Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle

Beth Weisberger and Wade Kavanaugh are the owners of the Gem Theater in Bethel, which offers accessible and diverse arts programming. Ten percent of the Gem’s yearly profits support local arts initiatives. After ten years of teaching in New York public schools, Weisberger launched Gneiss Spice, a company that sells hexagonal jars for organizing spices. Kavanaugh is also an artist who creates large installations that have been featured in multiple national art publications.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/beth-weisberger-wade-kavanaugh/

Amanda Huotari is the executive artistic director of Celebration Barn Theater in South Paris, where she annually produces 30 performances on-site and at community events. The venue also hosts 150 international artists who come to train in physical theater workshops, create projects in residencies, and perform in the Barn’s show series. Amanda’s own solo show, The Soiree, is directed by Broadway's Avner the Eccentric and has received accolades at festivals in the United States and internationally. A 7th generation Mainer who spent seven years outside the state, she’s now raising her family in her hometown community and is dedicated to supporting the development of a local culture of curiosity and creativity.

Fritz Grobe is board president of Celebration Barn Theater. He is also co-founder of EepyBird Studios, best known for viral videos featuring the explosive combination of Coke and Mentos that have been viewed over 100 million times. He has appeared on Late Show with David Letterman, the Today Show, the Ellen DeGeneres Show, and MythBusters, and he has performed live in London, Paris, Istanbul, and Las Vegas. In addition to his work with EepyBird Studios, Fritz has over 20 years’ experience as a professional juggler, creative director, and choreographer for award-winning circus acts and stage performances.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/amanda-huotari-fritz-grobe/

Tom is a registered Maine guide and certified wilderness first responder with a lifelong love for learning and the outdoors. Born in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, he eventually found his way north and has made a home in New England. Tom leads guided camping and fishing trips and works with Global Awareness Local Action—a local non-profit—and New Hampshire Mushroom Company, where he further developed the skills to forage for wild food. Tom's passion inspired him to found Northeast Wilderness Company, an outdoors company that offers workshops, studies, and guided trips, so that he could help people share in the experience. He looks forward to the adventures to come.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/thomas-belluscio-registered-maine-guide/

Tony Owens, MD, is a doctor in the Emergency Department at Maine Medical Center, as well as an advocate for the environment. In front of a United States Senate committee in Washington, D.C., he testified in support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, arguing that carbon dioxide emissions from Midwestern power plants contribute to Maine’s high rates of pediatric asthma. Speaking out about climate change, he has suggested that higher temperatures have expanded the range of tick-borne diseases and caused higher incidences of Lyme disease. In 2007, Owens joined the board of the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) after his fourth child graduated from college. He was instrumental in the development of NRCM Rising, a subgroup of NRCM that seeks to expand advocacy among people under 40. As a practicing emergency physician for nearly 40 years and an associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, he also teaches residents and medical students in the Emergency Department at Maine Medical Center.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/tony-owens-m-d-natural-resources-council-maine/

John Paul Caponigro is a prominent visual artist working with digital media. His art has been exhibited internationally and purchased by numerous private and public collections including Princeton University, the Estée Lauder collection, and Smithsonian. Caponigro combines his background in painting with traditional and alternative photographic processes using state-of-the-art digital technology. A form of environmental art in virtual space, his work is about the perception of nature and the nature of perception. His life’s work is both a call to connection with nature and a call for conscientious creative interaction with our environment during a time of rapid change. He has lectured extensively at conferences, universities, and museums in venues as diverse as Photoshop World, Google, and TEDx. He leads seminars and workshops around the globe. His work has been published widely in numerous periodicals and books including Art News and The Ansel Adams Guide. Author of the video training series “R/Evolution” and the book Adobe Photoshop Master Class, he has also been a contributing editor to a variety of magazines and websites including Camera Arts, Digital Photo Pro, HuffPost, and Apple. He is a member of the Photoshop Hall of Fame, an Epson Stylus Pro, and an X-Rite Coloratti. His clients include Adobe, Apple, Canon, Epson, Kodak, and Sony.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/john-paul-caponigro-visual-artist/

