Over the past three years, a Lewiston artist known only by the initials “RG” has placed 500 gnomes on roadsides from Portland to Sunday River.

On the top of the city of Auburn parking garage. In the bushes at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. At the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, amid the tulips.

“I’ll keep a couple in my car,” RG said in an interview last week. “If I’m somewhere, I’ll look for an old stone or a tree trunk. I try not to be seen — that’s the fun part.”

They come with a note tied around the base — “You found me, I’m yours. Keep me, place me someplace else.” — that encourages gnome-finders to take a picture and leave an update on his MaineGnome Maine page on Facebook.

As for remaining anonymous, he wants the work — or the gnomes — to speak for themselves.

“Gnomes are kind of secretive, too — you never see them move,” he said. “They work at night.”

RG, who’s in his 40s, several years ago bought a latex gnome mold off eBay, intending to make a bunch for his garden.

But he started having fun, experimenting with paints and mold-making. And soon, he was going to have too many.

“The great thing with gnomes is, you can do so much with the hat,” he said. “The newer version I’m making now, he’s going to have a mustache.”

No two are alike. The hat may flop left or right while the cement and plaster of Paris mix sets up, and with each use the molds stretch out, making the next gnome bigger or taller. As it dries, he signs the feet with “Maine Gnome,” the date and “RG.”

“I’ll watch TV and I’ll have four or five lined up and do a quick paint,” he said. “The eyes — that’s the hardest. To make them come alive — that’s the hardest.”

He’s painted a gnome ode to King Tut, the artist Prince and members of the band KISS. RG started selling some at the Undercover Flea Market in Oxford three months ago with sales helping fund the free ones.

He left his first one on a roadside in Raymond in summer 2013. From there, they’ve been all over, sometimes at the pace of three or four a week. He loosely keeps track of how long it takes for someone to find one, sometimes doing walk- or drive-bys.

One entirely gold-painted gnome left on a roadside cliff on Route 100 in Auburn, “a good two months he was there. All of a sudden, there was a pink flamingo in his place,” RG said. “A week later, I drove by and the gnome was back. And then someone else found him and took him to New Hampshire.”

One was recently discovered after 18 months in hiding. Another sat through the winter in a caboose in Gray.

When Shaker staff found his work among their tulips, “They took a picture on Facebook, ‘We’ve been gnomed!'” he said.

RG’s razzed plenty by friends who know — or gnow — what he’s up to. That’s OK, he said.

“It makes tons of people happy,” he said.

Weird, Wicked Weird is a monthly feature on the strange, intriguing and unexplained in Maine. Send ideas, photos and happy gnomes to kskelton@sunjournal.com