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It sounds like the plot of a hokey ’80s TV episode: Young Artists Team Up to Save Historic Community Center! But sometimes life imitates bad art in a good way: The Beehive Collective, a coalition of Machias-based artist-activists, has resurrected the once-dilapidated Machias Grange hall, saving valuable public space from demolition.
The Bees (as they call themselves) aren’t your stereotypical landscape-painting artists. The Beehive Collective creates giant posters and grand mosaics that try to distill complicated issues about globalization and sustainability down to simple stories that everyone can understand. Beehive members travel to schools and events around the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, unfurling their copyright-free art and using it as a low-tech, high-impact story board to educate their audiences.
The Bees’ decision to make the Machias Grange hall their home began in 2000. The group, which had just formed, was desperate for affordable studio and living space. Several of the core six-to-nine members had Downeast roots and wanted to settle in the area, and the Grange hall seemed like the most affordable opportunity. Beehive members admittedly lacked both carpentry experience and tools when they bought the hall, but the price was right and the project appealed to their quixotic side.
“We kind of have an affinity to taking on tasks that are really impossible,” says Emma Bee, the group’s local outreach coordinator. (Collective artists use the surname “Bee” when speaking in public to emphasize the group.)
As soon as the Beehive Collective moved in, town gossip buzzed about the young artists. “The general impression was that they were ‘hippie kids,’” says Betsy Fitzgerald, Machias town manager. Townspeople were generally doubtful they could pull off the restoration.
Considering the shape of the building, locals had a right to be skeptical. Recent road projects shifted the drainage of the nearby Machias River, washing away most of the crumbling stone foundation, according to Emma Bee. This had caused the chimney to fall in, forcing the Grange members to abandon the hall and hang a for-sale sign.
Even before the drainage problems, the building wasn’t in the best of shape. “We used to have 4-H meetings and junior high dances here in the ’60s,” says one recent visitor, “and, frankly, it was a dump back then.”
Sadly, many Grange halls across the country are in similar shape to the pre-Bee Machias Grange hall. Once serving as social centers in rural Maine before the advent of the automobile, the Grange movement is facing threatened extinction in many places. New Grange membership has dwindled and older members no longer have the energy or resources to maintain the historic buildings. In 1907, Maine had 419 Grange halls filled with 55,212 members. Now, there are only 180 halls left, and Jim Owens, the Maine State Grange master, estimates the state loses one to three halls a year. Before the Beehive Collective stepped in, Maine DOT was planning to demolish the 100-year-old Machias hall.
Fortunately, Bees are energetic, tenacious creatures, not afraid of hard work, long hours, and trial and error. The collective members borrowed tools and picked the brains of local carpenters. They used online resources to teach themselves renovation techniques. They crawled under the building to prop it up with hickory posts until they could lay a new foundation, hung from harnesses 70 feet up to fix the roof, and painted the outside of the building from rickety scaffolding—with just inches separating them from giant blueberry trucks zooming around the nearby curve.
For five years, Beehive members renovated during the summers and fundraised with their artwork at festivals during the winters. Each August, they hosted massive work parties, cramming as many volunteers into the Grange hall as possible.
“We had people sleep next to the drywall they were going to hang the next day,” Emma Bee remembers.
During the renovation process, Machias residents began to wander in and educate the collective about the hall’s history. It had always been a public space, and Machias residents didn’t have to wait for an invitation to come in again. “People would come into the building like it was theirs,” Emma Bee says.
The more the Beehive members learned about the Grange movement, the more they wanted to support it. The collective shared its goals of fostering social justice and creating community, and Beehive members were welcomed as Grange members.
The restored building was dedicated in 2005. The collective won a state historic preservation excellence award and the building was placed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings. “They did an amazing job,” says Dale Miller of the Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. “They’re just a wonderful asset.”
Recently, the Beehive Collective moved their headquarters to a nearby Machias home that once housed a local timber baron, leaving the entire building open and available, free of charge, for public meetings, contra dances, open-mic nights, workshops, and the annual Black Fly Ball. It’s a reclaimed community space in a region where somewhere to meet is scarce.
“For 30 people, there was nothing here before the Grange reopened,” says Gemma Laser, an organizer for Hearty Girls, Hearty Women.
On a recent sunny day, Laser’s workshop was helping shape girl-power curriculum upstairs, while children below waited for their moms and played hide-and-seek around a photo display about Maine migrant workers.
Though well used, the building’s beautiful hardwood floors still gleam, and Beehive artwork adds the touch of ornamentation needed to call attention to the exquisite detailing of the old building. Bees play a prominent role in the artwork because of the lessons they provide, says Sasha Bee, a collective member. “Bees are social insects, working together for the community. They set a good example for us humans to follow.”