Suzette McAvoy has served as executive director and chief curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art since September 2010. She spearheaded the institution’s recent $5.2 million capital campaign and relocation to a newly constructed building, designed by internationally known architect Toshiko Mori, which opened in Rockland, Maine, on June 26, 2016. McAvoy previously served for 12 years as chief curator of the Farnsworth Art Museum and has more than 30 years’ experience in the art and museum field. She has lectured and written extensively on the art and artists of Maine, and has organized national traveling exhibitions of the work of Louise Nevelson, Alex Katz, Kenneth Noland, Lois Dodd, Karl Schrag, and Alan Magee. Additionally, she has organized recent exhibitions of the work of Jonathan Borofsky, Richard Van Buren, Inka Essenhigh, David Driskell, Katherine Bradford, and Steve Mumford, among others. She is currently working on upcoming exhibitions with John Walker, William Wegman, and Ann Craven. Prior to moving to Maine, McAvoy was Director of the University of Rhode Island Art Galleries in Kingston, Rhode Island, and also worked at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, and the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History. She has served as adjunct professor of museum studies at the University of Maine, and as a lecturer for the Smithsonian Journeys Program. She has also been an arts writer for Maine Home and Design magazine and an art advisor to private collectors. She received a BA in art history from Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, New York, and an MA in museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program at State University of New York. She lives in Belfast, Maine.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/suzette-mcavoy-executive-director-cmca/

The author of 21 poetry collections, Gary Lawless has often pursued and expressed the development of his own ideas, but he also works to encourage others to find their voices. He and Beth Leonard opened Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick 38 years age as a community hub. Through working with various communities in Maine for decades, he has encouraged and published the work of combat veterans, prison inmates, immigrants, and refugees. At Spindleworks Art Center in Brunswick, he has helped adults with disabilities produce three anthologies of poetry and is in the process of contributing his talents to a film about their dreams; as an artist-in-residence at Preble Street Resource Center in Portland, he has produced an anthology of poems written by homeless and low-income authors. In honor of his community work, the Maine Humanities Council awarded Lawless the 2017 Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize, and the Emily Harvey Foundation offered him a residency grant to spend one month in Venice this past autumn.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/gary-lawless-gulf-maine-books/

Ekhlas Ahmed is a refugee and activist from Darfur, Sudan. She fled with her family to Egypt and lived there for two years before being resettled in Portland, Maine in 2005. She has since graduated high school with honors and earned a degree in sociology with hopes of helping resettle other refugees. She is the vice president and co-founder of Darfur Youth of Tomorrow, an organization raising awareness in her community of the violence and needs in Darfur. The Darfur Youth of Tomorrow has taken Ahmed to a number of places, most recently to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where she was invited to speak about the genocide by the UN Refugee Agency and read a poem about her homeland. Ahmed teaches English at Casco Bay High School, her alma mater. She also runs a program called Make It Happen, which prepares multilingual students for college. She is writing a book called The Bridge Between, an autobiography in poetic form to share her experiences and raise awareness about Sudan.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/ekhlas-ahmed-darfur-youth-tomorrow/

Larry Wold is president in Maine for TD Bank. He has over 30 years of commercial lending experience in Maine. Prior to his current position, he served as TD Bank's executive vice president of commercial lending in southern Maine. He joined the company in 1991 as a commercial loan officer after beginning his banking career in the commercial lending department of Casco Bank, the Maine affiliate of the Bank of Boston. An active member of the community, he currently serves on the boards of Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Maine and Company, the Foundation for Maine’s Community Colleges, and Maine International Trade Center. He was previously president of Maine Real Estate Development Association (MEREDA) and a board member of Friends of Casco Bay. He holds a BS in economics from Principia College in Illinois and is a graduate of ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking in Washington, D.C.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/larry-wold-maine-td-bank-president/

Rob Gomez is an engineer at General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in Saco. He also works as an online running coach at the company he started, Eastern Shore Training. This year, he was the second finisher in the Maine men’s division at the 2017 TD Beach to Beacon 5K, where he received national attention for helping fallen runner Jesse Orach to complete the race. Originally from Waldoboro, he first began running at age 12.

https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/robert-gomez-td-beach-beacon-runner-running-coach/