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
Earlier this spring, I visited the Rabkin Foundation, at 13 Brown Street in Portland, to attend a small gathering. The event took place amongst an evocative exhibit of postwar American artist Leo Rabkin’s two- and three-dimensional works, paintings and sculptures. In the midst of conversations, I found myself drawn to a centering box sculpture, a […] The post Claire Millikin – Encountering Lucas Samaras’s and Leo Rabkin’s Post-traumatic Boxes appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal...| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Five months after graduating from college, I’d saved enough money substitute teaching at my old junior high school to pay for my round-trip airfare to Rome. I had my backpack with the rigid aluminum external frame and was ready to join my friends in Europe. Welcome to the world of aerogrammes and American Express Travelers […] The post Stuart Kestenbaum – Breaking Free appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
When we walk out of the door, we seek encounters: the moments that might just change our minds, or change our lives! When walking through the city, I often choose paths with the most foot traffic. When Nancy walks through the familiar woods and beaches on Peaks, she is seeking encounters with nature that will […] The post Scott Nash and Nancy Gibson-Nash appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
There is, without doubt, a mysterious aspect to our individual destinies. The irrational but persistent sense that the design of our lives is somehow cosmically guided becomes more intriguing, and slightly plausible, in old age. Before that, we are too busy to bother with it, and too sensible to give it any credence. But life […] The post Alan Magee – My Berlin appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
In a city filled with graffiti, Amsterdam is the perfect setting for a museum dedicated to street art. STRAAT, which opened in October 2020, showcases the work of street artists from around the world, each represented by a large-scale work, many of them created on site. Housed in an 86,000-plus-square-foot former welding warehouse on the […] The post Carl Little – Encounter in Amsterdam: Graffiti and Street Art at STRAAT appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
While touring England in April, my wife and I stopped in at the Mill Bridge Gallery in Skipton. Housed in one of the oldest dwellings in this market town in North Yorkshire, the gallery specializes in photography and sculpture and hosts an artist in residence. As luck would have it, the current resident artist, sculptor […] The post Carl Little – Encounter: Mark Butler and the 100 Day Project appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
I never had any plans to become an artist. My passion was music. In 1980, I was Managing Director of the Public Access Electronic Music Studio at a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in Seattle. On a rainy night in December of that year, I was at home in my room at the Hotel Savoy. I […] The post Michael Winkler appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
An Encounter I arrived at Green Acre Baha’i Center of Learning in Eliot, Maine, about 5:45 p.m. on Saturday 3 May, thinking I was quite a bit late for the opening. To my surprise, the huge hall was totally empty, except for a flock of hundreds of multi-colored origami paper birds flying overhead among the […] The post Alan Crichton – Dreams of Reality: Gardens of the Heart—The Art of Joe, Lynn, and Max Ascrizzi appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. F. Scott Fizgerald, The Great Gatsby Encounters with art mean different things to artists, curators, and the public at […] The post Chris Crosman – Nicole Wittenberg: Cheek to Cheek appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
In Jared French’s Prose, recently acquired by the Colby College Museum of Art, we witness an encounter between a man and a mirror. A nude, muscular, male figure stands before a large ovoid mirror, which faces outwards towards our space. The man stares into the mostly opaque surface: we cannot see his face, though perhaps […] The post Christopher T. Richards – Encounter: Man Mirror, Medieval Modern appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Strolling through Rome at dusk on 1 February 2024, I looked up and saw a street sign, Via di Pallacorda. Knowing that I was in the centro storico, the old part of Rome, and having just returned from leading a tour of Sicily where I got to show my group several works by my beloved […] The post Véronique Plesch – Encounters Across Time appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Encounters can be accidental or intentional. They can be consequential in mightily important ways for good or ill—or they can be of no matter at all. We all get to have a mix of both in life. To the extent we can control and steer our encounters, those are gambles we take to shape the […] The post Ann Zill appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Throughout their careers, art teachers are shaped by countless encounters—the lessons they teach, the students who grow through creating, the pride in school art exhibits, and the students they see in the community. For retired art teachers, leaving the classroom does not always mark the end of creative influence. For many, it simply opens a […] The post Argy Nestor – Retired Art Teachers: What Do They Encounter After the Classroom? appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Qua...| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
