News Release – for immediate release

Contact: Katharine Cartwright - katharine_cartwright@yahoo.com - - (207) 593-9363

                 Ann Tracy – anntracy51@gmail.com – 207-322-5230

Call for Art for Final UMVA Exhibition of 2025

UMVA, the Union of Maine Visual Artists joins forces with Craignair Gallery to present “Landscapes of the Heart: Abstraction to Verismo”.   Artists are asked to submit work by September 20 at the UMVA website (www.TheUMVA.org) for this show, which will run from Nov 19, 2025 to Jan 5, 2026 at the Craignair Gallery, 5 Third St., Spruce Head, ME. Gallery director Katharine Cartwright and UMVA board member Ann Tracy will jury the exhibit. This is the first time that Craignair Gallery and UMVA have collaborated on a show, which is open to ALL UMVA members.

“While our theme is nature based,” said Tracy, “we wanted to open it up to abstraction in addition to realistic and image-based work. Being out in nature is almost sure to lift one’s spirits but not all nature based work elicits an emotional response. And it’s all so subjective, based on the viewers’ life experiences.   We hope that artists will experiment within the theme and within media. Because of space limitations at the gallery, we are accepting only work that can be hung on a wall with a hanging wire. The website also lists the size limitations for this show as well.”

The next UMVA exhibition is up in Belfast and is another collaborative venture with Mainely Gallery, 181 Searsport Ave, Belfast. The theme is “Hidden Pathways: How To Get There From Here” which begins with an artists’ reception from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Friday, August 1, at the gallery, with refreshments and live music. The exhibition runs through September 17, 2025. Live music is courtesy of The Driveway Band, a sax quartet plus a bass clarinet, which plays an eclectic variety of music. 

The Union of Maine Visual Artists, UMVA, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization that promotes and advocates for the visual arts, artists, and all arts supporters. It is a statewide arts network connecting Maine artists. As artist advocates, the UMVA initiated and saw enacted into state law the Maine Percent for Art Program (requiring a percentage of funds for state buildings to include art) and the Artist's Estate Tax Law (allowing art work to be used to pay artists estate taxes).

Other programs and projects supported by UMVA include: The Maine Arts Journal, an online, quarterly publication which features essays by and about artists, interviews, UMVA member submissions, poetry, UMVA updates about its current projects, local chapters, and more; ARRT! Artists' Rapid Response Team, a collaboration of artists & progressive groups making art to create positive change;Lumen ARRT!!, a group creating large-scale video projections in public spaces to give a visual voice to progressive non-profits; and the New England Emmy Award-nominated Maine Masters Project, a video series of 19 compelling profiles of some of Maine’s most distinguished and often less recognized artists. There are currently two chapters: Portland and Midcoast/Downeast. More information is at www.TheUMVA.org.