Saco Museum Seeks Director

The Saco Museum seeks an experienced museum professional to provide leadership and creative vision for this regional museum of history, art, and culture.

The Director curates and coordinates exhibitions; generates revenue through grant funding, corporate sponsorships, donor cultivation, gift shop management, and assistance with the annual fund and fundraising events; provides public relations and publicity; manages the museum budget; and supervises and schedules a small staff, including an Education and Program Manager and a Collections Manager. The Museum Director plans for the museum’s ongoing sustainability (under the supervision of the Executive Director of the Dyer Library Association), including achieving and maintaining the high professional standards of the museum field.The Dyer Library Association, operating the museum and a public library, is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3).

Requirements: 5 years leadership experience in a museum setting required; Master’s Degree in a related field desired. Salary commensurate with experience. 80% health insurance coverage, 10 paid holidays, 19 days personal time in the first year.

Send cover letter, resume, and names, phone numbers, and emails of three professional references by August 18 to Leslie Rounds, Executive Director, Dyer Library/Saco Museum, 371 Main Street, Saco, ME 04072, lrounds@dyer.lib.me.us.

Apply to the Monhegan Artists’ Residency!

David Higgins' "Harbor View" was taken during the photographer's 2005 residency.

Applications are being accepted for the Monhegan Artists’ Residency for emerging Maine artists. This summer, the program will provide five-week residencies on Monhegan Island for two Maine-based visual artists.

The residency program provides living quarters and separate studio space at Fish and Maine plus a $500 stipend. The 2012 residencies run May 26 through June 30 and Sept. 1 through Oct. 6. Only Maine residents are eligible to apply.

The program is aimed at visual artists working in painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture or the digital arts. An important goal of the program is to enhance the careers of serious artists who have yet to gain wide recognition. Quality of work is the primary criterion for selection. Previous artist residents include Sarah Knock, David Little, Marguerite Robichaux, Karen Adrienne, Lynn Travis, Joe Kievitt and Alina Gallo.

A jury of art professionals will select the artists. This year’s judges are Michael Shaughnessy, sculptor and professor of art at University of Southern Maine; Portland gallerist June Fitzpatrick; and Daniel Fuller, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art.

The application deadline is March 16 (postmarked). For guidelines, a history of the program and a list of past residents, visit http://monheganartistsresidency.org/
Applicants will be notified by March 30 of the jury’s decision.

Colby College Museum of Art Reopens!

Architect’s rendering of the the addition to the Colby College Museum of Art.
-Courtesy Colby College-

The Colby College Museum of Art has been closed to the public for the past month as it prepared for a fifteen million dollar expansion. Visitors can now experience the museum by entering through a temporary entrance adjacent to the Paul J. Schupf Wing.

The museum will now remain open throughout the construction process, although some galleries will be closed to the public during the work. The current exhibit will be on display through Jan. 22, and is titled "Rediscoveries 1: New Perspectives on the Permanent Collection". There is also information dedicated to pending Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion, the 26,000-square-foot glass and steel addition. Interior demolition is expect to begin by the end of the month, and the new construction is scheduled to be completed by mid 2013.

The new pavilion will expand the square footage of the museum from 28,000 square feet to 54,000 square feet, with 38,000 square feet dedicated as exhibition space. Plans also include a sculpture terrace, a classroom for museum education and outreach and art department studios on the top floor.

The Colby College Museum of Art is open Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. and Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit http://www.colby.edu/academics_cs/museum/ or call 859-5600.

Maine Arts Commission Fellowship Deadlines Approach

Last year's fellowship recipients

The deadlines for the Maine Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Fellowship programs are staggered throughout the coming weeks.

There are four fellowships in total that offer $13,000 each and share the same criterion of artistic excellence.

The deadlines are as follows: Literary Arts Fellowship, May 14, Visual Arts Fellowship, May 27, Performing Arts Fellowship June 4, and the Traditional Arts Fellowship, June 18.

Full details of these grants can be found within the grant section of MaineArts.com.

Meet Lauren Fensterstock, the 2010 Visual Arts Fellow

“I am both humbled and honored to receive this fellowship from the Maine Arts Commission. It is an incredible affirmation that means so much to me. This fellowship will help me to realize my dream of working on a larger, more significant and more confident scale. For the first time, I will be able to invest the time and purchase the materials necessary to bring my ideas into being in their fullest and uncompromised form."
- Lauren Fensterstock

Image above is from the Parterre installation at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

Lauren Fensterstock is an artist and curator based in Portland, Maine. Her work has been featured broadly across the US including recent shows at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Kohler Art Center, Portland Museum of Art, DUMBO Art Center, Boston Center for the Arts, MASS Art Gallery, and Albany Airport. Lauren holds degrees from The Parsons School of Design (BFA 1997) and SUNY New Paltz (MFA 2000). Outside the studio, Lauren is currently Interim Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. Recent freelance curatorial projects include AFI: Upside Down which will debut at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece in April 2009.




Lauren will be on stage with all of this year's fellows, and Traditional Arts Masters, at the Strand Theatre in Rockland on October 23. This event is free and open to the public.

The Maine Arts Commission outreach continued this month as Darrell Bulmer returned to Brunswick’s Frontier Café on Monday night to be a part of another evening of presentations to artists.

This evening concentrated on legal issues that face artists and the newly reemerged Maine Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts were on hand to demystify copyright law.

The 90 minute presentation from Charles P Bacall, Esq. from Verril Dana LLP has to be one of the most interesting presentations made to artists for a long time. The audience was instructed to bring their questions, and they followed those instructions to the letter.



At least 50 diverse questions were posed to Charles during his presentation, causing him to extend his presentation to the relief and appreciation of the 50+ audience members.

Darrell captured the entire event on two video cameras and in audio. Once the edited version is available it will be posted on our YouTube page in segments for all to access.

This evening was presented by Five Rivers Arts Alliance who has a series of workshops at Frontier this year.

Maine Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship Awards

In November of 2008, the Maine Arts Commission presented a show celebrating 20 years of the agency’s fellowship awards.
Fellowship awardees Alison Chase, Don Roy, Penelope Schwartz Robinson and Randy Regier were the star attractions on stage.
Also appearing on stage before a full house in Bangor were traditional arts masters and apprentices. To read more about these artists or the Maine Arts Commission, visit www.MaineArts.com.