Editorial and a quick introduction to the issue — Our theme for the WINTER 2019 Maine Arts Journal is SKETCHBOOK.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
The post Véronique Plesch – Introduction Fall 2025: Thinking Through Making appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
I don’t have a signature style. My journey as an artist has been to explore the world, particularly, its systems, rhythms, and patterns, and to ask myself questions. I often start a series of works by asking myself, “What if?” and then set out to figure out how to answer that, with varying degrees of […] The post Jeff Woodbury – Learning from Making Art: Insights from Jeff Woodbury’s Practice appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Thinking through making happens in my studio at each step-by-step stage. An eventual working-out occurs as I puzzle through each part of building up three-dimensional forms. The work moves forward or backward when I am at the edges of not-knowing and continues to evolve like that throughout the process of making. My projects are often […] The post Kitty Wales: Thinking Through Making appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
When given the opportunity to reflect on my creative process, specifically thinking through making, I naturally turned to my creative partner. Beyond being my wife, Kate is an artist who knows me inside and out, who believes in me. I’m lucky to be able to dig into ideas with her. Rather than synthesizing our insights […] The post Jonathan Mess appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
How to Make a Picture Begin the ceremony by placing the camera over your head, red strap slashing half an X through your body. You are now a member of the Order of the Eye. Stand to attention. Remember, the camera is a Ouija board. The camera is a closet. The camera is a compass. […] The post Cig Harvey – How to Make a Picture appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Consider the power of a simple straight stitch embroidered 100,000 times in a vintage canvas cot cover. Each stitch is unique unto itself, but when collected and assembled in the shape of a reclining figure, each stitch undergoes a drastic transformation in its presence. Similarly, a half-inch graphite mark located within an orange rectangle. When […] The post Ed Epping appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
My workday in the studio often begins by sweeping the floor and tidying up. If inspiration comes slowly, around the third cup of tea, it is likely to have been a fleeting glimpse of something in a painting that was not apparent yesterday or has been hidden for a decade. I often rework pieces. One […] The post David Wilson – Looking for an Opening appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
When I was in elementary school our workbooks were called Think and Do. I think my education would have been a better fit for me if the books had been Do and Think, since I’ve discovered that I learn best through direct engagement with materials. I’ve always been disappointed if I think of the poem […] The post Stuart Kestenbaum – Following the Words appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
CM: An accomplished poet, you’ve also long been committed to the practice of making visual art, primarily collage. It fascinates me that you bridge these disciplines—poetry and visual collage. When did you begin the practice of creating visual art and how does that origin intersect with, emerge, or diverge from, your working life as a poet? […] The post Claire Millikin – The World Itself: A Conversation with Collage Artist Jeri Theriault appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The ...| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Decisions, Decisions I like to tell my students that our task as art historians is to retrace the artist’s decisions. Take still life, a genre that grants painters a great deal of agency, starting with the choice of the objects to be depicted and their arrangement. Even in the seventeenth century when specialization was the […] The post Véronique Plesch – Making, Thinking, Learning appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
This past January, in conjunction with the exhibition Orbits in Lord Hall at the University of Maine, professor and writer Hollie Adams invited a group of poets to respond to the work of the artists in the show, Tom Jessen, Isabelle Maschal O’Donnell, and Ian Trask. I was assigned the last named and turned to the […] The post Carl Little – The Trask at Hand appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
I love the way almost every line in Stu Kestenbaum’s “Song of Ascents” suggests something about the nature of artistic process. Don’t we, when it’s going well, feel like we’re on a peak? But there’s that rickety aluminum ladder, and the times it feels like we’re trying to make beauty and form with flimsy tools—a […] The post Stuart Kestenbaum: Poetry appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
In Linda Aldrich’s poem, we watch an acting class practicing ensemble work. The process being enacted through Stanislavski’s teaching can pertain to any art and maybe life in general: to love art in ourselves, not ourselves in art, to eschew the star system. The process being enacted has as much to do with values and […] The post Linda Aldrich: Poetry appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
So many elements in James Brasfield’s poem “The Cypresses” speak to process, including memory, attentive observation, and mentorship. There are father and son at different stages of life sharing a particular fleeting moment that will become a different memory for each of them, and yet memory, if not the moment, persists. There’s the wonderful question […] The post James Brasfield – Poetry appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Susan Cook’s sonnet is a more abstract and general approach to process, and it suggests something about the nature of endings. How do we know something is finished? How do we end a piece of writing? Or know a painting is complete? What do we have to give up of ourselves, our egos, to really […] The post Susan Cook – Poetry appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
New Ideas Through Play As a choice-based high school art educator, my approach aligns with the Teaching for Artistic Behaviors philosophy that the child is the artist, the classroom is their studio, and the teacher acts as a facilitator of learning. Engaging my students in the creation of unique artworks leads to the exploration of […] The post Shaelin Shields – Teaching for Artistic Behavior appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Dan Dowd My work is very much driven by the materials that I collect from my local transfer station. A salvaged wool blanket or a rubber truck tire inner tube or rubber boot can begin the thought process about what I can transform it into. I am also sensitive to honoring the material and the […] The post UMVA Showcase – Fall 2025: Dan Dowd, Timothy Crawford Wilson, Shanna McNair appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Amy Bellezza In my still-life photography with the bed coil, I find myself moving in rhythm between action and contemplation. There is a pulse to the process: moments of arranging, lighting, and framing, followed by pauses to reflect and simply look. The coil itself demands this oscillation—it is both a practical remnant of the body […] The post UMVA Showcase – Fall 2025: Amy Bellezza, Kharris Brill, Don Peterson, Anna Dibble appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
