The Maine Arts Journal: UMVA Quarterly
Materiality
Fall 2023
From the Editors: Natasha Mayers, Nora Tryon, Véronique Plesch, Betsy Sholl (poetry editor), with the help of Colby interns Sofia Escobar Amaya and Audrey Loo.
The Union of Maine Visual Artists is proud to produce the Maine Arts Journal, with generous contributions from the Rabkin Foundation and other donors. The MAJ helps us promote and advocate for the visual arts, artists, and all arts supporters. Learn more and become a UMVA member here. The MAJ is dependent on UMVA membership dues.
UMVA Showcase Summer 2023: Artists A–G
Mildred Bachrach The Deterioration of the Soul, depicts what happens to one’s essence (being “in balance”) when constantly confronted by negativity and demoralizing behavior. I have seen this syndrome when someone is involved with a narcissistic personality. One’s...
UMVA Showcase Summer 2023: Artists H–R
Kimberly Harding Sandy’s stability threatened to unravel during her husband’s final months of melanoma and cancer treatment-induced type one diabetes. Used to the protection and pampering of her loving husband for over sixty years, she focused on compulsive tidiness,...
UMVA Showcase Summer 2023: Artists S–Z
Kathryn Shagas My painted paper freeform collages are a visual interpretation of sound and energy in motion. They draw from my early training in music and a curiosity about the intersection of physics and the arts. When a chaotic jumble of papers are glued together...
UMVA Portland Chapter Report – Summer 2023
UMVA Portland Chapter Spring 2023 Update The UMVA Portland Art Gallery was a busy place this spring. Haley Linnet, Aidan Fraser, Quinn Evans, and Natalie Nelson presented a multidisciplinary figurative art show in March, Bodies of Work, exploring the lived experiences...
UMVA Midcoast Chapter Report – Summer 2023
UMVA Midcoast Chapter presents Waterways at the Central Lincoln County YMCA, 525 Maine St., Damariscotta, juried by Matthew Barter (15 July–15 September 2023). An artists’ reception is scheduled for Saturday 22 July, from 2 to 5 p.m. The event is free and open to the...
David Estey – Reimagining UMVA
In an effort to expand its presence in Maine, the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA) is remaking itself and has added six remarkable new members to the Board of Directors. With UMVA approaching its fiftieth anniversary in 2024, the emergence of a dynamic new...
David Estey – Lights Out Gallery Co-founder Joins UMVA Board
I recruited Daniel Sipe to join the UMVA Board of Directors and want to focus on him here because he and Lights Out Gallery are doing exciting things that parallel our goals and because they need more widespread promotion and support to continue their success. Read...
Reed McLean – A Frightening and Vulnerable Beginning: Our First Year Renovating Maine’s Snowshoe Factory
I went walking today to the snowshoe factory, a location that has consumed my waking thoughts for the past year ever since my partners and I decided, on slightly more than an impulse, to transform its 15,000 square feet into an art gallery, coworking space, maker’s...
Greg Burns – Grant Writing from the Perspective of a Grant Reviewer
I’m a professional artist who has applied for well over twenty grants in my career. I’ve been rejected every single time except once, and I think that one time I was guaranteed to get the grant based on the criteria. Some say that’s a pretty good success rate hovering...
ARRT! Update – Summer 2023
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....
Maine Masters Update – Summer 2023: Carlo Pittore’s 15th Round
Maine Masters Report by Richard Kane “Feast your eyes on Carlo Pittore’s brilliant strokes” read the headline in the 9 May 2010 edition of the Portland Press Herald’s article by Dan Kany. After eighteen years since his untimely death at the age of sixty-two, his...
Pat and Tony Owen – Tipping of the Scale
So you have been at it for a while now, and nothing seems to have changed. You ignore the possibility that your work has gone unnoticed for so long now that it has become blanketed in cobwebs. The last exhibition you participated in was a group show, comprised of a...
Summer Play: Cadavre Exquis
As we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Surrealism in 1924 (the First Manifesto was published on 15 October 1924, but it's already earlier in that year that we witness a shift from Parisian Dadaism to Surrealism), we would like to invite you to...
Theme and Invitation to Submit Fall 2023: Materiality
Art is fundamentally material: even conceptual art can be seen as an affirmation of art’s corporeality through its negation. We invite you to reflect upon the many ways in which your work engages with the notion of materiality, in every stage of your creative process,...
Union of Maine Visual Artists Board of Directors Letter of Support
The Union of Maine Visual Artists statewide board supports the employees at the Portland Museum of Art in their desire and efforts to unionize and collectively bargain with PMA's management The statewide board of the Union of Maine Visual Artists supports the...
UMVA Members Invited to Add Pages on Website
ATTENTION all UMVA Members! We are currently moving toward a new website where members will be able to create and manage their own pages. While we don't have a timeline, we hope this will happen sometime mid-2024. At this time, due to a web-page limit that we...
Edgar Allen Beem – “A punching bag for art”
The Perennial Debate over the Portland Museum of Art Biennial January 22, 2020 Prompted by artists' complaints that they were being overlooked by the Portland Museum of Art, I recently visited the museum to see how many living Maine artists had works on display....
Comments on PMA Biennial Replacement
COMMENTS ABOUT THE PORTLAND MUSEUM OF ART'S DECISION TO REPLACE THE BIENNIAL FOR MAINE ARTISTS WITH AN INTERNATIONAL TRIENNIAL The Portland Museum of Art has recently announced it will be replacing its Biennial Maine art exhibition with a curated international...
Letters to the Editor: Portland Museum of Art Triennial Further Violates Donor’s Vision
Below is a Letter to the Editor from the Portland Sunday Telegram, 12/15/2019. https://www.pressherald.com/?p= The Maine Arts Journal thinks this is a very important issue, so we are reprinting the letter here and some UMVA members’ initial responses. If Maine artists...
Artist Fees? UMVA History
Charging artists to enter shows has been a hot button issue since the UMVA was founded. We urge artists to continue to confront this challenge. Here are some pieces of UMVA history on the topic:
Restore Tax Equity For Artists
Please join the UMVA in advocating for this important piece of legislation: Please let Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree know that Maine artists would like them to co-sponsor this proposal!
Without Question: Legal Commentary by Ari Solotoff, Esq.
Without question, Sarah Bouchard’s story recounting the destruction of her sculpture is disheartening. There is a natural feeling of injustice when something of value has been damaged, in this case irreversibly. Whether faced with physical damage to a...