Katherine Dunn

S&H editor Ben Nussbaum spoke with Maine-based artist Katherine Dunn about hauling animals across the country-and much more. Look for her art throughout the issue.

-  Ben Nussbaum

You live on a 30-acre farm. Tell me about Apifera.

We started out west in Oregon in 2004. My husband and I bought this dilapidated farm ... he's a landscaper. We started out as a working farm. We raised some sheep, and we planted 4,000 lavender plants. At the same time I was taking on elder animals. Goats and donkeys for example. People loved to follow my animal stories on a blog, and Apifera Farm became well-known as a sanctuary. So when we moved to Maine in 2016, we brought 30 animals. We chose to no longer raise animals but to focus on sanctuary work. And my dream was always to share the animals with elder people. Where we landed in Midcoast Maine is just perfect for that. It all fell into place. We're now a nonprofit and that's what I focus on-helping animals but also sharing them with the community, mostly elders.

I'd be remiss not to ask how you got all those animals across the country.

We bought a big trailer. We drove six days. Oh man, we had three pigs and the momma pig got pregnant by the papa pig-that wasn't supposed to happen-and she gave birth to four piglets a few days before we left. So they all came.

I had to plan it all out. It was really quite an ordeal. But everything worked. I had so many fears that we'd stop at a gas station and an animal would roll out of the trailer. But nothing went wrong. We made it.

Sounds like the premise of a movie. Where did you stop at night?