By Emma Bouthillette 

Staff Writer

The Kennebunk Downtown Committee is looking to the art community to help revitalize Main Street. 

Committee member Charlie Galloway said available real estate downtown would provide a good home to an artist cooperative and attract other businesses to the area. 

“The Downtown Committee is correctly thinking in terms of how to get people downtown,” said Town Planner Judy Bernstein. “Filling these spaces with things to attract people will get people back downtown.”

Although the committee has raised the idea to start an artist cooperative, they have turned to local artists to organize the business plan and eventually run the cooperative. Heartwood College of Art Director Beri Kramer and Assistant Director Susan Wilder agree with the idea of starting a cooperative. 

“Charlie and I have been talking about this for a long time,” Kramer said. “The idea draws from outside and within the community. Art is the character of the town.”

The cooperative is only in early planning stages, but Galloway said it is important for them to “get the word out.” Kramer estimated they would wait out winter and start working on purchasing a space and getting artist involved by early spring.

Kramer and Wilder have been researching other cooperatives throughout the country on which to base the Kennebunk art cooperative. One cooperative is located in Belfast and is not your “typical tourist gallery,” Kramer said. She said when the cooperative opened in Belfast, it was with a similar goal of revitalizing a down town community. 

But like any business endeavor, it takes start up money to establish the cooperative. Kramer said the available space on Main Street is expensive per square foot, but she and Wilder are working to calculate application fees, initiation fees and monthly fees for participating artist to help cover operation costs, and hope to have at least 20 artists to work together to bring the cooperative to life. They are looking into available grants that help communities revitalize downtowns and for businesses representing “true” artists, Kramer said. Bernstein said she is in the process of researching which grants would be most beneficial to the cooperative effort. 

“People travel to the Kennebunks and look for areas of interest,” Kramer said.

“We tend to be at the mercy of tourists, and we want to move this gallery away from that,” Wilder said.

The artist cooperative would be a display of high-caliber fine art and a selection of crafts by fine artists. Interested artists will be required to apply to participate and there will be an entrance jury deciding what will be included, Kramer said. 

It would be more of a gallery than a gift shop, featuring various artists and having a small gift area, Kramer said. The artists accepted into the cooperative would also be expected to volunteer their time to work, which Wilder said helps run the cooperative and brings artists out into the community.

“High-end doesn’t necessarily mean expensive. We want to pay attention to a form of gallery presentation, offer artist talks and possibly some quirky events. We want to make it a destination and gathering place,” Wilder said.

“We want to integrate the community—to give it color,” Kramer said. 

Galloway said the Kennebunk Downtown Committee is very encouraged by the initial expression of interest by the art community and feels it is a feasible idea.