BATH, Maine — Maine is famous for its coastal landscapes, which for more than a century have drawn painters and photographers who feast their eyes and document every lupine-covered cove, seaweed-strewn ledge and postcard-worthy fishing boat in sight.
Lesser known is the soundscape of coastal Maine, with its gurgling waves, clanging bell buoys and tooting foghorns. But it’s equally worth experiencing — even with your eyes closed to the rest of the scenic beauty.
That’s why Maine Maritime Museum in Bath has just opened a new exhibit featuring rarely heard or appreciated sounds, called “Lost and Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast.”
The sonic installation features recordings of swelling tides, rumbling lobster boats and distant, offshore bell buoys by Portland sound artist Dianne Ballon. The show also gives voice to some of the museum’s long-silent artifacts, including century-old, hand-cranked foghorns and shipboard bells from vessels scrapped decades ago.
The show has been almost two years in the making. It began when Ballon started browsing the museum’s online list of artifacts, wondering what the historic bells, whistles and horns sounded like. After making a detailed list of things she wanted to record, Ballon approached the museum, and Associate Curator Catherine Cyr was immediately intrigued.
“We’re always looking for new ways for the public to interact with a collection they usually think of as static,” Cyr said. “The objects don’t always convey that they have had an active past.”
After testing which pieces were still operational, Cyr and Ballon set about making detailed recordings. They jangled bells and cranked foghorns which had likely laid silent for decades — an experience Ballon found deeply moving.
“It made me cry,” she said. “It was an honor for me to present these sounds again, after a long, long time.”
One of the historic bells that patrons can hear used to belong to the Seguin, the nation’s longest-serving tugboat. Launched in Maine in 1884, the Seguin did its job until being dismantled by the museum in 1967 with a hopelessly rotted hull.
The bell was part of something known as the “engine order telegraph.” Using a distinct series of dings, it translated instructions from the pilot in the wheelhouse, to the engineers in the engine room below, telling them what kind of power or speed the Seguin needed.
“It was great to bring a voice back to the vessel,” Cyr said.
Pleased with their painstaking, recorded results, Ballon and Cyr then designed the exhibition. It was tricky work. Unlike physical objects, sounds are ephemeral and cannot be placed in a regular museum display case.
“So, this is a new type of exhibit for us, using new technology,” Cyr said.
Eventually, the pair landed on three different sound delivery methods.
First, patrons can stand beneath a series of parabolic speakers which intensify the sound experience and help to isolate the ears from other noises in the room.
Under one such device, listeners are immersed in the sound of three different offshore navigational buoys currently working in Casco Bay. One of them has a distinct, three-note clang. Another uses rising and falling water to force air through an eerie-sounding, low-moaning whistle.
The second method comes via telephone-like receivers held up to one ear. One such station plays hand-cranked, wooden foghorns that originally sounded on ship’s bows more than a century ago.
“The sound really catches people off guard,” Cyr said. “You expect something low, but instead it sounds like something coming from a clown car — even though it’s a serious, navigational device.”
The third method includes visual representations of sounds displayed on large video screens. At one station, the recording of a swirling, incoming Schoodic Peninsula tide plays in a continuous loop, while audio waveforms rise and fall on the screen. The visual similarity to the watery sound is striking.
Ballon said she’s pleased with the exhibition and hopes museumgoers will be just as enthralled. When asked what it is about sound that excites her so much, the artist is at a loss for words.
“That’s too big to answer,” Ballon said. “It’s like asking me ‘What is art? What is life?’”
“Lost and Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast” runs through November. Maine Maritime Museum admission is free every weekend through the end of February.
