Skip Navigation
MaineArts Home | Table of Contents | << Previous Article | Next Article >>
 Andrea Bisceglia'09 and Molly Ladd '09, Student Synergy Project Urban Fruit Orchard –Photo: Bates College Museum of Art  Quarryography "Three Dancers Swinging for Cableman" –Photo courtesy of Opera House Arts  Deuce of Spades postcard. Postcards featuring images of the residents of Malaga were printed at the turn of the last century. This infamous postcard image was named "deuce of spades." –Photo courtesy of Maine State Archives  Image from a Maine Crafts Consortium Initiative  Image from a Maine Crafts Consortium Initiative PDF of this Article (2.6MB)
|
THE MAINE ARTS COMMISSION provides grant support for artists, school districts, community organizations and art institutions through a variety of specialized grant programs. The agency draws on its state appropriation and federal funds through the National Endowment for the Arts, in addition to tapping into other public and private resources, to make awards across the entire state.
The following pages highlight some of the grant programs and awards from fiscal year 2008.
The ARTIST IN MAINE COMMUNITIES grant program assists arts organizations, schools and other community groups to develop collaborative projects that employ Maine artists and support artistic programs in Maine communities. Grants support broad reaching arts programs in schools, social service and disability organizations, tribal governments, municipalities and major arts institutions. Artists of all disciplines-contemporary and traditional-have been involved, providing Maine artists with a new source of income. Program guidelines were developed to incorporate a new concentration on the creative economy. Additionally, as the Maine Arts Commission moves beyond the creative economy and recognizes the centrality of the artist, the charge to work with professional artists, even in schools and social service agencies has become paramount to making a project fundable and successful.
Examples of projects from Lewiston, Stonington
and Portland, illustrate the power of the focus on community, diversity, collaboration and innovation.
Lewiston
$7,500
Green Horizons was a multi-faceted exhibition that included site-specific community art projects in the Lewiston/Auburn area. The exhibition explored issues relating to the environment and sustainability.
The Bates College Museum of Art views itself as a new academic museum and cultural leader resisting commercialization. It is dedicated to introducing new ideas and questions about how art transcends and reflects history in our current times, and presenting art in our everyday lives outside the museum. To reach our goals, we chose an exhibition with a broad topic, the environment and sustainability. The themes also empowered the museum to solicit conceptual, time-based, and public art work, which were more dependent on process and community participation than objects that traditionally define museum exhibitions. We sought to participate in our community beyond the museum so that art becomes part of life, not just displayed on our museum walls.
Green Horizons was by design, a dynamic, community-based endeavor, involving multiple local non-profits: Bates College, Empowering Lewiston, Lewiston Housing Authority, Lots to Gardens, Maine College of Art, Museum L/A and the Stanton Bird Club with the Thorncrag Nature Sanctuary.
- Mark Bessire, Director, Bates College, Museum of Art
Stonington
$7,500
Quarryography was a contemporary site specific community dance piece that used a quarry as the site and construction equipment as
'lead performers.'
Quarryography, with its giant puppet swinging merrily and colorfully above the ridged granite floor and before Deer Isle Thorofare; its community members gleefully choreographed in hats designed to signify milkweed pods; its strong, fearless dancers, in brightly colored tutus, swinging from the bucket of local contractor Rick Weed's excavator; and its young pre-professional dancers in pink square hats to signify Deer Isle's uniquely hued granite, strongly highlighted the important local history of
the magical Settlement Granite Quarry, and Island Heritage Trust's stewardship of it. Commissioned and produced by Opera House Arts in collaboration with our local land conservation group, Island Heritage Trust, Quarryography was created by famed choreographer and director Alison Chase, the founding artistic director of Pilobolus Dance Theater. It featured original giant puppets, costumes, and choreography by Mia Kanazawa; and an original steel pan score by Nigel Chase, performed by the local Rock 'n Steel pan band. With more than 1,700 attendees including 53 artists and 200 children, this spectacular production strengthened the connections of community members and visitors to this natural place.
- Linda Nelson, Director, Opera House Arts
Portland
$7,500
The Malaga Island Radio and Photo Document was produced by photographer Kate Philbrick and radio producer Rob Rosenthal in collaboration with partner, WMPG-FM, the community radio station at the University of Southern Maine.
In 1912, the state of Maine evicted the 45 residents of Malaga Island, part of the town of Phippsburg, in mid-coast Maine. Some islanders found refuge with relatives and friends on the mainland. Many bounced from town to town, as unwelcome as they were on Malaga. Several islanders were compelled to live at the Maine Home for the Feeble Minded (now the Pineland Center in Pownal).
Once vacated, the state of Maine shipped the island school building to another island. Then, they relocated the island cemetery and the remains of 17 people to the cemetery at the Maine Home for the Feeble Minded. In short, the residents and their community disappeared.
The Malaga Island Radio and Photo Document will be:
The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies project will bring the sad story of Malaga to further public attention through the documentary arts of radio and photography. The Malaga Island story is one of many race-related events in Maine's history that, when brought into the open through the creative use of sound and imagery, offers an opportunity to consider and discuss historic and contemporary race relations in the state.
- Donna Galluzzo, Executive Director and Rob Rosenthal, Shunpike Audio
After a decade of experience with Maine's Discovery Research program, inventorying cultural assets and building local arts networks, the Maine Arts Commission developed the next appropriate program: BUILDING CAPACITY IN MAINE'S CULTURAL COMMUNITIES.
This new community arts development program focuses on sustainable capacity building for the community organizations that provide access to the arts, build public awareness and both support and encourage artists to produce and present the arts in Maine communities. The program seeks to strengthen local arts and cultural organizations through conventions, cultural planning, workshops, technical assistance and other developmental efforts.
These grants are not meant to merely provide organizational support, rather the example of a proposal funded in 2008 demonstrates the ability of this program to fund initiatives that have significant impact and can spark statewide, regional or even cross border enterprises.
Dover Foxcroft
$10,000
This grant supported the planning and development of the Maine Crafts Consortium with the goal of creating a single statewide agency providing both the services of The Guild and the Maine Crafts Association to the Maine craft artist community.
This new organization will be the leader of the Maine Craft Organizations Consortium, which is already spearheading the development of a Center for Maine Craft; embedding a craft curriculum in the community college system; formulating a national marketing plan that will further the identity of Maine craft artists both nationally and internationally; and raising the awareness of Maine-based craft artists as important contributors to the state's creative economy.
Culturally, this project encourages growth in Maine's craft community, which is a significant element in Maine's cultural tourism. Socially, the project provides craft artists with increased support from within their own community. Craft artists will be able to better identify and network with peers through resources such as a website blog, mentoring programs, regional meetings and social events. Economically, the project addresses financial stability and growth for two smaller arts organizations.
- Dr. Tracy Michaud Stutzman, Executive Director, Maine Highlands Guild
MaineArts Home | Table of Contents | << Previous Article | Next Article >>
