Creative Economy Featured on MaineBiz Sunday

Maine Arts Commission Chair John Rohman talks with Skip Bates and Amber Heffner about the Creative Economy on MaineBiz Sunday.

The Arts Lead the way at Juice 2009

Artists in Maine will have a golden opportunity to connect and communicate with their colleagues, and colleagues in other sectors, at the 2009 Juice Conference. With 400 participants already signed up, this promises to be an exciting opportunity to learn, network and share ideas.

The Juice conference will take place this weekend, November 13 and 14 in Camden, and there is still time to register. There are still a limited number of scholarships available for artist at a rate less than half price; this is at $85 for the two days. For details and the code to enter for this reduced admission, email Darrell Bulmer at darrell.bulmer@maine.gov.

The arts figure prominently at the Juice Conference, as the Maine Arts Commission has collaborated with conference organizers to develop arts-related sessions that include:

• Funders and the Funded—A Symbiotic Relationship. This panel will operate in a “carousel” style. It will focus on communication between funders and grantseekers, and strategies for each to meet the others’ needs.

• Building the Local Creative Economy: Achieving Quality of Place Through Community Action. This session will assist participants in understanding the economic impact of art and culture on the community, and provide an update on the Mobilize Maine effort

• Boomers and Beyond: Creating a Multigenerational Audience. This session will focus on strategies for creating audiences across generations.

• Dude! You’re on You Tube! Arts Programs for Teens. The first half of this session will include a discussion of four success stories involving arts programs for teens. The second half will include demonstrations.

• From Away: The Richness of Multicultural Programming. This session will encourage participants to formulate action plans using progressive notions about multi-culturalism for their organizations.

The conference also highlights nationally and internationally known speakers and performers. Among the headliners will be Liz Lerman, of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Lerman is renown for creating dance pieces in innovative settings, including the Portsmouth Bridge; and groundbreaking dance works performed by a cross-generational company. “Artistic practices,” says Lerman “are essential not just to innovation, but to the way communities live and thrive.” Lerman plans to perform excerpts from dances “Ferocious Beauty,” about the human genome, and “Drift,” about the evolution of a plot of land from farmland to strip mall to supermarket, and finally to a house of worship; and a brand new work about physics and the origin of matter. Lerman will address the conference in addition to performing.

Participants will also be treated to a dance performance by East Indian dancer Anirhudda Knight. The conference will be emceed by NPR’s Nick Spitzer.

Jane Morrison Film Fund Scholarship

• Deadline = January 14, 2009
• Grant amount = Up to $2,000

In partnership with the Maine Community Foundation and the Jane Morrison Film Fund, The Maine Arts Commission is proud to offer the Jane Morrison Memorial Film Fund Scholarship. The grant supports educational opportunities for filmmakers in the early stages of their career development. The Fund is designed to help filmmakers attain instructional guidance and skills. Applicants should identify specific opportunities for educational benefit and be prepared to explain why the experience would help them.

Jane Morrison was an Augusta-area native who died suddenly while on location shooting a film in Africa. Jane's career in filmmaking began when she was an English teacher at Cony High School in Augusta and participated in that school's first Maine Arts Commission-supported Artist-In-Residence Film Program. She received special training in filmmaking, continued to develop the film program at Cony, and then went on to a full-time career in filmmaking. Among her titles are Sarah Orne Jewett's The White Heron, Master Smart Woman, and The Two Worlds of Angelita.

In the past funds have been used to support attendance at the Summer Film Institute in New York and the Sundance Institute in Utah. The funds can also be applied to film classes at educational institutions, film workshops, seminars and apprenticeships. The committee prefers applications that cover tuition costs rather than living expenses. Preference is given (but not restricted) to those residing in Maine. Click here to download application guidelines. For the application narrative questions click here to download. The vendor form can be had from the agency site or downloaded here.

Juice Conference Offers Extended

Thanks to the generosity of the sponsors of the 2009 Juice Conference, there are now a further 20 scholarships available to working artists and arts students who wish to attend this creative economy gathering in November.

