Belfast, Maine means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To Ron Cowan, it meant the world. He was extremely proud that he had discovered this gem of a place for our family in 1988 and subsequently moved the four of us here. He immediately fell in love with the waterfront, which everyone told us had recently been filled with feathers and chicken parts until the chicken industry left. As kids, we made countless trips with him down to the docks just to watch boats come and go (and maybe have an ice cream or onion rings).
As we grew up, Belfast kept changing, especially with the arrival of MBNA in the late 90s. A lot of people would grumble with every big change, but Ron always saw the best in things and kept loving Belfast more and more. Every feather in the cap of Belfast was a feather in the cap of Ron who would just beam bigger when he would tell you about what’s happening next in the town. He truly did not see any location on the planet that Belfast couldn’t stand toe to toe with. He never missed any opportunity to tout its gifts.
He was so content to “keep on keep’n on” in Belfast that he had very little impetus to even visit anywhere else. Simply trying to get him to consider locations around the world for a family vacation was difficult. He was happy just to be in Belfast. He was content and at peace. As long as he could maintain his modest property and feed his family, there was nothing more he yearned for and he happily fluttered from one experience to the next.
His ultimate legacy in Belfast began with a hobby he started just before moving north from Connecticut. He had taken down a barn and had a pile of 200 year-old chestnut beams. He had recently played around with clay to make some portraits and one day an idea struck him to try to do the same in wood. So he grabbed his chainsaw and some of the beams and went at it. He learned to use chisels, sand paper, and floor wax to make the faces smooth. Having a small collection of finished pieces he began setting them up in places and receiving comments like, “Wow! I’ve never seen anything like that!” and, “You do that with a chainsaw?” From then on he was hooked and it would become his life’s obsession. He loved being able to take a chunk of wood, stare at it for a little bit, and then bring out the spirit of that wood in the form of a face. It was a unique talent. He loved it, and he was very good at it.
In Maine, he began taking them to local craft fairs, including the first Arts in the Park in the Belfast City Park. Year by year, more and more wooden spirits scattered to new homes as people brought them to live in their gardens. People also started asking him to carve larger faces on site in stumps of trees that had been damaged, and some even in live trees. Over the years he started putting copper on the tops to preserve them longer. But even so, he liked the beauty of the outdoor wooden pieces changing with the weather and over time going back to nature, as in all life.
With time, hundreds of gardens up and down coastal Maine and beyond became enchanted with a garden muse by Ron Cowan. Some had multiples. Some are big and bold and can be seen from the road. Others are tucked around corners, or by fireplaces, or in back yards, or down hidden wooded paths. One of the installations he was most proud of was The Long Breath, which was purchased by the City of Belfast and consisted of seven pieces placed in the Belfast Harbor. You could walk to the pieces at low tide and then by high tide they would be entirely immersed. For many years Ron maintained them and groomed the seaweed he attached to their heads. He called himself The Keeper of the Hair.
I have had countless conversations with people who have said, “Your father is the one who does these? We were just driving through such-n-such town and saw one. Did he do that?” Yes, he did. “We see these all over the place and always wondered who did them.” It was him. “I just bought a house and our backyard came with one.”
He liked to say he was “famous from here to North Northport.” But he was bigger than that to those who recognized his work. Belfast is filled with artists, eclectic humans, and creative souls. As outwardly humble as Ron was, he was so proud to play his part in this community, and he played it well. He is Belfast through and through. And Belfast is him.
Ron’s family is forever grateful to the Belfast community, whose generous support made his monument in Grove Cemetery possible. He rests under a tree in the area behind the high school where he spent a fair amount of time teaching students, cheering his kids on in sports, running the clocks and game film at sporting events, and consuming countless bags of concession stand popcorn.
A fitting place, securing him permanently in the history of Belfast. Ron Cowan, Sculptor of Wooden Faces. And maybe every now and then, long after most of his work has gone back to dust, as it was always destined to do, the cemetery trees may overhear, “Ron Cowan, is that the guy who did the sculpture your grandfather had? The one you said you stuck your fingers in the nostrils?” “Ron Cowan, is that the name that was on the face we found in the barn?” “Ron Cowan, this must be the guy who did my aunt’s sculpture. She said he was such a nice person.”
This would surely make Ron break out in a big grin and a twinkle in his eye.