What is Spindleworks? Spindleworks is a community of makers where artists of all abilities are valued and inspired to do their best work. Artists are guided to find their creative voice, and express themselves in mediums such as drawing and painting, photography, ceramics, woodworking, weaving, and other fiber and fabric arts. Artists may write poetry […] The post Susie Warren Hanley – Spindleworks appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Over the past sixty-some odd years, Nancy Davidson has been a constant champion of art and artists, primarily in Maine and Florida, as a gallerist and curator. As Mirlea Saks wrote in her tribute to Davidson in the spring 2028 issue of the Maine Arts Journal, “[s]upporting the arts is what she does.” Since stepping […] The post Carl Little – Nancy Davidson: The Joy of Critters appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us —Gandalf to Frodo in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Getting old is not for sissies. —Bette Davis The Challenges Facing Artists as They Become Elderly Are Real In his introduction to the topic of “Aging Artists,” David Estey, Belfast painter […] The post David Little – Aging Artists: Challenges in Living and Legacy appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
My mother died twenty years ago, but for me, she is a constant presence. As her only child, not only did I inherit her artworks, her correspondence, and all her other possessions, I also became the repository of her artistic reputation and extensive body of work. At that time, I was living alone working full […] The post Linda Jay Burley – Mom and Me appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
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 […] The post ARRT! Update – Fall 2025 appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
LumenARRT! is a project of the Artists’ Rapid Response Team (ARRT!). We work through the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA), a members’ organization that advocates for artists and furthers the work of progressive non-profits in the state of Maine. Our video projections, graphic design production, and interactive media projects create a visual voice for […] The post LumenARRT! Update – Fall 2025 appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
UMVA Highlights from the Executive Board of Directors Your executive Board of Directors met this spring and summer to continue organizing the business of operating our organization. They have assisted the Project Leaders with grant applications and management for many exciting projects including ARRT! and our newest project, a film being produced by Peggy Greenhut […] The post Joanne Tarlin – UMVA President Update appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Now I realize that the above title echoes in the minds of those who followed The X Files as it does mine (I own the complete series on DVD), but truth is a malleable, ever-changing concept. It’s like memory. Why is it that when we recall something from the past, an event or conversation with […] The post Tony Owen – The Truth Is Out There appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Words and images communicate in different ways. Their association can yield myriad types of relationships: they can collaborate in harmonious ways, enter in exploratory dialogues, or even disagree and clash. After all, a visual and a verbal discourse are fundamentally different. Writers have qualified the interactions between words and images as a dance, a struggle, […] The post MAJ Theme and Call for Submissions – Winter 2026: Words and Images appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: Th...| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Cultural Freedom Demands Collective Courage: A Nation-Wide Statement of Values and Principles for the Field of Arts and Culture Arts and culture bring people together. They spark joy, foster belonging, enrich communities, and help us imagine new possibilities. Arts and culture also open space for complexity—for grappling with different perspectives, for hearing what we […]| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
We are shaped by encounters and so is art. This issue explores the transformative significance of such events, and our contributors tell us about moments that had a profound, and often foundational, effect on them. We read about encounters with people, both living and dead, artists and artworks, nature and the creatures that inhabit it, […] The post Véronique Plesch – Introduction Summer 2025: Encounters appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Applying to art school typically requires a portfolio of ten to twenty images. This portfolio is usually completed in high school advanced placement art classes and should demonstrate artistic range, diligence, and an understanding of core compositional and observational skills. In 2013, I was serving as the Chair of the Foundation Program at Maine College […] The post Philip Brou – Baxter Koziol appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
My dreams hold a strong message from my ancestors to tell their stories. My maternal family line is Armenian. My grandmother survived the early 20th-century Armenian genocide in Turkey. Although I knew some stories about my relatives, they were laden with holes and inconsistencies. Encounters in my dreams push me to research both personal and […] The post Cynthia Motian McGuirl appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Samira Abbassy’s personal and artistic odyssey began in Iran, where she was born in 1965, took her to England, where she moved with her family in 1967, and since 1998 has been focused on New York City and the United States. Though her paintings evidence a strong Middle Eastern influence, she brings a world of […] The post Edgar Allen Beem – Samira Abbassy: Encountering Cultural Identities—Iranian, British, and American appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
In lockdown, I became a room. I grew floors and walls, and sometimes ceilings. Mostly, I was a corner. People stood, ghosts floated, mice nibbled, and peepholes formed. Sometimes my walls and floors broke apart: wood splintered, joists groaned, and screws came loose. These drawings explore the interiority that was part and parcel of the […] The post Tom Butler – I Became a Room appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
