The Maine Arts Commission announced that the cities of Belfast and Waterville will each receive grants of $50,000 in order to effect community revitalization in their region. The grants, designed to support dialogue and partnership between municipalities, business and the cultural sector regarding economic development, have been awarded through the Maine Arts Commission’s Creative Communities = Economic Development Grant (CCED).

The CCED grant fosters meaningfully support, dialogue and partnerships between municipalities and the cultural sector. It provides the cultural sector with significant funds to contribute to mutually agreed upon plans and initiatives that stimulate the local economy, provide jobs, strengthen the role of arts and culture, and enhance a community’s quality of place.

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This Made in Maine calendar represents Ramona du Houx’s unique technique of “painting with the camera” as she depicts Maine as a magnificent dreamland wonder. Ramona has had exhibits of her work in Japan, England, New York City and Maine. The thought provoking poems of David Kroner complement and interpret the contemplative scenes. They relax, excite and take the viewer into another world. To see the entire calender, for only $8 free shipping, and to order:

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We found the mural! Comic depiction of where the mural might be. LePage was a manager at Marden's

Governor LePage is in the news again about his latest comments concerning his actions which removed the labor mural from the Department of Labor in Augusta. LePage changed his story about why he had the mural taken down during an appearance on an NBC Education Summit.

This is yet another explanation in a long series where he attempts to excuse his actions. Initially he said that the mural was removed because of an “anonymous letter,” then it was too “one sided” apparently favoring labor at the expense of business interests. Now seven months later he insists it was because federal funding was used inappropriately.

The funding came from Reed Act funds which the state received during the time when the DOL consolidated and moved offices under one roof in 2008, under Governor John Baldacci. The DOL consolidation has saved the state of Maine revenues and improved services.

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An independent New York production company is holding a casting call Friday, Aug. 5 at UMaine’s Lord Hall for area actors aged 15-19 for a film, “Bluebird,” being made in northern Maine this winter.

Leading roles will be available for some of the students selected for the cast, according to Vacationland Films. Bluebird is described as a dramatic feature that takes place in the frozen woods of an isolated Maine logging town, “and one woman’s
tragic mistake shatters the balance of the community, resulting in profound and unexpected consequences.”

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The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has selected Portland’s Art At Work to receive a $100,000 grant. Funded by the NEA’s inaugural Our Town program, designed to foster public-private partnerships that strengthen the arts while shaping the social, physical and economic characters of neighborhoods, Art At Work was named as one of fifty-one award recipients nationally for the award.

The NEA grant will provide funding for Art At Work’s new initiative, Meeting Place, which through multidisciplinary arts projects will seek to engage a handful of the city’s neighborhood organizations thereby helping to increase civic engagement while also reducing social and political tensions that can exist between neighborhood associations, community leaders, the arts community and municipal government.

The Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance (MIBA) in collaboration with the Hudson Museum has received an Indigenous Contemporary Arts Programs grant from the National Museum of the American Indian to support the development of an exhibit of the next generation of Maine Indian basket makers.

The National Museum of the American Indian is the 16th Smithsonian Institution museum.

The exhibit, “Transcending Traditions: The Next Generation and Maine Indian Basketry,” opens Sept. 24 at the Hudson Museum in conjunction with the Collins Center for the Art’s gala and the Hudson Museum’s 25th anniversary.

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