Scott McPheeters and Niki Cousineau pause inside the light-filled studio they created for artists seeking uninterrupted time to explore ideas. Subcircle is one of only a handful of artist residencies in Maine devoted primarily to contemporary performance, dance and interdisciplinary art. Photo by Cy Cyr. On Guinea Road, an old barn has become a place where artists find something increasingly difficult to come by: time. The first thing I did after climbing the stairs was take

Painting Joy How Adrienne Kernan LaVallée spent a lifetime finding her own artistic voice Sea Watch Chopped Sea Clams cans make for great paint brush holders. On one of the first truly warm days of summer, the doors to Adrienne Kernan LaVallée's studio stood open in Biddeford. Sunlight spilled across unfinished canvases, palette knives rested beside thick pools of oil paint, and dozens of brushes stood upright in recycled clam cans. Just down the road, Biddeford Pool shimmere

Steve Ryder has dismantled 300 pianos and turned them into art, tables, walls, chairs and more from his shop at 12 Pepperell Square in Saco, Maine. Find additional photos in the gallery below. Photos by Cy Cyr The first thing I noticed was hanging outside a garage door in downtown Saco. Birds made from piano keys. I was walking to lunch at Quiero Cafe with two friends when I spotted them about 50 feet away. Behind the birds were old pianos, furniture, clocks, and enough inte

Ten years after opening a tiny yoga studio in Saco, Sarah Spiegel has created one of Biddeford's most enduring communities. The Ocean She Built Dark clouds drifted across the sky above Biddeford Pool as Sarah Spiegel stepped into the grass and looked toward the horizon. For 45 minutes, the sun had remained hidden behind a thick layer of blue-gray clouds, leaving only hints of what might happen before nightfall. Then, just before disappearing below the horizon, it found a narr

Maureen Massey, left, and Linda McLaughlin, owners of Between the Tides in Biddeford Pool, Maine, have opened for their 16th season. Between the Tides in Biddeford Pool, Maine. Forty years ago, Linda McLaughlin received a collect call about a man she had never met. Actually, she received a collect call about two men. Neither of them was coming home. It was the mid-1980s, before cell phones, text messages, or any easy way to explain that everything was fine. Linda's husband an

At 7:30 on a June evening, Ashley Nadeau and Tina Gosselin were already joking that they were up past their bedtime. A cool breeze drifted across the rooftop of their downtown Biddeford apartment building. At 63 degrees, the air felt a little chilly for June, but neither woman seemed eager to leave. The view helped. Below them, downtown Biddeford settled into the evening. The Saco River reflected the last light of the day while streaks of orange, pink, and purple stretched ac

The map hangs downstairs at Huston & Company. Hundreds of red pins stretch across Maine, New England, and well beyond, marking homes, libraries, schools, and universities where furniture built in Arundel eventually found a permanent address. The pins trace decades of work, from private dining rooms to some of the most respected academic institutions in the world. At first glance, the display feels like a complete record of the company's history. Then Saer Huston (pronounced '

More than a dozen school groups filled Hadlock Field during the Portland Sea Dogs’ Education Day game Thursday morning in Portland. Hadlock Field was loud before the first pitch. By 10:00 in the morning, school buses lined the streets outside the ballpark. Students poured through the gates in waves, teachers counting heads while volunteers pointed groups toward the concourse. Inside, the smell of popcorn and grilled hot dogs drifted through the cool spring air as players stre

Fifty Years, Still Moving The first things Avery mentions aren’t big, not the anniversary or the history or even the fact that her family has been doing this for fifty years, but the smaller details that make up her day, like stickers, helping in bulk, and putting things back where they belong. She talks about cleaning the stairs with peach spray and making sure they smelled right, the kind of detail you only notice if you’ve spent time paying attention. Then, without much bu

Grady O'Connor, 16, runs Courtside Cards and Collectibles which is located inside of the SOFIVE Soccer Center at 400 North Street in Saco, Maine. The first thing you notice about Grady O’Connor is his height. At 16, he’s already 6'4", which makes him easy to spot across the indoor fields at the SOFIVE Soccer Center in Saco. Kids run drills. Parents line the sidelines. Games echo off the walls. And tucked just off the action, behind a glass display case filled with cards, is G

