It’s time to raise my voice and join the voices of others who have cried out in alarm at the news of the demise of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
Salt belongs to the people of Maine, and only they should decide whether this cultural treasure is to be killed off, survive in some abridged form by being swallowed into another organization, or survive and thrive as it always has — as an independent public resource and learning institution with its own distinct pedagogy.
I started Salt at Kennebunk High School in 1973 with three classrooms full of founding students. We began with a burst of enthusiasm and untamed energy. Students went from the classroom to the field to document — by tape recording interviews and photographing — the lives of their grandparents, parents and neighbors. We were all in this together. From this unbounded effort came the first issue of Salt Magazine, then “The Salt Book” with 50,000 copies published by Doubleday/Anchor, followed by “Salt II.”
Then came radio programs and major photographic exhibits at the Portland Museum of Art, the Brick Store Museum of Kennebunk, the University of Maine Museum in Orono, the Colby Museum of Art, the Smith College Museum of Art and others. Early on Salt students were invited to conduct workshops in Hawaii, Alaska, Colorado, Canada and Texas to help other students begin similar documentary projects. Then came international recognition, and students from all over the world arrived in Maine, making it their mission to document the lives of extraordinary Maine people and learning valuable storytelling skills in the process.
During those years we developed curricula and methodology, always with the same mission and cooperation between students and the Maine people whose stories they told. This type of unique ethnographic learning is crucial to Salt’s historic mission. Any effort to force it to abandon its roots or its self-determination is a betrayal of Salt’s pact with the people of Maine.
The present board has destroyed its legitimacy by voting to close down Salt without first consulting or even notifying the four decades of students, teachers and Maine people associated with the institute who had no idea it was in peril. When I left Salt in 2001 after almost 30 years, it had considerable assets, a national level Academic Advisory Board, a robust grant-writing program and a beautiful four-story brick building on Exchange Street in Portland. A bright future lay ahead.
Since that time, the current leadership has mismanaged Salt’s assets and has refused to be transparent about what remains. It has discontinued Salt’s successful outreach efforts by ending the yearly mailing of 10,000 distinctive posters focusing on Maine faces to colleges and universities. It has closed down Salt magazine, and incredibly, has ended the Salt writing program, which was in many ways the heart and soul of the school.
Salt has been on a downward trajectory for several years, bleeding strength from a thousand self-inflicted cuts. In 2008 it sold off its largest asset, the big brick building called Mechanics Hall at 110 Exchange St. for close to triple the price I paid for it. The announced reason for the sale was to establish an endowment. No such endowment was ever established. Maine people and Salt alumni were deluded by what was a bald lie. Instead, Salt lived off the fat profits to subsidize its monthly shortfalls and make costly renovations on a small, overpriced rental space, while its leadership failed to fulfill its role as principal fundraisers responsible for Salt’s financial health. It is a failed board.
Salt is an endangered species. We must place it again in its own environment where it has flourished and can flourish again.
If, as I am told, the Maine College of Art and/or the Quimby Family Foundation or any other organizations want to be part of Salt’s future, it is vital that they understand what made Salt a respected institution and why its independence is crucial to its ongoing mission. Maine people deserve no less.
Pam Wood founded the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in 1973. She left the institute in 2001.