In Remembrance: Carolyn Ann Hecker
July 15, 1939 – September 7, 2026
The Maine Crafts Association remembers Carolyn Ann Hecker, the founding Executive Director of MCA. Her vision and profound, ongoing dedication to championing Maine’s craft community created the MCA, which has endured for forty-three years. Carolyn’s work has left a lasting legacy for which we are forever grateful.
“It would be safe to say that were it not for Carolyn Hecker, Maine Crafts Association wouldn’t exist. When she married metalsmith Ronald Hayes Pearson and moved from Washington, D.C., to Deer Isle in the early 1980s, she recognized the skill and resourcefulness of the crafts community in Maine and the need to create a statewide organization that could serve and unite Maine’s makers.
Carolyn was tenacious and tireless in ensuring that crafts had a voice in the state’s cultural community, and worked to help craft makers develop their professional skills. She created the workshop weekend at Haystack, connecting MCA and Haystack in a partnership that continues today.
And she was a leader in promoting the aesthetic importance of craft and its legacy in the state. In 1987, Carolyn worked with the Portland Museum of Art on an exhibit, Ten, which was installed in the main gallery of the Charles Shipman Payson building. It featured ten craft makers from Maine. I remember the experience of walking into that gallery. It was a stunning show and made it clear that craft in Maine could be on an equal footing with all the work in the museum. That wouldn’t have happened without Carolyn. She always saw to it that craft was center stage.” – Stuart Kestenbaum
Our thoughts are with Carolyn’s loved ones, who have graciously asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Maine Crafts Association or to the Ark Pope Memorial Animal Shelter in her memory.
Carolyn’s Obituary
Carolyn Ann Hecker, 87, beloved wife of William W. Lukens, died on September 7, 2026. She was born on July 15, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Arthur Orr Hecker and Sarah Emma (Johnson) Hecker.
Carolyn earned a B.A. from Gettysburg College in 1961 and an M.A. from American University in 1984. In 1994, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Maine College of Art, in recognition of her lifelong contribution to the arts.
After college, Carolyn moved to Washington, D.C., where she held positions at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, the Craft Art Project, and theGreenwood Gallery. In 1981, she moved to Deer Isle, Maine, to join her husband, the metalsmith Ronald Hayes Pearson. After moving there, she managed his business, Ronald Hayes Pearson, Inc. and, after his death, continued to steward his work as director of the Ronald Hayes Pearson Legacy Gallery.
In 1983, Carolyn founded the Maine Craft Association and served as its Executive Director from 1983 to 1997. She also served on the boards of the American Folklife Center in Washington, D.C., and the Maine Community Cultural Alliance in Augusta. Carolyn was an abiding and constant supporter of the crafts community of Deer Isle and, indeed, of the wider community of craftspeople throughout Maine. Her enthusiasm for the work of makers and artists, and her generosity toward the community that sustained them, left a lasting mark on the place she loved.
Carolyn was an avid lover of all animals, domesticated and wild alike. She often said that cats “found her,” and over the years she opened her home to strays and pedigreed cats in equal measure. She delighted in the frequent backyard visitors to her Deer Isle home: raccoons, crows, and deer, each of whom she named and fed as though they were old friends.
During her college junior year abroad in France, Carolyn was bitten by the travel bug and never stopped traveling whenever she could. She held a particular love for France, India, and Japan. Yet for all her wandering, her heart always resided on Deer Isle.
Carolyn’s first husband, Ronald Hayes Pearson, predeceased her. In addition to her husband, William, Carolyn is survived by her sisters, Sally Lawrence and Deborah Hecker; her stepchildren, Bettina Pearson, Nadya Pearson, Arn Pearson, Lina McClatchy, Annie Kirkpatrick, Ellie Lukens, and Molly Dompe; and her nephew, numerous nieces, and grandchildren.
Carolyn loved to celebrate her July 15th birthday each year by hosting festive backyard picnics, welcoming friends and family from far and wide. In keeping with that tradition, a celebration of her life will be held on Deer Isle on July 15, 2027. The specific location will be announced at a later date.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to these organizations in Carolyn’s memory.
Maine Crafts Association
c/o Whitney Gill
PO BOX 342
Gardiner, ME 04345
https://mainecrafts.org/support-maine-crafts-association/
The Ark Pope Memorial Animal Shelter
60 Barber Lane
PO Box 276
Cherryfield, ME 04622
(207) 546-3484
https://thearkpets.org/donate/