Madison Poitrast-Upton had never painted a mural before.

She is a founder and designer at Loquat, an Exchange Street store that aims to support marginalized people through fashion and textiles, and also the assistant designer at Jill McGowan, a local women’s clothing brand. A recent graduate of Maine College of Art & Design, she also wants to use illustration to increase representation of women of color. But she had not thought about putting her art on a wall until Portland muralist Ryan Adams invited her to paint the outside of the Thompson’s Point studio he shares with his wife, Rachel Gloria Adams.

“So many people will see it when they walk by,” Poitrast-Upton said. “The fact that it’s so big that you can’t miss it is really powerful. When Ryan reached out, even though I didn’t know if I could do it or I hadn’t done it before, I was really excited.”

At Thompson’s Point, Ryan and Rachel Adams are everywhere. Two years ago, they set up their studio there in a former garage. Rachel Adams completed two murals inside the new Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine, and both artists contributed to the inside of the expanded Bissell Brothers brewery. This year, they collaborated on two more designs on the outside of Brick South and Brick North.

But they have also used their platform at Thompson’s Point to launch opportunities for other artists. This summer, they started hosting pop-up galleries as Over Here Studio without asking for a commission on sales. They established two highly visible spaces for artists to paint rotating murals. There is so much public art at Thompson’s Point now that the venue created an online map for visitors to find it all.

Chris Thompson, one of the site’s owners and developers, said Rachel and Ryan Adams take the arts at Thompson’s Point to the next level.

“What we humbly thought of as artist studios, they’ve made into a hub of creative production and exhibition space that is far more interesting and cohesive and valuable to the world than what we had thought of when we started, and we love that,” Thompson said.

‘SAME TEAM, SAME DREAM’

Rachel Adams grew up in Massachusetts and found a passion for painting in her mom’s art classroom. She came to Portland to study at the Maine College of Art & Design. Ryan Adams grew up in the city, where he started out painting graffiti and ended up getting mural commissions. He returned to his hometown after college and met Rachel through mutual friends. Soon, date night became paint night.

“We would literally sit on the couch with little painting stations on the coffee table, full speed, totally in the zone, but always right next to each other,” Rachel Adams said.

They married and had two daughters. Today, their work can be found on buildings and in businesses across Maine and beyond. Their collaborations include the Piece Together Project, a mural series that honors members of the East Bayside community. On social media, they constantly hype each other’s successes. In real life, they are clearly each other’s biggest fan.

“We’re not competitive with each other,” said Ryan Adams, 38. “We both genuinely love seeing each other win. It’s like, same dream, same team.”

Both artists show their work in galleries and museums, but public murals are an important part of their practice.

“Accessibility is huge,” said Rachel Adams, 36. “I think that’s a large part of why we’re drawn to mural work. You don’t have to be seeking art or be hyper intellectual about it. You can just be walking down the street and experience it. Art can be so isolating sometimes in that way.”

Over the years, they worked in individual and shared studios, including in their basement before their kids got older. Two years ago, Ryan Adams found himself dreaming about dedicated studio space in Portland and Googling, “Who owns Thompson’s Point?”

BRINGING ART TO THOMPSON’S POINT

The first project completed in the redevelopment of Thompson’s Point was actually a public art installation.

Thompson has a doctorate in cultural history and at one time taught art history at the Maine College of Art & Design. Before he left academia to focus on real estate, he met Sam Van Aken, a visual artist and art professor at Syracuse University in New York. In 2014, Van Aken planted a small grove at Thompson’s Point called “The Tree of 40 Fruit,” in which he uses grafting to get 40 different varieties to grow on a single tree. The project is both aesthetic and agricultural, preserving native and heirloom varieties.

Thompson points to that partnership as an example of an early commitment to the arts.

“It is always the case that artists move into a neighborhood, make it cool, and then it becomes too expensive for them to live there anymore,” Thompson said. “What if we flipped the script a little bit? The more traction we get, the more we double down on getting arts and cultural programming.”

In 2021, Randy Regier drove from his home in Kansas to Thompson’s Point to deliver another installation: NuPenny’s Last Stand, an imaginary toy store filled with toys dreamed up by the artist. Regier also knew Thompson from his own days in the master of fine arts program at Maine College of Art & Design.

Regier said he wanted NuPenny’s Last Stand to live in an unexpected place where visitors would find it completely by chance and wonder over its provenance. While Thompson’s Point is becoming more popular for visitors, it is still possible to stumble upon the mysterious cube, which sits right next to Over Here Studio. He said he believes Thompson sees the importance of art in creating a destination that will stand the test of time.

“I do think what he’s trying to do at Thompson’s Point, it’s a long game,” he said. “It’s a place that people will want to return to because they felt it was a human place.”

Now, the buildings themselves have become canvases for art, in large part due to the Adamses.

