Chris Miller, Wild Maybes

These Wild Maybes are visitors from an ancient Earth, as remote and unknowable as the far future.  They are friendly monsters of the kind you might meet on incredible adventures.  They are wondrous beasts inspired by mysterious mammals that really did roam this very same Earth, just after the dinosaurs, fifty or sixty million years ago.  Now a few scattered fossils are all that remain of them.  No one can know much about them for sure.

Did they once roam this place where we’re standing right now?  Did they drink at the banks of the Kennebec?

Did they swim or climb or leap or dig or howl or moo or grunt or growl or hunt or fish or browse or graze?  Did they run like rabbits?  Did they spray like skunks?

In another sixty million years or more, in the vastness and richness of time beyond reckoning, could they roam here again someday?

Maybe.

In the meantime, they will be honorary crossing guards in Levine’s Park, where the past meets the future and time flows deep.  You can roam there among them if you like.  They can guide you through the kind of time that can never be tamed into seconds and minutes, but only runs wild through nights and days, into seasons, generations and eras.

Skunk Control, Light Sentinels

Drawing on technology, art, their fondness for all things left of field, and a mantra to create works that encourage a belief in as many as six impossible things before breakfast, Skunk Control’s creations are informed by large dollops of color, light, and a splash of whimsy. The Light Sentinels are emissaries of light preparing for its triumphant arrival. Over the millennium they have evolved to become defenders of light, casting and seeding hope and enlightenment in anticipation of its arrival.

Light Sentinels is in Castonguay Square and will be on view June 7 – October 31, 2024.

Presented with major support from the Harold Alfond Foundation. Additional support provided by PRO Moving Service and the City of Waterville.

Jesse Salibury, River Stone

River Stone is a sculptural piece created from a single 3-ton granite glacial erratic boulder similar in shape and surface texture to stones found in rivers that have been worn smooth by water, ice, and time. The approximately 6′ tall stone is split to create two halves of a large, oval, egg-shaped form which create two seating spaces. The forms removed from the inside of the stone form a table that is placed between the two seating areas. Rivers and rocks are often metaphors for time and change. Salisbury’s sculpture style mimics the effects of water and natural forces on stone, thus creating a sculptural still life of geological time. By dividing and manipulating the forms, Salisbury makes a space that people flow through and around. River Stone was purchased by the city of Waterville and is located along the Riverwalk at the Head of Falls.

Wheat Paste

In 2017, Waterville Creates Public Art Task Group worked with Maine wheat paste artist Kerstin Gilg to select local artists to install 10 large-scale temporary wheat paste and paper artworks on historically significant landmarks in the downtown Waterville area. Artists were invited to work with pre-selected historic photographs and iconic images of Waterville, including the Hathaway Man and the Two Cent Bridge, and were encouraged to reinterpret, manipulate, and recreate the imagery in a way that reflects their perceptions of Waterville.