Waterfall Arts has revised the schedule for the upcoming Conflux Deep Craft Symposium so that the morning keynote address by WOWHAUS founders Scott and Ene Constable and the afternoon hands on workshop will both take place on Saturday November 15th. The price for the two Saturday events including a catered lunch has been reduced to $50, with half price admission for students. All events will take place at Waterfall Arts Belfast, 256 High Street.

The Symposium starts off on Friday the 14th at 7 pm with a panel discussion led by the Constables. Panelists include Peter Korn, DIrector of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Todd French of French Webb custom boatbuilders and Dudley Zopp, painter and installation artist. Admission to the panel discussion and the following reception with cash bar is $10.

In the Saturday keynote address, the artist team of Wowhaus will showcase their decade of environmentally-oriented art and design projects and demonstrate how ordinary people can innovate within their own lives and communities. Through their Deep Craft Initiative, Wowhaus will share how the tenets of traditional craft and self-sufficiency can play a major role in the creation of new economic opportunities towards a common understanding of how we can live well with less.

After lunch, the Wowhaus team will channel the morning synergy into the afternoon hands-on workshop, introducing new methods of collaboration, resource management and sensory engagement. The workshop promises to be fun, challenging, accessible to all ages and backgrounds and replicable. No experience required.

Labels: Waterfall Arts Revises CONFLUX Symposium Schedule

Maine Art Scene Announces Its Official Launch

October 15th Inaugural Online Event:

First Non-Juried Statewide Online Fine Arts Photography Exhibit

Maine Art Scene, LLC. (maineartscene.com) proudly announces its launch of a new online arts and culture magazine devoted to showcasing the arts and art-related events in Maine. From gallery and museum exhibits to concerts, live theater, poetry and artist interviews, Maine Art Scene is Maine's premier online resource for current and complete updates on art happenings throughout the state.

"Since we moved to Maine, my husband and I made friends with numerous artists," said Brenda Bonneville, editor of Maine Art Scene. "Because of our backgrounds in marketing and communication, we quickly became involved with several local artists and arts organizations in helping them promote their message. In doing so, we realized that the opportunities for them to promote their work year-round through press coverage and advertising were limited, expensive, or both."

In response, Brenda and her husband Thierry created a comprehensive, interactive online venue to serve as the voice of all Maine artists and arts organizations. The search engine-optimized website has been live for three months and has already published over 250 press releases that highlight events, Maine artist interviews, and art news. In addition to art-related press releases, Maine Art Scene maintains a statewide art directory, a searchable calendar of events, several multi-media artist profiles (slideshows, podcasts and streaming videos) as well as the blog 'artTalk' where anyone can post Maine art-related comments. Finally, Maine artists who do not have or can't afford a website can also get a web page with image or sound portfolio on the site for a nominal fee.

"Unlike most publications, we focus exclusively on Maine art-related activities, creating a smaller but perfectly targeted audience," says Thierry, media director for Maine Art Scene. "Instead of writing the content ourselves, we decided to give artists and arts organizations the option to submit their own press releases. For a fee of $10-$15 per press release, artists and arts organizations are guaranteed that their Maine art-related news will be published, provided they meet our standard submission guidelines."

The closely monitored readership has seen exponential growth each month, and there has been enthusiastic response from artists and arts organizations. "I like the way a submitted press release always makes the front page as opposed to other sites where you just disappear in a calendar section," says Maine artist Kenny Cole. "Maine Art Scene's online publication helps to fulfill a need that has been talked of among Maine art circles for some time. I am excited at their launch and look forward to their future," says Suzette McAvoy, independent art consultant and former chief curator of the Farnsworth Art Museum.

As part of the magazine?s inauguration, Maine Art Scene is organizing the first non-juried statewide online exhibit of contemporary fine art photographers. Opened to all fine art photographers who are part-time or full-time Maine residents, the exhibit will premiere on maineartscene.com on October 15, 2008. The exhibit will serve as an opportunity for Maine's photographers to showcase their work online. Featuring over 120 fine art photographs, selected works will become part of Maine Art Scene's permanent online fine art exhibit, to debut in December 2008.

"We are delighted to promote the work of so many Maine creative fine art photographers," says Brenda. To name a few, the list of forty artists includes Kevin Johnson, selected in June as one of the twelve rising stars in the Contemporary Maine Art Forever Young exhibit (organized by the Farnsworth Museum). Maine Art Scene will also showcase several of the 2008 Maine Photography Show (mainephotographyshow.com) winners including Seth Whited (first place, black and white), Elizabeth Cradock (second place, color) and Corrie Zacharias, (first place, digital/computer). Also featured are established gallery artists including Susan Guthrie, Jim Nickelson, Arla Patch and Mark Rockwood (from voxphotography.com) as well as younger talent Clare Rosen who worked with and was mentored by Joyce Tenneson.