These scholarships reduce the cost of attendance down to $85; that is less than half price! The last 12 scholarships that were offered were filled in a day, so we advise people considering this opportunity to take advantage of this offer while it lasts. To receive the special code you will need for this offer, please email Darrell Bulmer at darrell.bulmer@maine.gov.
Another offer is being made by Bay Chamber Concerts who have a 20 percent discount for Juice attendees who also wish to attend the performance by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Tickets will now cost $20 for this incredible performance.

Reporting a Successful Fellowship Awards Event

The Maine Arts Commission’s Fellowship Awards Event was a huge success on Friday. The audience of around 200 witnessed live music, movies, and demonstrations from our 2010 grant recipients. Among the audience was Bob Keyes from the Portland Press Herald, who wrote about the event during the show.

One of the artists that the audience got to meet at this year’s event was David Wolfe. David is this year’s Traditional Arts Fellow and a letterpress printer. We could not bring his machines on stage; not to be deterred we brought a movie of him working to the big screen at the Strand Theatre.
For your enjoyment, the movie is below in two parts. We will be putting together highlights of the event that will feature soon on the blog.

Maine’s 5th Annual Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest

The Maine Arts Commission is encouraging high school students around the state to take part in the fifth year of Poetry Out Loud. Teachers who would like to introduce this successful competition to their schools will join the thousands of teachers who have become inspired, had fun and surprising success “making poetry matter” for students!

Maine students have twice progressed to the final 12 at the national finals in Washington, D.C. With 250,000 students competing nationally each year, this is quite an accomplishment.

Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest is a great way to teach poetry and help students with written and oral communication skills. It is designed so that teachers may easily implement this “poetry bee” contest in the classroom. It awards more than $100,000 in prizes to students and schools at the state and national levels and satisfies most of the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) English Language Arts Standards.

Starting at the classroom level, teachers are provided with free multimedia curriculum materials—a poetry anthology, audio guide, Best Performances DVD; teachers’ guide, posters and a comprehensive website, http://www.poetryoutloud.org, all aligned to national standards—to augment their regular poetry curriculum with poetry recitation and a classroom-level competition. School-level recitation champions advance to the regional, state and then national levels. Each winner at the state level will receive $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington to compete for the national championship. The state winner’s school will receive a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books. The state runner-up will receive $100, with $200 for his or her school library. Additionally, a total of $50,000 in scholarships and school stipends will be awarded to the winners at the National Finals.

If you would like your high school students to participate in Maine’s competition and to receive the new 2009-2010 Poetry Out Loud Classroom Kit and Teacher’s Guide, please contact Paul Faria at the Maine Arts Commission, 207/287-2790, or paul.faria@maine.gov.

*We must have the registration form filled in and returned no later than December 18, 2009 in order to have your students participate in the state competitions!

Key dates in the timeline you will want to know (specific dates TBA very shortly):
Ideally, you should schedule your school competition to take place before MLK Day in January.

September - December Maine Arts Commission mails program materials to schools
December 18, 2009 Poetry Out Loud school registration deadline
October – January Poetry Out Loud in the schools
February 1, 2010 Last date to announce school winner!
Early February 2010 Poetry Out Loud Regional Finals
March 5, 2010 State of Maine finals, Waterville Opera House
April 25 – 27, 2010 Poetry Out Loud National Finals in Washington, D.C.

NEA Chair Announces "Art Works" at 2009 National Conference

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman delivered a keynote address today to close the 2009 national Grantmakers in the Arts conference: Navigating the Art of Change.

In his remarks, Chairman Landesman laid out the guiding principle that will inform his work at the agency, which can be summed up in two words: “Art works.” Chairman Landesman explained that he means this in three ways:

1. “Art works” is a noun. They are the books, crafts, dances, designs, drawings, films, installations, music, musicals, paintings, plays, performances, poetry, textiles, and sculptures that are the creation of artists.

2. “Art works” is a verb. Art works on and within people to change and inspire them; it addresses the need people have to create, to imagine, to aspire to something more.

3. “Art works” is a declarative sentence: arts jobs are real jobs that are part of the real economy. Art workers pay taxes, and art contributes to economic growth, neighborhood revitalization, and the livability of American towns and cities.

Chairman Landesman announced that he will spend the next six months learning and highlighting the ways that art works in neighborhoods and towns across America. You can read the entire release on the NEA website.