News and Notes

Welcoming Youth

We have had so much fun welcoming local youth educational programs to engage with our Welcome Feast project this summer. First, we hosted a community painting party to collaborate with Daniel Minter as he wrapped up production of the sculptures before installation day. Kids got a chance to learn about printmaking and see how an artist prepares for a big public project! Students from various youth art and writing camps have engaged with the project by responding to the sculptures with writing and art making. Students from the Telling Room, Oak Street Studios, Mayo Street Arts, Love Lab Studio and the Portland Museum of Art have all spent time contemplating concepts of community, what it means to be welcoming and how food and art can bring people together.

Young volunteers helping us print the sculptures before installation day.
Making sure all surfaces are covered!
Students at Mayo Street Arts working on art inspired by Daniel Minter’s Mother’s Garden. The students also collaborated with students from Love Lab Studio to make paper flowers as center pieces for the tables at our community dinners.
Students at Oak Street Studios making solar printed fabric to sew in to a table runner for the Welcome Feast community dinners
Students at the Telling Room writing camp responding to the sculptures.
The Portland Museum of Art’s Homer Fellows learning about public art and responding to the installation

Here is a poem written by Elizabeth Thomas, one of the Portland Museum of Art 2019 Homer Fellows:

Mother’s Garden: Daniel Minter

By Elizabeth Thomas

2019 Homer High School Fellow at the Portland Museum of Art / rising senior at Portland High School

Powerful winds dance among our silent bodies

Painted wood creates our faces

And our structure which stands

Now old in the sun

Has grown fond of her light

We turn our faces left

Perhaps searching

Perhaps our gaze is cast on something fixed 

Something which brings strength 

Matching the burnt umber wood which crouches under our painted tones of fire, yellow, and blue of the sky

We taste of fire and ash

Yet here we stand

Unburnt

New Direction for 2019 Art & Programming

For over a year now, we have been working with the artist Matthew Mazzotta on his Shifting Tides project. While Matthew’s concepts are beautiful and fit our mission, the Board of Directors has recently voted to cancel the project. Even with generous and enthusiastic in-kind support from so many involved in our waterfront and building communities, the project’s costs have more than quadrupled. We cannot move forward and remain good stewards of your support.
With that decision behind us, we are already working toward a new project for the summer of 2019 that will support our mission and make the city proud. We will start engaging with artists in Maine and elsewhere for their ideas. We see an exciting path forward and can’t wait to show you what’s next.

SHIFT OF SHIFTING TIDES

Matthew Mazzotta’s SHIFTING TIDES is now planned for installation on Portland’s Back Cove basin in June of 2019 by TEMPOart.

TEMPO has had many supportive meetings with city officials over the past two months, including the Temporary Art Committee, Parks Department, Planning and Zoning, Harbormaster, Department of Environmental Protection and Army Corps of Engineers.  All parties have been committed to ensuring the success of the project and, several weeks ago, it became clear that success would entail additional time for permitting and fabrication.

This is a one-of-a-kind project, so changes in the path to completion are normal and can only make it better.  Plans for partnering with World to Table to host a series of community meals inside the SHIFTING TIDES “dining room” have already gained great support from other community organizations and local chefs.  Between now and June 2019, we expect to find even more opportunities to take advantage of the SHIFTING TIDES’ unique platform for community connections.

Matthew Mazzotta’s lecture at Architalx, “The Architecture of Social Space,” was a great success.  To hear his lecture and learn more about his engaging kinetic installations in communities throughout the world, you can watch the video which will be posted after the series ends at vimeo.com/architalx.

Stay tuned for further developments.  You can sign up for emails at tempoartmaine.org/contact, and follow us on Facebook (@TemporaryPortlandArt) to get the latest details.

Your support and your involvement are essential to realizing SHIFTING TIDES and TEMPO’s projects.