Anna Romer enjoys a quiet life promoting the things she loves: books, art and community. Almost 30 years ago, she and her husband left city life behind and embraced small-town living. Now, with her children grown, Romer is a board member of Hewnoaks Artist Colony, which sits on land owned by the University of Maine Foundation.

Name: Anna Romer

Marital status/children: Married to Jose Azel. Three children: Nico, Yazi and Sasha. All have left home and are in college.

Town: Lovell, for 27 years.

Job: Director of the Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library in Lovell, treasurer of Hewnoaks Artist Colony (http://hewnoaks.org/) and also board member of the Greater Lovell Land Trust.

How did you come to do your line of work? After working in the photo industry in Amsterdam and New York City for many years, my husband and I moved to Maine to raise our children. I started volunteering at our local library during story time, then as a board member, and now I am the director. As a little girl growing up in the Netherlands, I lived across the street from the library. I was there every chance I had and I read ferociously. It never occurred to me to make it my career. Now I believe I was always meant to be a librarian.

Wow! Amsterdam and then New York? How did you happen to choose Lovell, Maine, as a place to settle and raise your children? My husband and I were big time into rock climbing. We often came up to North Conway, N.H., to visit friends and climb at Whitehorse and Cathedral. On one of those trips we picked up a real estate pamphlet at Shop ‘n’ Save. A farmhouse with a big barn and 15 acres was featured on the back cover. We put a bid on it the same day. Initially our vacation home, we soon realized that this was the place we wanted to raise our children.

How does life in Lovell compare to the more urban life in which you were raised and spent your earlier adult years? Life in Lovell is more diverse than meets the eye. Our social life takes place more at people’s homes than in public places. Like most scenic Maine towns, Lovell has a large number of second homeowners that come from places as far away as California, Colorado, England and Switzerland. Our population has writers, college professors, movie directors, opera singers, poets and painters. That said, one of the most entertaining and wisest men of Lovell was my neighbor John Fox. John lived most of his 98 years on Slab City Road and worked his whole life in the woods as a lumberer and outdoor guide. Two things I will always miss about The Netherlands and New York City, though, is having easy access to a plethora of ethnic restaurants and being able to bike or use public transportation to go everywhere.

What is Hewnoaks and how did you first become involved with it? The Hewnoaks Artist Colony is a nonprofit artist residency set on the eastern shore of Kezar Lake in Lovell. The wooded property has a main lodge and five rustic cabins, all of them offer magnificent views of the White Mountains. Since 2013 we have leased the property from the University of Maine Foundation for three months of the year. Painters, photographers, videographers, performance artists, musicians, writers and craftsmen from around the nation are able to apply for a one- to three-week residency at Hewnoaks, where they have the unique opportunity to work without the distractions of their daily lives. The colony has so far been funded by in-kind contributions from the University of Maine Foundation, by private donations and, in 2014, by grants from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation and the Quimby Family Foundation.

I live three minutes away from the property, and when Andy Graham, vice president of Space Gallery in Portland, asked if I would like to get involved, I did not hesitate. I am especially interested in helping create a variety of opportunities for engagement of my local community. To that end we have organized poetry and storytelling workshops on site, and this summer our library displayed the work of 15 Hewnoaks alumni.

How do you feel the natural beauty in Lovell, and especially at Hewnoaks, inspires artists who visit?  From the 17,000-year-old cave paintings in France, to my favorite artist and compatriot Vincent van Gogh, nature has inspired artists through human history. It is very rare to find a landscape relatively untouched as Kezar Lake and the White Mountains so close and accessible. I think the serenity and beauty of Hewnoaks inspire the mind to drift and to see color, pattern, structure and balance that all can be used in the artist’s particular art form.

With all that is happening in the world today, tell me why art is important? And would you say that it is perhaps more important now than ever before? Why or why not? Art is the only form of communication that is universal. It knows no nation, race or class. Art helps us imagine what is possible and can inspire personal transformation as well as societal change. Our world is more interconnected than ever before and we need a global language like art to help us see and heal each other. I really like the quote by German painter Paul Klee: “Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see.”

It seems you have really embraced your community and become involved in things you feel will enrich lives there. How does the local community benefit from having a place like Hewnoaks? The original owners of Hewnoaks, Douglas and Marion Volk, bought the property in 1898 and almost immediately started to engage the local community through traditional handicrafts: metalwork, wood carving, textile and letterpress printing, and weaving and rug making. Now more than 100 years later their spirit still lingers among the carved beams of the main lodge. It is the social and cultural connections we can make through interactions with the visiting artists, workshops, performances and exhibitions that will enrich our community’s life and hopefully inspire us to help create a more beautiful world.

What is something about you that might surprise people, or at least defy stereotypes about librarians as they appear in, say, Hollywood movies? I like to dance to French rap music, especially Maitre Gims.