The Brooklyn Rail

I met Lumin Wakoa many times—probably even before I really met her, I knew who she was. She had that kind of presence. The first time we truly spoke was at Fort Tilden Beach, when her daughter, Liv, was about one. A group of artist friends were there for a beach day, including her husband. Lumin and I went into the ocean together. I felt guilty leaving another friend with her/his kids on the beach, but Lumin waved it off: “They can take care of their own child—and Hendrik’s got mine.” Floating there, we talked about painting—not the art world, but painting itself. Painters we loved. Shows we’d seen. I just remember that it was easy.

Over time we kept orbiting each other—openings, friends, art fairs. Lumin was always quick to volunteer her time while the rest of us were at work. She was the heart of our community. There were always friends, family, kids, conversation, laughter—and painting.

2022 — Cushing, Maine

I had long felt a pull to Maine—thinking of Alex Katz and Lois Dodd. After the pandemic, I went to Lumin’s opening at Deanna Evans Projects; many works were painted outside, including in the cemetery near her home. I told her I planned to rent a house in Maine the following summer and asked if she wanted to join. She didn’t hesitate: “Where do I send the money? I’m serious.”

I began inviting other artist friends as well, and started an Instagram to learn about the midcoast art scene. We called it the Cushing Collaborative, a collectively funded artist residency project. No designated studio—just a wraparound porch and five acres by a pond.

Lumin arrived last on one of those tiny eight-seater planes into Rockland. She brought limited supplies; I brought too many. We shared Gamsol, brushes, and oil paint, and treated our canvases casually—leaned against rocks and logs like beach gear. She set up by the pond and, hours later, brought back a small gem—mostly salmon pinks with blues and greens, dabs of yellow, and black shooting through. The painting is named Maine.

We talked as we painted on the porch—about hard situations and about painting, including how she confronted themes of death in her work. She could see two sides of most situations without losing her center. I loved my conversations with Lumin; her intelligence kept the talk exact and kind. The same was true when we talked about art.

2023 — Lincolnville Beach, Maine

The next summer we rented a place on a rocky beach in Lincolnville. It was a beautiful site with a studio and a barely furnished house; the beds were so uncomfortable everyone put their mattresses on the floor. Lumin was unbothered: “I could sleep on a pile of rocks,” she said. I believed her. She and Claudia Peña Salinas shared a room late into the night, calling out funny questions to the rest of the house. Lumin had driven up with big canvases and an easel Hendrik built—portable but sturdy enough for painting outdoors at scale. She set up facing a pear tree on the path down to the water; I set up behind her and painted the path itself.

Lumin had to leave early to prepare for multiple shows, including a spring solo in New York at Harper’s in Chelsea. She was dealing with headaches and dizziness after several bouts of COVID—we thought it was stress or lingering effects. Emily Noelle Lambert later said she observed an urgency to Lumin’s painting in Lincolnville. The work had a new directness.

2024 — Friendship, Maine

That winter and spring in New York, we kept up our usual rhythm—openings, birthdays, calls (she was one of the few who still picked up the phone). Art handlers were in her studio packing for her upcoming show in Seoul when she told me about a scary health episode. Soon after, she was rushed into emergency surgery and diagnosed with glioblastoma. Hendrik called to tell me. I said how much I loved talking to Lumin. He answered, “There is no one like her.”

We had already rented a place in Friendship for July. She had begun treatment, but it was paused briefly for the July 4th holiday, and suddenly Lumin, Hendrik, Liv, and Frida were able to come up for a short visit. I had been painting on Lois Dodd’s property, arranged by artist and former Dodd student Elizabeth O’Reilly. Lois’s neighbor, Bill Bakaitis, kept up the gardens his late wife, Leslie Land, had planted on Lois’s property. It is so beautiful, and I wanted Lumin to see it all, but time was short. So we collected shells, ate lobster, swam, and Frida did a photo shoot with her Polaroid camera. We each got to pick who would be in our Polaroid. Everyone picked Lumin.

2025 — Brooklyn, New York

Before I left for Maine this summer, I sat with Lumin in her room in Brooklyn. I knew this would be our last visit. She kept the conversation present—asking what I was working on. I told her I loved her and she told me she loved me, and then she said, “and we were going to Maine.”

2025 — Cushing, Maine

Our summer in midcoast Maine links us to a more expansive story of art in Maine. We were following in the footsteps of Lois Dodd and Alex Katz who had been coming from New York to Cushing and Lincolnville for decades, painting among friends. Other friends like Nancy Wissemann-Widrig are a living testament to the kind of lifelong artistic collaboration that Maine can nurture. I couldn’t help thinking of Dodd and Wissemann-Widrig, who painted together in Maine for years, and seeing a reflection of that bond in myself and Lumin, each encouraging the other while pursuing our individual paths.

When the news came that Lumin had died, I was already in Maine. I was painting on Lois’s property, and visiting daily with her. I showed Lois some of Lumin’s paintings on my phone, and Hendrik had given me Lumin’s easel to paint on in her yard. Lois was wowed by the large-scale paintings Lumin made for her show at Harper’s.

Standing in Lois’s flower-filled backyard, I set up Lumin’s easel with a canvas much larger than I typically work on outside, to properly use her easel. As I struggled to scale up, I felt a comforting sense of continuum. Lois has spoken about painting—that in the end an artist must solve problems alone on the canvas. She has put it, “no one else can really help you… it’s just you and [the painting].” Working on Lumin’s easel, I felt like I was in conversation with her, asking for help.

We won’t get to grow old together. On a walk this past spring, Lumin said, “I thought I’d get to be an old lady,” and I told her I wished we could be old ladies together. What we did get was Lumin’s brilliance—her paintings, her community, her way of seeing. The Cushing Collaborative will keep returning each July—painting outside, sharing supplies, talking about the painters we love. And I’ll keep Lumin with me, steady and clear, in the work: in the ocean, on the porch, and at the easel she used—her presence as bright as Maine light.