Bath arts center’s Dream Lab nurtures children’s imagination through art

A full room at a familiar landmark

A dozen Bath children spent a full week turning dreams into collages, comic strips and journal pages at the Chocolate Church Arts Center, and the 12-slot Dream Lab was already filled before the April 20-24 session began. That kind of demand is the clearest sign that in Sagadahoc County, hands-on arts time for children is not a luxury. It is a community need that families notice when it is available and feel when it is missing.

The setting matters as much as the activity. Dream Lab took place at 804 Washington St., inside the former Central Congregational Church, a building first constructed in 1847 that Main Street Maine describes as a Gothic Revival landmark and a downtown Bath cultural anchor. The space carries the weight of local history, but the program shows how history can stay useful when it is put to work for today’s children.

What Dream Lab actually gives children

Dream Lab is part of the UnNameable Children’s Project, and the Chocolate Church Arts Center says it is a week-long camp for ages 8 to 12, limited to 12 participants. Led by Executive and Artistic Director Matthew Glassman and accompanying artists, the program is built around creativity through dreaming, in all its ways, shapes and forms.

That approach is deliberately low-pressure and highly practical. In a recent session, the children made collages, wrote in journals, created their own dream comic strips and talked about what their dreams meant to them. Each of those activities gives children a different way to speak, and that matters for kids who may not always have the words, the setting or the confidence to express themselves in school or at home.

The benefit is not abstract. A child who can sort through feelings in a journal, organize a story in panels or explain an image they made is practicing emotional development, storytelling and self-expression at the same time. In a town like Bath, where parents and schools are often looking for meaningful, affordable ways to keep children engaged, that mix of structure and imagination fills a real gap.

Why the Chocolate Church’s role reaches beyond performances

The Dream Lab only makes sense when viewed as part of the Chocolate Church Arts Center’s larger mission. The center says it has served midcoast Maine for more than 40 years, and its history page says it was incorporated and received 501(c)(3) status in 1977. That kind of staying power gives the organization a rare role in Bath: it is both a cultural venue and a neighborhood institution.

Its public Art Lab pushes that role even further. The center describes the Art Lab as a vibrant, fully equipped creative space where imagination has no limits, and it offers free creative materials for painting, sewing, sculpture, collage, gel printing, linocut printing and drawing. That is not just a nice amenity for artists. It is a community resource that lowers the cost of trying, failing, experimenting and learning.

For families, that matters because not every child has a quiet space, supplies or a built-in arts routine at home. For schools, it matters because not every lesson can be delivered during a regular class period. A place like the Chocolate Church gives children time to create without the pressure of grades or auditions, and that can change how they see themselves.

A steady investment in Bath’s children

Dream Lab is not the first youth program to show how seriously the center takes kids’ creative lives. In June 2024, a $20,000 Onion Foundation grant was set to fund two innovative arts programs for children at the Chocolate Church Arts Center. In January 2025, the center’s winter youth program, Young Storytellers, was planned as another weeklong workshop for children ages 8 to 12.

That pattern says the same thing in different ways: the center is building a long-term youth arts pipeline, not offering one-off events. A September 2024 Press Herald story said a new focus on diverse communities was helping breathe new life into the Chocolate Church and its programming, and an Onion Foundation profile described the center’s goal as becoming a true community-driven resource where creativity can flourish. Dream Lab fits that direction exactly.

The local stakes are bigger than one camp session. When a downtown arts center keeps a full children’s program on the calendar and fills it early, Bath gains more than a class. It gains a place where young residents can test ideas, make sense of their world and feel that their imagination belongs in public life. If spaces like this are undervalued, the community does not just lose an arts offering. It loses one of the few places where children can create, belong and grow in plain sight.