Photo / Courtesy Illustration Institute
Nancy Gibson-Nash and Scott Nash
Updated: June 2, 2025
Arts group leases Portland space to showcase work of Maine artists and illustrators
Photo / Courtesy Illustration Institute
Illustration Institute co-founders Nancy Gibson-Nash and Scott Nash are building out space to establish an incubation hub for an illustration archive.
A nonprofit that promotes awareness and education around artists and illustrators in Maine has leased space in Portland’s Old Port as an incubation hub.
The Illustration Institute leased 1,000 square feet at Three Canal Plaza from East Brown Cow.
“Illustration is culturally significant and important to Maine,” said Scott Nash, who co-founded the institute with his wife Nancy Gibson-Nash in 2017.
Maine has a legacy of attracting artists and illustrators.
“But what I’ve discovered over the past eight years is that we also have an abundance of illustrators here today that are some of the best in the world,” he said. “It’s getting to a point where I feel like we are in a golden age of illustration.”
East Brown Cow and its affiliates comprise a real estate management, investment and development firm based in the Old Port district of Portland. Established over 30 years ago, its portfolio has over 20 assets in Greater Portland.
East Brown Cow has managed Three Canal Plaza as a Class A seven-story office building since its acquisition by Cow Plaza 3 LLC in 2009. Other tenants include investment, law and other professional offices upstairs, with Fidelity Investment’s retail services on the plaza level.
80,000 visitors
Nash is a children’s book author, illustrator and professor. Gibson-Nash is a mixed media collage artist and illustrator.
The institute’s mission is to raise appreciation and awareness of illustration in its many forms, through free programs provided at public venues across the state and through a residency program that attracts artists from around the world.
Photo / Courtesy Illustration Institute
The Illustration Institute has a traveling exhibit called greatest state of illustironation in Maine, seen here at the Schupf Art Center in Waterville.
“We also create and install increasingly ambitious exhibitions with partnering institutions,” Nash said.
The institute launched its first illustration exhibit in 2016 at the Portland Public Library, featuring 18 contemporary professional illustrators. It then held 20 free public events throughout 2017 featuring illustrators and writers.
One of the institute’s biggest exhibits was “Robert McCloskey: The Art of Wonder,” at Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library in 2023. The exhibit featured original drawings, studies and final art from five of McCloskey’s children’s books and drew 80,000 visitors.
Creative economy
The institute is now working on a project to build an illustration archive.
The Three Canal Plaza space will be used as a base for that initiative, providing an area to display some of the artwork and talk to people about the initiative, said Nash.
“The aim is to show the abundance of illustrators we have in Maine,” he said.
The plan is to kick off the project by collecting the archival works of Douglas Smith, an illustrator whose artwork includes the 1995 novel, “Wicked.” Smith has been living on Peak’s Island since 2004.
The project is a good fit for East Brown Cow, said Tim Soley, the firm’s president and CEO.
Photo / Courtesy Illustration Institute
The Illustration Institute leased 1,000 square feet at Three Canal Plaza from East Brown Cow.
“For years, we have been building an art collection of significant Maine artists which we display in spaces across our portfolio including our hospitality offering, the Docent’s Collection,” said Soley. “But we are always on the lookout for innovative ways to further support Maine’s creative economy.”
Hidden treasures
“Very few people know the wealth of illustrators we have here in the state,” Nash told Mainebiz. “What I’ve discovered, in my 25 years of living here, is that Maine is a land of hidden treasures and one of the treasures we’ve unearthed is the sheer amount of illustrators who currently make Maine their home either full-time or part-time.”
Nash said he and Gibson-Nash have worked together for years as a creative team. They had a gallery on Cape Cod early on.
“We’ve been advocates of illustration and all forms of art our entire lives,” he said.
The two now live on Peaks Island, where they established a summer artist residency program in June 2017 to bring together illustrators, writers and artists.
The institute has an office lease at 2 Union St. in the Old Port, used for meetings and projects. The staff of three includes Nash and Ogden-Nash, plus a summer assistant and a board of directors.
Renaissance
Nash said Maine is experiencing an illustration renaissance.
“I haven’t figure out why yet,” he said. “But when I talk anecdotally with illustrators, they have similar stories. They want a place to create and feel connected.”
Talks with artists, he said, have included ideas around legacy and around centralizing the wealth of illustration in Maine.
“We’re looking at creating an incubation space where we can talk about the idea of archives and the importance of amassing a collection of illustrated works,” Nash said.
The idea is to create a selective archive that would encourage discussion and awareness around the breadth of illustration in Maine.
The Three Canal Plaza space would be used to develop the idea and to discuss possibilities of where an archive might be housed.
“We’re hoping to take our time with this, start conversations, invite people and organizations to this space and talk about the possibilities,” said Nash.
Build-out
Build-out in the lease is underway. The goal is to be operational there by Jan. 1, 2026, he said.
The archive will have a scholarly side, but won’t be “stodgy,” Nash said.
“What we’ve learned from our exhibitions is that people love to see process,” he said. “They like to see the sketches, the crop marks on the illustrations and the notes the illustrator makes.”
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