Arts and Culture L/A Website Launches

Twenty arts and cultural organizations in central Maine have come together with a common vision to enhance the cultural and economic development of the Lewiston/ Auburn region, and to enhance the quality of life of all citizens within this area.

To achieve these goals the member organizations have come together to create an online portal that provides up-to-date event information that can be filtered to suit your interests. This portal, or website, has information from all of the members and provides an introduction to them all in a clear and easily navigable way.

These members are also using this site as a means to improve their offerings and one of the most prominent features on the site is a feedback feature that allows anyone to provide their thoughts on the cultural offerings in the region. Take a look today at http://www.artsandculturela.org/.

NEA Placemaking Grant and Webinars (Grant Deadline August 9)

National Endowment for the Arts: Art Works Design Grants. Funding typically ranges from $10,000 to $100,000.

The application deadline for all design projects is August 9, 2012. The earliest beginning date for the Arts Endowment's period of support is June 1, 2013.

The Art Works category provides support for projects that address the following outcomes:

• Creation: The creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence
• Engagement: Public engagement with diverse and excellent art
• Learning: Lifelong learning in the arts 
• Livability: The strengthening of communities through the arts

Also from the Endowment: NEA, webinars on creative placemaking about current trends, challenges and policies in the field will take place at 4pm EST and feature panelists that served on the Our Town review panel.

July 24: Creative Placemaking through Design and Cultural Planning
July 31: Creative Placemaking through Arts Engagement

To join a webinar: http://www.arts.gov/national/ourtown/2012-discussion-webinars.html
Grant Guidelines: http://arts.gov/grants/apply/GAP13/DesignAW.html
How to Apply: http://www.arts.gov/grants/apply/GAP13/DesignAW2.html

Questions: Contact Jen Hughes, Design Specialist, hughesj@arts.gov or 202.682.5547

innOvation Grant for Arts in Communities

As part of its effort to recognize the role artists play in revitalizing their communities, Ovation television network has partnered with Americans for the Arts to launch a national grant program, innOVATION.
 This year's program will award three grants of $25,000, two grants of $10,000, and one viewers' choice award of $15,000.

Inspired by the community-revitalization effort documented in the network's recent original series Motor City Rising, the innOVATION Grant Program is designed to highlight similar stories of arts-focused, neighborhood-renewal initiatives in the United States and provide support to model projects.

To be eligible, applicants must be Americans for the Arts organizational members and must be nominated by an elected community official (mayor, county executive, etc.). Applicants' community-revitalization programs must focus on the arts and have a demonstrated record of success. Only one submission per community will be accepted. Grant recipients will be selected based on their creative, economic, and social impact, as well as their ability to pool public, private, nonprofit, and community efforts to improve and enhance a specific region through arts and culture.

 For complete innOVATION grant program guidelines and application procedures, as well as information on becoming an Americans for the Arts organizational member, visit the Americans for the Arts web site.

Artwalk Maine all Summer Long.

More than eighty artwalks are held each year throughout Maine. These self-guided tours lead visitors to some of Maine’s world-class art museums, galleries, artist studios, and exhibits in local businesses and cafés.  A list of Maine communities that host artwalks can be found at artwalkmaine.org.

In addition to visits to open studios, an artwalk evening may include swank opening receptions, street performances, and a chance to view works in progress or participate in a hands-on workshops. Maine’s artwalks are an intersection of Maine’s contemporary art scene, historic downtowns, the natural world and community hospitality. You can discover artists of island communities, urban centers and revitalized mills. The fine craftsmanship for which Maine is known is on view year round.

Artwalks are traditionally held on Friday evenings from 5-8pm, however, schedules vary and several Maine artwalks take place on Saturday afternoons. More information can be found at artwalkmaine.org.

Maine State Legislature to Honor Stonington Opera House

On Thursday, March 15, the Maine State Legislature will pass a Legislative Sentiment honoring the Stonington Opera House on its 100th anniversary. State Representative Walter Kumiega will speak on the House floor and the Speaker will recognize guests from Opera House Arts, the nonprofit organization that restored the Opera House in 1999 and re-opened it in 2000 after the building had suffered more than eight years of abandonment and decay.