In 2022, Northern Light Health sponsored a mural on Brick South at Thompson’s Point by Maine artist Jared Goulette that asked visitors: “How are you?” With Rachel and Ryan Adams working on the site, Thompson said it seemed natural to turn to them as well. (They loved the idea, and not just because their supplies were already there.) Northern Light Health ultimately sponsored three additional murals.

Two are by the Adamses: “Be Here Now” on Brick North and “It’s A Beautiful Day, Whenever We’re Together” on Brick South. Both designs incorporate Ryan’s signature gem style and Rachel’s inclination toward quilt-like patterns and botanical prints. The final mural, also on Brick South, is the second at Thompson’s Point by Poitrast-Upton, a painting of a woman leaning her ear toward the viewer, titled “Listen.” The Adamses asked her to be the first artist to paint a rotating mural on that wall after the success of her temporary piece on their studio building.

Poitrast-Upton said their support gave her the confidence and skills for future mural projects.

“They really just let me do what I wanted to do, and that was really empowering,” she said.

Northern Light Health also sponsored the online ArtMap with locators for all of the public art at the development. It highlights the existing murals and installations, as well as destinations such as Over Here Studio and the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine. Thompson said he was excited to see the number of locations already on the ArtMap. He hopes to add six more artist studios to a still-undeveloped building on the property.

“The first thing it makes us think is, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to keep adding more,’ ” he said. “It adds so much to people’s experience of the site.”

AN OPEN DOOR

This summer, the Adamses started hosting monthly pop-up galleries in their space under the name Over Here Studio. They want to use these shows to promote artists they admire, especially those who have taken untraditional paths or whose careers they want to support.

“You see a lot of people self-promoting and really hustling online to get their names out there, and sometimes you don’t see things catch,” Rachel Adams said. “Being able to have a platform to catch the people we see who are really hustling and be like, ‘Here’s a rope,’ it feels really nice to be able to do that.”

The first show in June featured Biddeford artist Hannah Hirsch. She describes her current work as being “at the intersection of abstract painting and woodworking” and first connected with Rachel Adams on Instagram. When the Adamses curated a show of 17 artists at Alice Gauvin Gallery in Portland this spring, they invited Hirsch to contribute. Soon after, they raised the idea of her first solo show at Over Here Studio.

On opening night, she felt intimidated by the prospect of talking to everyone who came to see her work, but the Adamses made introductions and buoyed her throughout the event.

“I am a pretty introverted person,” Hirsch said. “For me, making art is what I am wildly passionate about and what I want to immerse myself in, but when it comes to talking about my work, I feel really clumsy at times. I feel the best piece of support that they offered to me throughout the entire process was reassurance and a lot of confidence boosting of making me feel like I really deserved to be in that room.”

Hirsch has worked as a brewer at Bissell Brothers for nearly three years and has seen the growth of public art at Thompson’s Point.

“Ryan and Rachel are singlehandedly driving that force on the Point,” Hirsch said. “It’s been really cool to literally witness more art show up on walls – murals, these pop-up shows.”

Local galleries operate under a variety of commission structures, but artists who have held shows at Over Here Studio said it was a rare opportunity to retain all of the proceeds from any sales. They also said the Adamses offered support as needed but otherwise allowed them to have free rein.

“They have an ethos of knowing the value of that opportunity as an artist to really do what you want,” said South Portland artist Will Sears, who hosted a solo show there in October. “When you have to make work that is more commercially driven or created for a specific theme of a show, it can feel like you’re having to shapeshift a little bit. But when you’re making work that is unadulterated or given the freedom to do whatever the artist wants to do, it’s a real opportunity to let curiosity lead the way.”

Pat Corrigan joined fellow artist and friend Bob Smyth for a joint show at Over Here Studio in August. Corrigan now lives in Bath but moved to Portland in the 1990s, and he said he remembers a time when Thompson’s Point was “an industrial wasteland.”

“I’d love to see more of what Rachel and Ryan are doing,” he said. “I think they are going to be a magnet.”

More is what the Adamses hope to do. They want their studio at Thompson’s Point to be a welcoming and inclusive space.

“I’m such a proud townie, born and raised here,” Ryan Adams said. “But I also didn’t see people who looked like me doing anything in this sphere. I often think about what direction my life would have gone if I actually had a model in front of me to see that: A) this is possible, and B) people of color in a place like this can do it as well. To me, just having the open doors and just inviting new artists to paint, just inviting new artists to show, and just having this ‘all are welcome’ feel to this place is one of the things I really hope has an effect on the community.”

The next show at Over Here Studio begins Dec. 1 and will feature art by the rapper Spose. They’ve talked about hosting workshops, lectures and other events in the future.

“The more ways we can bring people in, the better,” Rachel Adams said.

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