Josh Johnson, of Biddeford, had a front row seat to the start of Instagram. It begins, as it probably should, with a phone call from the two Instagram founders who were still figuring out what they had built. Josh Johnson had been posting every day—quietly, methodically—on an app that had barely introduced itself to the world. Three days after it launched, he downloaded it because someone on a podcast said it made photos look better. There were no hashtags yet, no search, no

Frank Coletti, owner of Coletti's Pizza in Biddeford, Maine, owns one of the most popular pizza shops in the state of Maine. At five years old, Frank lived through the 1980 earthquake in Naples, Italy. His family spent the next five years in temporary housing. I’ve been gone a long time. Twenty-five years. Most of that time was in Orlando, where the pizza restaurants tend to feel interchangeable after a while—Ferrara's, Nona Street, Flame, Blaze—different names, same menus,

Tori and Abby opened Bird Bones Tattoo Studio on Elm Street in Biddeford in 2024. The Entrance Tori, left, and Abby in the lobby of Bird Bones Tattoo Studio. The door opens into something that doesn’t feel like a waiting room. A desk sits just inside, but it’s surrounded—framed, stacked, layered. A mounted muskrat looks out from the wall to the left. Above it, turkey wings. Behind the desk, shelves hold objects that feel collected over time, not ordered all at once. The wall

Michael Macomber and Katie Pinard outside Elements on a cold March morning in Biddeford. Inside, the shop has been a gathering place on Main Street for 13 years. On the second day of March, winter in Biddeford feels less certain. The cold is still sharp enough to stiffen your fingers, but the light has changed. It comes in clearer now, a brighter blue stretched over Main Street. Snowbanks along the curb have thinned and grayed at the edges. Meltwater runs in narrow ribbons to

Peter McPheeters, of Biddeford Pool, rows his boat around Wood Island Lighthouse during sunrise on February 22, 2025. Photo by Cy Cyr/ BrickTides.com The flagpole snapped in the dark. The wind came hard through Biddeford Pool on Monday — snow moving sideways, drifts building against the harbor-facing buildings, the kind of February storm that reminds you who owns the coastline. By Tuesday morning the blizzard had moved offshore. The sky was hard blue. The Pool lay exposed at

April Laverriere, of Kennebunkport, started competing on her bike after a foot injury sidelined her running career. It was five degrees when we met, the kind of clear January morning in Biddeford where the light is sharp and the cold doesn’t pretend otherwise. We were inside a small studio near The Lincoln, catching up after a long gap, talking easily in that way that only happens when you’ve known someone since before life got complicated. April Laverriere and I graduated

Randy Forcier, left and Chris Bedard, right, at their office above Social House Kitchen in Saco, Maine. The CMG Home Loans office on Beach Street is quiet in the way a busy place gets when it’s between waves. A couple chairs are pushed in like someone tried to be tidy before the next appointment. A conference room sits ready—four walls, a table, a few pens that don’t belong to anyone in particular. Downstairs, there’s coffee and movement at Social House Kitchen, the kind of p

Thomas Collier, of Saco, Maine, poses with the prototype trophy he helped create for the PGA Tour. Thomas Collier, 34, Was Eight Years Old When the Computer Arrived. It ran on MS-DOS, and came with floppy disks. One of them held a flight simulator game called Aces of the Pacific . The graphics were crude. The sounds were beeps and buzzes. He remembers less about the game than the feeling of the machine itself. The fact that this box could do something. That it could be open

Nick and Emily Conley, of Waterboro, are on pace to sells tens of thousands of bags of their Ruff Pine Dog Treats in 2026. The story of Ruff Pine Dog Treats starts with a purchase on Facebook Marketplace. In 2019, Nick and Emily Conley are twenty-one, recently out of college, and five years into a relationship that started when they were sixteen. Nick is from Biddeford. Emily is from Saco. They buy a 1993 Ford Falcon camper van and decide to travel the country. They don’t

Driving through Biddeford, you can tell something about a house by how close it sits to the road. The older the house, the less it seems to care about being polite. Steve’s house sits so near the intersection it feels like the road had to adjust its plans. Not the other way around. Steve's house was constructed when the 8th US President was serving, Martin Van Buren. Subscribe to BrickTides.com. The workshop is not where you expect it. To reach it, you have to step outside a