I am currently spending time with my wife Anna in Maine. I love it here, and during these difficult times I am so fortunate to be here away from all of the noise and distractions in the world working in peace. Many of the most important events in my life have taken place in Maine. I was married here. I asked my wife to marry me here, I have vacationed here and I’ve spent time exploring some of the greatest wilderness areas in America here. To say it’s important in my life is a vast understatement. When I am in Maine, I am whole. I am home.
I always try to find new things and to have new experiences as much as I can when I’m in new places or re-visiting places I’ve already seen. This involves spending a good deal of time traveling around and finding out what’s in those places. There is so much to learn everywhere you go and I think its incredibly rewarding to spend time figuring out who the locals are. After all, you are a guest in their home, and should act accordingly.
Today, Anna and I went to go run some errands in Thomaston and Rockland. On our way back to Port Clyde, we finally made the decision to follow the “Gnomes for Sale” signs we had seen over and over, and each time had exclaimed “We have to go see what that’s all about!” Today was the day!
While we drove, I realized what an effective marketer this Gnome Making Person is as there were many signs in many directions to pique your interest and to help you find their secret hideaway. Eventually we came upon the workshop located off the beaten path in a garage/studio in front of a wonderful waterfront house with an amazing yard and garden attached. As we drove up, I knew it was going to be a special visit. We were greeted by Lilly, the workshop doggie to whom I immediate gave ear and butt scratches. I was now one of the pack.
My wife Anna walking through one of the gates that Cindy created at her studio.
Along with the pleasant canine introduction came one from a man with a kind, gravely voice attached to an equally kind Sam Elliot-style mustachioed face who said “the guard dog isn’t much of one.” After a good deal of laughing and joking we were invited to have a look around and to explore the yard if we’d like.
Cindy and Nick Gregory are the proprietors and artist/muscle team creating gnomes, tree spirits and other constructions that adorn the yard. There were gates to walk through and sculptural landscapes of driftwood to admire surrounded by small gardens of beautiful flowers. All in all it was a fascinating and whimsical place to have found and Anna and I spent a good deal of time just looking at things and discussing what we saw.
Once we had looked around - and yes, we picked a gnome to buy! - we went and began talking with Cindy and Nick at length. We found out that they had come to Maine from Ohio twenty years ago, throwing caution to the wind. On a visit back to Ohio to see the kids, Cindy literally had a dream in which she was carving wooden gnomes with a chainsaw. She told Nick of her dream and one thing led to another with them deciding to build a studio to create and sell gnomes and eventually tree spirits too. They also decided to create custom gnomes including one they find quite odd but is weirdly popular, the UPS delivery man gnome as well as a gnome resembling Darth Vader from the movie Star Wars. Cindy wields the chainsaw and creates her visions and Nick sands and gets them ready for paint or wood finishes which Cindy takes care of.
Cindy talks about the very first gnome she carved.
I asked Cindy to let me make a portrait of her and though she doesn’t like her photo being taken, she was very kind and gracious enough to let me shoot two! During shooting, I asked her about different things in the studio and the one thing that she showed me that caught in my mind was the first gnome she had ever made. It had been the stump of an old tree in the yard that she had carved into a gnome and left rooted to the ground. After her dream, she had been so excited to come home and carve it, but once she finished it, she was so discouraged by the unskilled cuts that she didn’t attempt another one for over a year. It remained in the yard until she felt her work was finally becoming worthy of “something better than a fire pit”, and she cut it free of the roots to bring inside. Cindy is excited with what she is doing and she even took the time to show me her chainsaw and explain how the business has evolved because of smaller precision carving blades for the chainsaw that allow her to execute some extremely detailed work.
Cindy, a native of Massachusetts who studied fine art at The University of Maine, loves what she does. She seems to enjoy the lack of pretense in the work and loves that it makes people happy. Nick, a native Ohioan whose background is as an auto mechanic and in auto racing, says with a bit of humor that he wouldn’t swap sanding gnomes for anything. Maine and their gnome business are their true loves and they wouldn’t trade that for the world.