INTERVIEW | Mollie Cashwell: “Culture is circulation”
Great jorb, no probalo
Mollie Cashwell said that almost as soon as she left Maine at age 18, she knew she’d eventually come back. After spending more than a decade living in places like New York City, London, Berlin and Lisbon, she finally returned to her home state in 2019, eventually joining the Cultural Alliance of Maine as its executive director. There, she works with Maine towns and cities to strengthen the bonds of community through arts, humanities and culture – bringing her deep knowledge of the systems that exist to support those things, and her natural curiosity about why humans like the things they like, do the things they do and are the way they are.
We talked about everything from why public art is a public good, to why things like knitting circles are an antidote to the dystopian nightmare coming out of our phones, to why Homestar Runner was a really big deal to anyone coming of age in the early 2000s.
[This interview has been edited for clarity]
EMILY: What’s your earliest memory of being inspired, grabbed, lit on fire by a work of art? Are there any formative experiences as a young person that you look back on and think, “Yep, that makes sense”?
MOLLIE: There are a few things that come to mind. They seem beyond incredibly random, though! I grew up in Calais and then in Winterport. I think if you grow up in a small town, and you’re creatively minded, you’re always looking for something that connects you to the larger world. I also think being a teenager in the early 2000s, it was still the early days of the internet, and there were still these kinds of irreverent, sarcastic bits of writing and websites and videos that were still pretty DIY, and felt like they were kind of speaking directly to us. Those early days of coming home from school and just poking around online and finding weird things and funny things and new things. The internet was still new and kind of innocent. It was a simpler time. This is going to sound so cringy, but here’s what springs to mind. Do you remember Homestar Runner?
EMILY: Uh, yeah, of course! That was huge in the early 2000s! We loved it! [ed note: Homestar Runner was an early 2000s flash cartoon that was insanely popular among teens and college students. Pretend you are hearing me doing a not-great Homestar impression] MAWZIPAN!
[Several minutes of favorite Homestar quotes ensue; we have skipped over these for everybody’s sake, really]
MOLLIE: Yes! So, someone from our class at Hampden Academy got onto Homestar Runner because he wrote an email to Strongbad and he featured it. It was this absolutely epic moment for us all. It seems really silly, but the idea that someone from our school ended up on this thing that we all loved and that was really important to us was a huge deal. And I think, for me at least, it kind of made me think, ‘Wow, there’s not actually that much space between us in our little corner of the world and everything else.’ It’s possible to make connections like that. And maybe it’s possible to make your own art, do your own thing, create your own voice. There are other people out there like me, and I can connect with them. I think that was actually a really big moment for me.
EMILY: Those connections really make all the difference in people’s lives – whether it’s something online, something in person, something at school or work or anywhere. That said, in Maine, one thing I’ve always noticed is that the vast majority of the resources, both public and private, in this state that are geared towards culture and creativity and the arts are almost entirely funneled toward Maine’s major population areas. Access to these things seems dependent on your zip code. How do you try to close that gap?
MOLLIE: One of the things we’re actively working with my organization is looking at other states that are similar to us, in the sense that they are very spread out and also have a lot of rural areas, and are maybe politically purple in the way that Maine is. I think of Colorado as a pretty good example, other than the fact that they have some legitimately large cities and we don’t. So is Vermont. Regardless, we ask what kind of cultural policies do they have in a place that kind of deals with the fact that the population areas are the ones that kind of suck up all the cultural resources. I think that’s still a question we’re trying to answer.
One of the things I really love to see in Maine is the revival of old civic halls and auditoriums and theaters and grange halls and things like that. People really crave those kinds of spaces, and if a town has one, it can be super transformative. I think about places like the grange halls in places like Trenton and Franklin and Pembroke. Those are spaces that once served an important purpose, and then kind of fell by the wayside, and now are slowly being revitalized.
EMILY: I love what they have done with the Milbridge Theatre. And I adore the Center Theatre in Dover-Foxcroft. And those are in towns that are often left off the table when we think about the resources we have to give out.
MOLLIE: And there’s infrastructure out there to support the programming and things like that, but what if you need a new roof? What if it would be a game-changer to have a part-time facilities manager? There’s no cultural facilities grant program out there to help that kind of stuff, and that’s really the nuts and bolts kind of thing that makes these places exist at all.
Beyond that part of it, though, I think a big question in Maine is how do we keep culture and the arts circulating throughout the state. Culture is circulation, so how do we keep the talent, the ideas, the resources moving all throughout the state so nothing gets stagnant.
