ARRT! Update – Winter 2025

ARRT! (The Artists’ Rapid Response Team!) works with progressive groups and organizations throughout Maine, providing images that can help to distill and clarify their important messages about issues that matter to people in Maine and the world beyond our borders. ARRT! is a project of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA), a members’ organization of artists helping artists.

 

Fall 2024 has been an historic time with lots of issues demanding the attention, emotions, and skills of ARRTists. The November elections divided the season into “before” and “after.” Before the election ARRT! was greatly focused on helping to educate, encourage, and support voters. After the election we came together to process, heal, and refocus. We have been energized by new ARRTists joining with the spirit of renewal and determination we share.

Maine Students Vote and the League of Women Voters requested that ARRT! create a poster for them with the ambitious goal of reproducing and placing it in every Maine school prior to 5 November. The poster emphasized the many issues of importance to Maine youth to encourage students to pick out the ones that mattered most to them.

Another project they highlighted was the inclusion of one ARRT! banner/yard sign each month in the Maine Civic Digest, encouraging educators to post them in their schools and classrooms. (You can subscribe to the Digest here, if you wish.)

ARRT! also supported a couple of events intended to inspire and mobilize communities to vote in November. These events included assisting organizers of a production of the War of the Worlds in Damariscotta, to paint a banner for the Pumpkin Festival parade. The performance was designed to be used to promote media literacy education in general.

ARRTist Natasha Mayers and fellow UMVA member Eva Rose Goetz planned A Cautionary Tale, an artistic, educational, fun, Get-Out-The-Vote event of epic proportions which was installed in the Fort Andross Mill in Brunswick. Many ARRT! banners, signs, and placards were included with Natasha’s and Eva’s thought- provoking paintings with the hope that voters would go to the polls.

ARRT! worked on a banner for protests regarding war in Israel staged outside a Maine weapons facility in Saco. Organizers claim the General Dynamics facility is helping arm what they call Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Images calling for a halt to the militarization/weaponization of space, were painted for organizers protesting the Maine Space Conference in Portland on 24 October.

A series of banners were created to emphasize the strength of community action and support with more still to come!

For those readers who may have missed this wonderful video by Chris Johnson Soctomah about the Passamaquoddy – ARRT! collaboration, we include this link. The residency occurred in June 2024. Enjoy.

Join us for the next gathering of ARRT! on 12 January, in Bowdoinham.10 a.m.–5 p.m. at Merrymeeting Grange Hall  27 Main St. The Bowdoinham Historical Society are our hosts and the sign outfront says “Meerymeeting Books.” (We potluck lunch and provide coffee). Email mayersnatasha@gmail.com for more info or if you plan on coming.

The Artists’ Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) is a project of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA). ARRT! is grateful for the support of the UMVA and a donor-advised fund of the Maine Community Foundation. UMVA members and others are always welcome to join in, and ARRT! is always on the lookout for organizations in need of our services. Check out our website and our Facebook page for updates! Visit our website to see hundreds of the banners, signs, and props we’ve made over the past eleven years.