Beyond Gary Hoyle's career at the Maine State Museum:
Of the many other projects Gary Hoyle has worked on while employed at the Maine State Museum, the following two were his favorites.
The Charles Cooper
Sometime prior to the late 1970s, nautical archeologists discovered the square-rigged schooner Charles Cooper rotting in a harbor among the Falkland Islands. Impressed with the Cooper's large and elaborate sternboard carving, they secured a grant from the Dow Corning Corporation to take a multiple sections mold of the entire carving.
In 1978, Dow Corning hired Gary Hoyle to "restore" a six foot section of the Charles Cooper's sternboard carving which would be cast in plaster from several adjacent molds of the weathered section.
The entire design of the six foot section was carefully "restored" in plaster, square inches at a time. Missing areas were reworked guided by the "ghost patterns" left from missing wood. After several months, a mold was made of the six foot plaster cast. Gary Hoyle then hired a fiberglass canoe builder to produce two polyester casts from the mold. Mr. Hoyle finished each cast as it would appear on a dry-docked vessel. As an added touch, he painted a few small areas to look like raw wood then glued dry paint fragments around their edged to appear like peeling paint.
The results were such a success that one cast was first displayed at the Newport Festival in Rhode Island, then exhibited at the World Trade Center in New York City, before being donated to New York's South Street Seaport Museum. The second cast was displayed at Dow Corning's corporate office in Midland, Michigan and later donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
The Billings Farm Museum
One day in the early 1980s a special visitor arrived at the Maine State Museum. Lawrence Rockefeller had been envisioning an agricultural museum on his estate in Woodstock, Vermont. He had been working with a design firm out of Arlington, Virginia for about twelve years but had not settled on an overall design that suited him. One of his associates happened to visit the Maine State Museum and recommended Mr. Rockefeller check out the exhibits there. So, the Maine State Museum was closed for a day while Mr. Rockefeller and his entourage toured the facility. At that time Gary Hoyle was working in a small laboratory. Through a narrow window in the door, he could see a group of people walking by. Suddenly the door opened. Lawrence Rockefeller entered the lab and closed the door behind him. He nodded at the door and said, "I get tired of that. I want to talk with the people who do the work." He and Gary had a pleasant conversation for about twenty minutes. Two weeks later Gary had a contract to work on the Billings Farm Museum Project in his free time. Of the many exhibits Gary created for that museum, his favorite was the ice harvesting exhibit. He found out later that it was a favorite of Lawrence Rockefeller and is still a favorite of many museum employees.
The Billings Farm Museum
One day in the early 1980s a special visitor arrived at the Maine State Museum. Lawrence Rockefeller had been envisioning an agricultural museum on his estate in Woodstock, Vermont. He had been working with a design firm out of Arlington, Virginia for about twelve years but had not settled on an overall design that suited him. One of his associates happened to visit the Maine State Museum and recommended Mr. Rockefeller check out the exhibits there. So, the Maine State Museum was closed for a day while Mr. Rockefeller and his entourage toured the facility. At that time Gary Hoyle was working in a small laboratory. Through a narrow window in the door, he could see a group of people walking by. Suddenly the door opened. Lawrence Rockefeller entered the lab and closed the door behind him. He nodded at the door and said, "I get tired of that. I want to talk with the people who do the work." He and Gary had a pleasant conversation for about twenty minutes. Two weeks later Gary had a contract to work on the Billings Farm Museum Project in his free time. Of the many exhibits Gary created for that museum, his favorite was the ice harvesting exhibit. He found out later that it was a favorite of Lawrence Rockefeller and is still a favorite of many museum employees.