simply a cautionary tale for those left behind I have a small collection on a shelf—a wooden ear, a wooden finger, a wooden golf club, all the things that have come off my late husband’s left behind sculptures during my moves. Most of his sculptures were under two feet (though he did huge pieces for […] The post Peggy Muir – Bryce Muir: What Artists Leave Behind appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
In her poem, Letting Go of the Yard, the Sky, Carol Bachofner is really letting go of her mother as she imagines the stages of relinquishment her mother has passed through. It is an encounter with loss and death, but also an encounter with the many things the dying mother loved—sky and garden, a beloved […] The post Carol Bachofner – Poetry appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Brian Boyd gives us an encounter on several levels. First it’s an encounter with history and the existence of palace and ecclesiastical prisons. Then there’s the encounter of the woman with her imprisoned partner and, it turns out, all the other inmates within earshot. Thirdly, there is the speaker witnessing this encounter, which is both […] The post Brian Boyd – Poetry appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Kelly Desrosiers An encounter with ideas spawned the first art I made as a young adult. I was interested in and made artlike things as a child, but my rural northern Wisconsin school district’s art programming was pretty dismal (and the science offerings were worse), and the art that I encountered in my world was […] The post UMVA Showcase – Summer 2025: Kelly Desrosiers, David Little, Brian Boyd appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Martha Fergusson Nature, with its vast and expansive beauty, speaks to me. As a landscape painter, I spend a lot of time observing and sketching the world around me. With this series, Deep Water Horizon Encounters, I investigate my perceptions of our fragile environment and the impact of human encounters in the natural world. Drawing […] The post UMVA Showcase – Summer 2025: Martha Fergusson, Marjorie Arnett, Ruth Sylmor appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Jean Noon As an artist and a farmer, I have been gifted with a particular opportunity to observe and experience the drama of our natural and built environment through all our amazing seasons. For many years, I have documented these experiences and have accumulated thousands of photographs. Great photos involve personal encounters. He is a […] The post UMVA Showcase – Summer 2025: Jean Noon, Leeann Rhoades, David Wade, Betsey Foster appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarte...| 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 – Summer 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 – Know Your Villains appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
There’s a lot of buzz in the air and it’s not just the bees. Your fellow members have been busy creating opportunities for you to speak truth to power through shows, banners, and projections, bringing attention to the many Maine artists, and peacefully gathering to participate in community activities. Many thanks to these members and […] The post Joanne Tarlin – Busy UMVA Volunteers Making a Buzz This Spring appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Over 100 artists responded to the request for work for the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA)’s latest juried show, Washed Away, at the Portland Public Library, which closed on 21 June. The work represents a variety of media, including painting, photography, mixed media, video, digital, and 3-D works. Of the artists chosen, notable names […] The post UMVA Portland Update: Washed Away appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Art is a beast unto itself. It walks among us unnoticed, ignored by the masses, discounted by the media because it makes for anemic headlines, and yet fought over by those who make it. It has always been the case that art gets lost in the commonplace, the day to day of people’s lives, yet […] The post Tony Owen – Some Things Never Change appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
For our fall issue, we are interested in hearing about your creative process: how does making affect your thinking? We hope you will share insights on how creation is a form of reflection that helps envision and shape new ideas. We look forward to hearing about the ways in which physical choices such as medium, […]| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
The theme description that appeared in the winter issue of the Maine Arts Journal asked contributors to consider how their work and their role as artists reflect the times of upheaval we live in. We mentioned the global ruptures of climate change and wars, the erosion of democracy, the national division, and the personal assaults […] The post Véronique Plesch – Introduction Spring 2025: In Times Like These appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
I want to play a part in building a safer, more equitable, and empathic society—of that much I’m certain. What’s unclear to me is how exactly I should go about doing that. Where and how should I direct my energy? My inclination is to build a relatively small and meaningful community, predominantly here in Maine. […] The post Ian Trask – Between Two Truths appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly.| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly
Tanja Hollander is a photographer best known for her Are You Really My Friend? project in which she photographed all 430 of her Facebook “friends.” Neither pure portraits nor straight documentary photographs, Hollander’s Facebook pictures are conceptual images that explore ideas about human relations in the age of social media. Hollander’s latest project began in […] The post Edgar Allen Beem – Tanja Hollander: Art As an Act of Empathy appeared first on The Maine Arts Journal: The...| The Maine Arts Journal: The UMVA Quarterly