists’ studios, stories, and artworks through filmed interviews provides a missing piece of the state’s cultural heritage and reveals contemporary Maine artists to be at the forefront of contemporary American art more broadly.

Filmed interviews with artists ranging from young artists like Holden Willard (b. 1999) to Lois Dodd (b.1927) provide a singular record that is also a snapshot of Maine’s creative community. In recognition of their historic value, these films were acquired by the Colby College Libraries’ Digital Initiatives Division, where they will be available in perpetuity - an ongoing record of this vital moment in Maine arts.

Exhibitions

Concurrent with Lights Out’s work to archive Maine artists, the organization has curated and realized pop-up exhibitions around the state. From the city of Portland to rural Norway Maine, these shows highlight and connect local artists through exhibitions and community events in unconventional and traditional gallery sites. Visually, socially, and conceptually, these projects interlink artists from diverse backgrounds and locations, knitting the large and rural state of Maine together through the arts.

Arts Center

In February 2022, Lights Out took the momentous step of purchasing a shuttered 1907 snowshoe factory in Norway Maine to convert it to house artists’ studios, an exhibition space and dance studio, a coworking space for remote workers, and a hotspot for educators and creative innovators from Maine and beyond. Lights Out’s vision for the former snowshoe factory at 10 Tannery Street is a community art center unlike anything in western Maine. This transformational project, the organization’s headquarters, is an evolving ecosystem of local collaboration and statewide coordination.