UMVA Portland has continued with its 2020 calendar of online gallery exhibitions. These shows—from the spring through November—can be accessed via links posted on the UMVA website.
The December Holiday show is also accessible via the website. 28 member artists provided websites where their work is for sale. Other UMVA members may visit these sites for terrific holiday art gifts.
In October and November, Portland members selected the exhibitions for the 2021 UMVA at PMC calendar. Again, we received more applications than we could accommodate. Members nevertheless worked diligently to find ways to include as many artists as possible. A few artists decided to defer their applications and shows to 2022. We are particularly pleased that Natalie Brown, a student at the Maine College of Art, will curate an exhibition in March of her work and the work of other young artists at MECA. We will post the UMVA Gallery calendar on the UMVA website this month.
A subcommittee task force was appointed to recommend how UMVA might manage potential controversial issues and complaints relating to its gallery shows. The subcommittee will report at the December or January monthly meeting.
In late summer, the UMVA Gallery accepted a gift of Mark Sylbert’s portrait of UMVA co-founder Carlo Pittore to be permanently displayed in the gallery. Sylbert is a New York-based artist. Stephen Petroff, a poet and friend of Pittore, wrote a dedication that will accompany the portrait. UMVA Portland will decide on a frame early in the year and dedicate the portrait later in 2021.
UMVA Portland also drafted and adopted protocols for re-opening the gallery some time in 2021.
Portland members have agreed to seek the participation of younger artists and attract people from diverse backgrounds to UMVA. Portland and Maine are more culturally and racially diverse and UMVA Portland seeks to make its membership reflective of this diversity.
Portland UMVA drafted a letter of support for the UMVA board in support of the Portland Museum of Art employees right to organize a union. The board’s letter was published in The Portland Phoenix in early December. (The union vote takes place by mail throughout December, the results to be announced at the end of December.)
Portland members launched a “postcard vision” project for January 2021. This is the January online exhibition. UMVA members may participate in this spirited and imaginative fundraiser by visiting the UMVA website. An announcement was sent to members in mid-December via email.
Several members were accepted in prestigious exhibitions during 2020. Here are a few: Susan Smith and Norajean Ferris in the Center for Maine Contemporary Art Biennial, Titi de Baccarat and ARRT! (Artists’ Rapid Response Team) in the Portland Museum of Art Untitled 2020: Art From Maine In A _______ Time, Roland Salazar Rose online show Creating in Isolation at the Dover New Hampshire Art Center, Amy Bellezza in the international art forum The Garzoni Challenge, and many more members showing in galleries and other venues.
Titi De Baccarat, Hero, installation.
Viewers can read John Ripton’s review of Titi De Baccarat’s exhibit at Space Gallery by clicking the article title below. Both TiTi De Baccarat and John Ripton are UMVA members. The review appeared in The Portland Phoenix in December, 2020.
John Ripton – Portland artist Titi de Baccarat: Kneeling in the face of the American myth