Local Arts Organizations and the Maine Arts Commission
Posted on May 15th, 2008 by kludden
A question for Local Arts Organizations in Maine: What is the best way to structure the relationship between local arts organizations and the Maine Arts Commission. Should the relationship be more like partnerships? Should the relationship remain more like independent organizations/grantees? ..Your thoughts?
–Keith Ludden
Filed under: Community Arts and
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I think the relationship/ partnership solution best. There are many artists and art organizations in the state that are not aware of the possibilities and if you don’t know us how will you best be able to address our needs. My question would be ” Are you referring to control over organizations or conversations to help?” Together we could help Maine Art and in the balance help Maine Commerce and Maine Tourism. Connie Henderson
I agree with the first comment. I mention the Maine Arts Commission and the news letter at every arts organization / business I go to and many of them do not even know that this poweful tool / community exsists!
First - how does the Maine Arts Commision reach ALL arts related organizations in the entire state?
- offer members a small trifold to help distribute info to non members or to orgnaizations unaware…TELLING people to go on line is great but not much beats a paper reminder with basic info
- I wrote to the MAC and never got a response about the possibility of sponsoring a “Maine Arts Sunday” …sort of like a “Maine Maple Sunday”..this could be a great time for participating arts organizations to share those paper flyers and, “Maine Arts Sunday” could have it’s own web site just like “Maine Maple Sunday” does, tied in to the massive data base that you already have established. This could also help communities develop local “art walks” by using the data base to contact local artists that may want to be involved
Second - how does the Maine Arts Commision structure and organize the Commision to best support and move us all forward?
- involvement in the Juice confrence
- newsletters
- data base
- what else I am note sure
just some thoughts
Debra,
Many thanks for your comment. I don’t remember seeing the proposal for a “Maine Arts Sunday.” Perhaps it was waylaid. Can you tell me anything more about your proposal?
–Keith Ludden
I recently watched a program on PBS entitled, A League of Our Own , about the New Hampshire Craft League. This organization is very successful and seems to me would be a great model for Maine to follow. It is professional, has a high standard for jurying work, and sometimes helps to guide artists/crafts people so they can raise the quality of their work.
From what I can gather ( I’m new to the area) they’ve worked through a lot of problem areas already and have become a vibrant center for the artists as well as providing a first class venue for the public to gain access to work .
.
Victoria,
You may be interested in contacting the Maine Crafts Association. Their website is at:
http://www.mainecrafts.org/
–Keith
There is also United maine Craftsmen
I think there should be more organizations that do shows that are not juried in which any artist can exhibit. This is true of the Boothbay Art Foundation, managed by June Rose, who is a Maine resident from a family with very deep roots to Boothbay.
BARF charges it’s members a yearly fee of $65.00 and each member can then submit work that will be shown in the gallery. June actually has to meet the budget by sales of the work, and there is quite a lot of work sold through the gallery. In the past much of the work has been in the form of landscapes which are so intrinsic to living in Maine but at the current show there is a lot of work that is quite different from that tradition.
Juried shows represent the opinion of one person or a group of persons but unjuried shows reflect the true artistic expression of the community. I think there need to be more unjuried shows that encourage more artists to exhibit their work.
I think the Maine Arts Commission should feature some shows that are not juried, perhaps working collaboratively with organizations that represent unjuried art.
I also reccomend that the Maine Arts Commission put The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard on their reading list, One of the book’s themes is “the two Maines” - being the two disconnected communities of Maine - the one with unusually long roots to Maine, The other Maine consists of the new arrivals to Maine. These two communities are traditionally not well connected.