BATH

Maine artist Dave Higgins, 70, has a unique way of looking at things. He has to.

As a person with severe dyslexia, Higgins has trained his brain to work in different ways in order to succeed in the world.

And succeed he has. The Portland native has worn many hats, including that as an educator, having taught graphic arts, design and photography for 25 years. His work has been exhibited and published throughout Maine and New England. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in visual arts and in 2005, he was an artist in residence at Carina House on Monhegan Island.

A former film photographer, he eventually migrated to the digital environment, where he could alter and enhance his photographs to make his artistic statements clear.

After decades in photography, he has returned to painting and found that photography influences his painting — and vice versa.

“In 2012, I had an epiphany of sorts and began combining both photography and painting in the computer,” Higgins stated in a press release. “These images often start with a photograph and use digital brushes and various software, filters and/or screens to develop a scene. The resultant works are neither photographs nor paintings but an amalgamation of the two into something new. I now find my options for expressing my vision are truly limitless.”

In advance of an exhibition of his work in Bath, Higgins spoke with The Times Record about his life in the visual arts, growing up on the coast and why, if given the choice, he’d choose to live with his disability.

The Times Record: What piqued your interest in photography?

Dave Higgins: I’m dyslectic, and I’m pretty severe. For the majority of my life, I was at a second grade reading level. I couldn’t spell my address. I didn’t do well in school and stayed back many times. But I was very articulate when I spoke — I knew that I could communicate. But there’s a void.

What photography gave me the ability to do was to communicate in a way that I didn’t need to be there.

TR: When were you diagnosed?

DH: I was the first diagnosed case in the state of Maine. I was at the Sweetser home for children for two years while they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. For me to do anything, I have to work twice as hard as anybody else. Can you imagine going to college and not being able to read? I had a 3.8 (grade point average).

TR: Does your dyslexia give you a different insight — either through photography or through painting?

DH: I know it does. I was a teacher for 30 years. The only disability any student can have is the lack of motivation. I don’t care what your problem is, as long as you have motivation you can overcome it.

It develops within you an expectation of failure. You know when you get out of bed that you’re going to encounter failure multiple times. I have a terrible time making change. I can’t remember phone numbers. I have a terrible time with names. But if you accept the disability and are learning to work with the disability, it forces you think differently.

You don’t look at a word without your brain saying that word someplace. That piece is gone, it doesn’t work for me. I had to force my brain to work in new ways. For an artist, you couldn’t have a better mindset.

If you said, “Dave would you like to have been born without a disability?,” I’d say no. My disability has been my bane, but it’s also been my gift. It’s given me a unique point of view. I see solutions where no one else does. My solutions are unique.

TR: How does it impact or inform your art?

DH: I have a broader spectrum with which I see relationships. They’re usually visual relationships. I was drawn to photograph the less-obvious.

TR: Tell us how you returned to painting.

DH: I started out painting when I was 16 and stopped in my early 20s and took up photography. I didn’t feel like I had the ability to get what I wanted on the canvas. In 2005 I got a six-week artist residency on Monhegan Island.

I was working on my photography, but there were a whole bunch of painting workshops going on, watching all the techniques that these different artists were using. I began to realize that it’s more about your style than about capturing an accurate image. When I came home, I started painting again. Now, the majority of what I do is painting — it’s the passion that I have now.

When I teach, I say that “a painter starts with an empty canvas and has to figure out how to fill it. A photographer starts with a full canvas and has to figure out what to take away.” You have to have one strong center of interest for a theme for a photograph to be successful.

Most of my photography is nature, and I’m really attached to the coast. I was brought up in Portland and I spent most of my time down by the waterfront. The majority of my work has to do with remembering what Maine was like. I’m really into wooden boats, wooden commercial fishing boats and things like that. I did a lot of work from a kayak, so I could get a good point of view. In a kayak, I can hold the camera an inch above the water. I want to show people something in a way they’ve not seen before.

TR: What reawakened your urge to paint?

DH: The fact that I didn’t have to make it look real (laughs). I was already doing this in my photography. I was simplifying, simplifying, simplifying. I realized that the real importance of a painting is what you’re saying, not what you’re seeing. What I choose to put on the canvas, and what I choose to exclude, is where the artistic endeavor comes from, not from the ability to paint a lighthouse so it looks like a lighthouse. It’s more important if I can paint a lighthouse and the sweeping height of it, or the interaction of the lighthouse and the clouds behind it. Can I get the atmospherics of the wind — the effects of wind on my subject? It requires me to be an observant artist.

TR: What medium do you paint with?

DH: I use almost anything. If I can paint with oils, acrylics, water colors, pencils — whatever is at hand. With photography, the best camera you’ve got is the one you have in your hand. It’s the same thing.

TR: You also work with sculpture and jewelry.

DH: I’ve always been fascinated with metal. I started working on weather vanes. I was making birds’ wings, but there’s a lot of pounding in shaping metal. At 70 years old, my body couldn’t take that. So I started working with PVC — it’s a plastic and it doesn’t rot, doesn’t warp. It’s light. You can heat it and work with it just like metal. That’s mainly what I’m doing for sculpture.

TR: As an artist, where do you see yourself going? What’s next for you?

DH: I wake up in bed in the morning. I look out the window. I see this tree. That’s the next thing. It’s whatever the world puts in front of me, that captures me.

I’m going wherever the inspiration hits me. If I fail, I will have acquired knowledge and skill for the next thing I see.

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com

CENTRE ST ARTS GALLERY will host an exhibit of Higgins’ work, and will celebrate the opening March 30 with a wine and cheese reception from 5-7 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

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