UMVA Brunswick Group
On 26 May—by far the most beautiful afternoon of the spring—seven intrepid UMVA members from the Brunswick area (including Harpswell and Dresden) gathered for the inaugural UMVA ShOWS UP workshop. (The acronym stands for Sharing Opportunities, Working to Support and Unite People through art exhibitions.) In preparation for the relaunch of UMVA’s new Exhibition Guidelines and the soon-to-be-launched new online tool to aid members in preparing an exhibition, Joanne Tarlin conducted a workshop. Participants identified concepts and ideas for shows and shared thoughts for the upcoming December show in Brunswick. The group decided to push a show of pairs of artworks by UMVA members to 2027 at the Topsham Library. The upcoming December show will be open to all members and will be juried.
UMVA Portland area group meets for coffee in May.
UMVA Portland area group meets for coffee in May.
UMVA Portland group at the Oak Street Lofts Gallery. From left to right: Kelly Haynes, Jeff Woodbury, and Diane Hudson (photo: Ann Tracy).
UMVA Portland group at the Oak Street Lofts Gallery (photo: Ave Melnick).
UMVA Portland Group
The UMVA Portland Group had a lovely, small turnout for Celebrating Hope, an exhibition that opened in May at the Oak Street Lofts Gallery. To augment eyes on the work, Ann Tracy organized an afternoon of Ekphrastic Poetry featuring two of the artists, Gregg Harper and Bruce McMillan, along with poets Lily Brown (2026 recipient of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance award for her book Blade), Maureen Thorson, and Annaliese Jakimides. Their work inspired by the art will soon be published on the UMVA website.
UMVA Midcoast exhibition It’s the Small Things, Camden Library (photo: Randy Fein).
UMVA Midcoast Group
The Midcoast chapter met at the Picker Room gallery in the Camden Public Library on 9 May prior to the opening reception for It’s the Small Things show in the gallery. Many of the exhibiting artists attended and there were many new faces. Randy Fein led the meeting, and we allowed time for any artist with work in the show to talk about their work. We all found this to be a worthwhile and illuminating experience, and we hope to do that more often in the future. We ended the meeting early to set up for the opening which was well-attended.
UMVA Midcoast exhibition It’s the Small Things, Camden Library (photo: Randy Fein).
UMVA Midcoast exhibition It’s the Small Things, Camden Library (photo: Randy Fein).
Full view of the image at top: UMVA Midcoast exhibit It’s the Small Things, Camden Library (photo: Randy Fein).