Following its first online Fine Art Photography exhibition, Maine Art Scene will be launching a series of interactive multi-disciplinary art exhibits.

HIGH cost for higher education is a BIG story everywhere in the news right now and it especially hits home in our own state. High school students have just started school again, but it's never too early to start planning for college-and worrying about the task of how to pay for it!

Scholarships are available, especially for athletes and students with straight A's, but what about kids who have more artistic talents? It's time for those students to draw on their talents and submit their work to The 2009 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards!

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing outstanding visual art and writing created by teenagers to a national audience, has launched a nationwide call for submissions to the 2009 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The Awards offer early recognition for creative teenagers and art and writing scholarship opportunities for graduating high school seniors.

Seniors who win a national A&W Award are eligible for scholarships - $500 to full tuition - at more than 50 colleges, universities and art institutes, across the country. Each year, $3.25 million in art and writing scholarships are made available to select national award recipients, including 12 high school seniors who are honored with the National Portfolio Gold Award, and a $10,000 cash award.

The annual Scholastic Art Awards competition begins locally on October 1st, as students from all areas of Maine, grades 7-12, register online to submit works of art in a wide array of categories, including: sculpture, fashion design, painting, jewelry, drawing, animation, ceramic and glass, analog and digital photography, computer art, printmaking, video and film. The entries are submitted to Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk, Maine, the regional affiliate for the entire state. A panel of local jurors comprised of artists, educators and arts professionals evaluates the pieces.

If a student receives a top Award from the Maine Art Awards, then he or she moves on to the national level. Each year, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers in New York City receives thousands of works of art and writing, submitted by regional affiliate programs nationwide.

Heartwood College of Art as the Maine Affiliate for this program - This is Heartwood College of Art's first year as the Maine Art Affiliate for the Scholastic Art Awards. HCA is honored to host this annual event at the state level because it gives Maine students a venue for exhibiting their art locally and nationally and it provides an opportunity for students to receive scholarship money. What's more, this awards program showcases the high level of the art teachers and art programs in Maine.

Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk, Maine, is a non-profit organization and is one of only two colleges in Maine solely focused on the visual arts. HCA offers two-year Associate and four-year Bachelor of Fine Arts degree programs at an affordable tuition.

Affordable Tuition is what Maine families need but HCA does even more to encourage kids to seek a higher education - especially in art. As Berri Kramer, President of Heartwood College, put it: "We are determined to put our money where our heart is." How does HCA do this?

Heartwood College of Art offers scholarships to one senior from every high school in Maine who is the first from their school to be accepted and attend, HCA. And it's not just 2009 graduates who benefit. HCA offers this every year! That means that about 150 Maine students - every year - have the opportunity to receive college scholarship funds. For more information on Heartwood College of Art visit their website at: www.heartwoodcollegeofArt.org

Since Scholastic founded the program in 1923, more than 13 million of America's most talented teens have participated in the Scholastic Awards. Two and a half million of these young artists and writers have been recognized through exhibition and publication and have shared in more than $25 million in cash awards and college scholarships.

Distinguished artists and writers who received an Art & Writing Award when they were in high school include Andy Warhol, Robert Redford, Sue Miller, Richard Avedon, Philip Pearlstein, Zac Posen, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Otterness, Robert Indiana, Sylvia Plath, John Lithgow, and Joyce Maynard.

To learn more about submission guidelines and deadlines in your region and how to submit work, please visit www.registration.artandwriting.org or go to www.heartwoodcollegeofart.org and click on the Scholastic Art Awards 2009 link.

It was standing room only as nearly one hundred art lovers braved the rains of an offshore hurricane to attend the September 27th Gala Fundraiser for the Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset. Gallery artists generously donated artworks of all descriptions for the support of the oldest art gallery in the state. The Gallery was founded in 1954 by Wiscasset resident, and artist, Mildred Burrage and is a nonprofit art organization showing the works of over two hundred Maine artists from May 1st thru late November every year.

This event had the adrenalin rush of an auction, and the excitement of a tag sale, with everyone leaving with their selected artwork. The refreshments were donated by a group of the members organized by Barbara Vanderbilt of Gothic Tile, and music was provided by Jefferson guitarist Julian Howland, a Junior at Lincoln Academy. The organizing of the event was led by President Merlin Smith and Cindi Watson, head of the Long Range Planning Committee. Participating artist Tony van Hasselt, of Boothbay Harbor, commented, "Wow! We'll need to do that again, for sure!"

Labels: Gala Fundraiser for the Maine Art Gallery a Huge Success