Along Main Street, Wiscasset Thursday night, dancers’ feet were leaving the ground and coming back down, and a towering bird was walking around without touching the ground.

Dance Maineia from Waldoboro and the stilt walker from Connecticut-based Mortal Beasts and Deities were part of Wiscasset Art Walk. So were a Boothbay man and his guitar, and a Bowdoin College student with a book he wrote.

Boothbay’s Rick Turcotte played on his jumbo, handmade Collings guitar he said is like the old Gibsons, and is the best thing he has ever owned. He recalled wanting to buy the Austin, Texas-made instrument years ago at a Portland shop. He finally had the $2,500 to get it, the day before he moved to Austin, he said after playing and singing “Where did you come from?” Like most songs he performs, he wrote and composed it.

Turcotte is a WAW regular. “(WAW is) based on art, people’s creative energy. And I support that movement in the community as much as I can. I mean, there’s a line in the song I just sang (that says) ‘You brought your guitar instead of your gun.’ It seems to me, if we all did the same, we could change anything.”

Morgan K. Edwards brought his book. “An Outlier’s Tribe: Growing up between Appalachia and the Liberal Coast” came out last July, when most events he would have appeared at were off due to the pandemic. So this summer, he and the book have made the art walk rounds in Bath, Brunswick, Lewiston-Auburn and, Thursday night, Wiscasset.

With a several minutes long hip hop routine, Dance Maineia teacher Melanie Pagurko of Whitefield and students Michaela LaCrosse and Sopna Atkinson-Tatro, both of Damariscotta, garnered event-goers’ smiles, picture-taking and applause.

“Hip hop’s the only thing you can really do with the (sidewalk),” Pagurko said. And both students said hip hop is their favorite. “A thousand times better,” LaCrosse said.

“These girls are amazing at all styles,” including classical ballet, Pagurko said.

Nearby, New Hope for Women’s Lori Loftin sat with materials to share with art walk attendees. She said it is good to get out and make sure people in the communities NHFW serves know about it and its services. For information, visit newhopeforwomen.org or call 1-800-522-3304. 

Celia Ludwig had the acrylic paints out for attendees to continue the community mural work. She said one mural was pretty full and another, also on canvas, waited behind it. The season’s last art walk is Sept. 30 from 5 to 8 p.m.