EMILY: It’s like an aquarium. The filter keeps the water moving so the entire ecosystem can function. That’s not a great analogy, but it’s the one that popped into my head. So what’s the water filter for our cultural aquarium in Maine?
MOLLIE: I think a lot about food systems, where we’ve figured out a lot about how to improve the ways that Maine-grown food gets into markets all across the state. I think cultural systems can learn a lot from other systems like that. And, yes, looking at what other states are doing is super important – but also looking at the unique challenges here in Maine, geographically, demographically, all that.
EMILY: What’s your response to people that would say, well, things like arts and culture are the lowest tier of things we should care about? When there are people living on the streets and struggling to survive, why would we funnel resources to something not fundamental? Or, in a related sense, what would you say to people that argue that things like public art are just a way for landlords and business owners to dress up a place and attract wealthy people, and thus drive up prices so that a community becomes unaffordable? These questions have definitely been on my mind as inequality has become so stark and real for so many people.
MOLLIE: I think connection and creativity are absolutely base level necessities. And I think the definition of culture or creativity is much, much broader than just the traditional, like, fine arts definition. I was having a conversation not too long ago with a woman in Washington County whose family has been deeply affected by addiction disorders, and she was talking about how her relative was the funniest person she knew, but that his life had been derailed by addiction. It sounds naive, but let’s think about it: when you have opportunities to be seen and recognized for whatever unique things or talents you bring to the table, it really makes a difference in how you build your own sense of self-worth. Having access to things that recognize your own creativity create the base level circumstances to thrive. I know it’s not a silver bullet. But it’s an integral part of a healthy community ecosystem.
And as for whether, say, a public mural is basically gentrification, well, I guess in that sense having good schools and good hospitals and parks and stuff is also gentrification, because that also attracts people to live in a community. That’s also an appealing thing to people that want to move to your town and buy a house or rent. Maybe we shouldn’t have those either? I think it’s a bad argument to pit these things against each other when you talk about what is important to creating a good community. It’s not a zero sum game.
EMILY: Going back to what we first talked about - how internet culture used to be so fun and freewheeling and accessible - it’s such a total nightmare now. We’re battling against algorithms and AI to make actual human connections and access the truth and fight for attention. I enjoy watching TikTok videos of parrots or medieval peasants as much as the next person, but I also feel like I’m just plugging myself into the dystopian matrix every time I do it. In the midst of this mess, what gives you hope for the future of creativity and community? Does anything?
MOLLIE: I read this quote once – I don’t remember where from – that was something like, we used to automatically be part of a community and had to fight for our individuality. Now, we're automatically all individuals, and we have to fight to find community. I'm badly paraphrasing that, but something about that feels really true right now. I think because of that, you really do have to look back to older generations, where people made time to leave the house for the sole purpose of connecting with other people. The thing you’re on paper leaving for is almost incidental to the connection you’re building with others.
EMILY: A bowling league. A garden club. Book clubs.
MOLLIE: Totally. And so when I see things right here in Maine like these newer generations of knitting circles or mending and sewing nights, or people getting together to swim all year round, or even community theater, I think that’s exactly the kind of thing that is the antidote to that feeling like we’re losing touch with our communities because we’re all on our phones. And I also think that things like that also kind of fly in the face of the whole side hustle culture, or that it’s got to have a monetary aspect to it. No, it doesn’t! You can just be creative and hang out with people and not have it be tied to anything other than you just enjoy doing it. And you also might end up with really close friends that are right in your community, who will pick you up if your car breaks down, or drive you to your eye appointment.
I think if I was able to make specific cultural policy in Maine, I would prioritize things like clubs and groups geared toward specific interests. I think every Mainer should have a good belly laugh with a stranger once a week.
EMILY: OK, finally, what’s one piece of art - a book, a movie, a TV show, an album, anything - that you’ve engaged with recently that really got you excited?
MOLLIE: I just finished the audio book of “Shaman” by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s set 32,000 years ago. I haven’t read a ton of books by him, but he usually does speculative, future-facing fiction. This was the speculative past. It was really fascinating, and grounded in the dynamics of Ice Age survival, and how we balance survival with feeling connected to, you know, ‘What is the meaning of it all?’ It’s a really great book. I’m just starting another book by [Robinson], “The Years of Rice and Salt,” which is also about an alternate past, which asks ‘What if the Black Death wiped out 90 percent of the population of Europe?’ Instead of what percentage it did wipe out. What if other cultures other than European ones had ended up being more dominant in the development of the world? What would the world look like? I guess alternative visions of the past are my thing.
EMILY: And alternative visions of the present, or future, too.
MOLLIE: I’m all about imagining what a different world could look like.