The iconic, green-shingled Stonington Opera House building, rising four stories above Stonington Harbor, is on the National Register of Historic Places. At the heart of Stonington’s downtown, where School St., Main St., and the commercial fish pier intersect, the Opera House has been central to Stonington’s Main Street and the island’s cultural life for more than 100 years. The first amusement hall was built on the current footprint in 1886 by quarry owner and entrepreneur Charles B. Russ. From 1886 to 1910, first the original Russ’s Music Hall and then its expansion, the magnificent Stonington Opera House seating 1,000 people, were important Stonington landmarks and institutions. One hundred years ago this year, the brand new Stonington Opera House as it exists today, with its unique architectural element, the scene tower, re-opened to the public: rising from the ashes of a 1910 fire that might have taken the town with it had not the town’s new water system and fire hydrants gone live that very day.
Opera House Arts is planning multiple events and projects to celebrate this centennial, including the re-creation of an historic vaudeville show of the type that came to the Opera House 100 years ago, July 5-8; the re-staging of Opera House Arts’ popular original musical, “Burt Dow, Deep Water Man,” August 9-19; giant video projections of historic photos on the exterior of the Opera House tower; and the release of a new history and photo book on the Stonington Opera House since its original construction in 1886.

As an important part of these celebrations, Opera House Arts seeks stories and items from community members who remember the Opera House during earlier incarnations. Individuals who collected the china that was given away at movies during the 1930s have already come forth, and a display of these items is scheduled for this summer. Photos, programs, dance cards, posters and other ephemera are all welcome regardless of their condition. Please contact Linda Nelson at 367-2788 or lnelson@operahousearts.org

Opera House Arts (OHA) is a nonprofit small professional theater noted for its original productions and artistic commissions of performance work relevant to its Down East Maine community. OHA restored and operates the 1912 Stonington Opera House with a full, 52-week-a-year schedule of first-run movies, live theater, concerts, dance, workshops, community events and educational programs. For more information and a full schedule of events, please go to www.operahousearts.org.

Grant Supports Focus on Immigration in Portland

Family photo from the collection of Clare Foley. Mrs. Foley emigrated from Ireland to Maine in the 1940s.

The Maine Arts Commission and Maine Humanities Council have awarded a Community Arts & Humanities Grant to the Maine Irish Heritage Center in support of their partnership with Rockhouse Mountain Productions on a new documentary film project. The film will trace the history of immigration on Portland’s East End, with specific focus on the neighborhood’s Irish and East African diaspora communities. Support for the project has also been awarded by the LEF Foundation of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Rockhouse Mountain Productions is based in Harpswell, Maine. Founded in 2007, its debut film “The Eventful Life of Al Hawkes”, has aired on Maine Public Broadcasting Network and has screened at festivals across the United States. The Maine Irish Heritage Center, based at the former St. Dominic’s Church in Portland, houses Maine’s Irish Genealogical Center & Library and provides a center for Maine's diverse communities to share their cultural experiences through educational programs and community events.

Explore Maine's Artwalks

Downtowns across Maine are brought to life on a regular basis through artwalks. These events invite visitors to experience the richness and depth of the state’s artistic treasures through all disciplines. Each town offers something slightly different, but all guarantee a great deal of enjoyment as friends and families meet, unwind, dine and enjoy the arts that are at the very heart of their communities.

There are several artwalks throughout Maine in the coming weeks and the outline for those can be found below.

November 5:
Portland,
Belfast,
Rockland
Presque Isle

November 12:
Brunswick & Topsham

November 19:
Bangor
Freeport

November 26:
Biddeford

December 3:
Open studios and galleries as part of Arts Downtown & All Around in Bath, Brunswick, Topsham, Bowdoinham and Harpswell.
Gardiner
Portland,
Belfast,
Rockland
Presque Isle

Maine Arts Commission Announces New Community Arts Grant

The Maine Arts Commission aims to develop stronger ties between cultural, business and governmental sectors with the launch of a new Community Arts grant.

The Creative Communities = Economic Development Grant has a maximum award of $50,000 and is poised to support cultural and economic development efforts that will lead to real change in Maine’s communities.

Two $50,000 CCED grants will be awarded to Maine communities in the fall of 2010. The grant requires a letter of interest by March 8, 2010, with the full application deadline on October 7 of that same year.

The press release or guidelines for this grant can be found on MaineArts.com.

If you want to hear more about this grant, listen in to All Things Considered tonight at 5:30 pm on MPBN when Alison Ferris will be speaking with Frank Ferrel.