Past Grants
Grants Made By Maine Humanities Council : 2007–2008 (arranged by town)
- Augusta - Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Teacher Guide for the documentary "What is 6,000,000?"
The teacher guide will describe the activities, goals, and objectives of a 30-minute documentary which follows the unconventional teaching methods of Steven Schulz, a non-Jewish English teacher in Sanford who uses the Holocaust as a model to teach a literature course in "Ethics and Human Responsibility" to rural public high school students.
- Augusta - New England Museum Association
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Save Your Collection, Share Your Story, Sustain Your Mission: A Primer for Small Museums and Historical Societies
Many small museums and historical societies are staffed by volunteers who are enthusiastic about the work but cannot attend professional development workshops. This spring, some of these volunteers received basic training in museum operation and governance during two-day workshops coordinated by NEMA, in partnership with Maine Archives & Museums.
- Augusta - Maine State Archives
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Maine National History Day: 2008
Maine National History Day is an annual educational competition for all Maine students in grades 6-12. Each year students prepare papers, exhibits, documentaries, performances, or Web sites that explore a broad historical theme. This year’s theme was ""Conflict & Compromise in History" and for the first time web sites were added as a competition category.
- Bangor - Bangor Public Library
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
The Thinking Heart - Bangor
Poet Martin Steingesser has reworked the diary and letters of Etty Hillesum, a Jewish woman from Amsterdam who was killed at Auschwitz, into a poetic performance for two voices and cello. In March 2008, Steingesser will join Judy Tierney and cellist Robin Jellis to present this work at the Bangor Public Library. A discussion will follow the performance.
- Bar Harbor - Abbe Museum
$1,900.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Abbe Museum - Textile Display Cases
This grant will fund the building of two textile cases, made to conservation standards, for the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor. The Museum has never been able to accept textiles on loan from other insitutions because it hasn’t had the proper display cases. That will change in 2008 with this acquisition of cases built by a local Bar Harbor carpenter.
- Bath - Portland Harbor Museum
$10,000.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Portland Harbor Museum 2008-2009 Educational Initiative
This grant funds technical needs for developing 3 web-based curricula for Maine schools. Each relates to the impact of world events on ordinary life around Casco Bay, with topics such as commerce in the age of clipper ships, South Portland’s Ferry Village neighborhood in World War II, and Casco Bay in the colonial era. All curricula will align with the Maine Learning Results.
- Bath - Portland Harbor Museum
$972.50 - Community Outreach
Defending the United States in a Time of Turmoil: The 1808 Fortification Program in the District of Maine
The Portland Harbor Museum will convene a full-day conference to acknowledge the 200th anniversary of Forts Preble and Scammell. Historians, archaeologists, and preservationists will discuss the legacy of the forts and consider the challenges to the forts’ survival. The conference will include walking tours of both forts.
- Belfast - Belfast Free Library
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
The Thinking Heart - Belfast
Poet Martin Steingesser has reworked the diary and letters of Etty Hillesum, a Jewish woman from Amsterdam who was killed at Auschwitz, into a poetic performance for two voices and cello. In February 2008, Steingesser will join Judy Tierney and cellist Robin Jellis to present this work at the Belfast Free Library. A discussion will follow the performance.
- Belfast - New Strategies for Youth
$500.00 - Discretionary
America and Freedom: A Maine Experience
The Game Loft, a youth center in Belfast which provides innovative fun for teens, has developed an intereactive history program for seven players. Each participant assumes the role of a child coming of age in Maine between 1836 and 1866, the years leading up to and including the Civil War.
- Berwick - Vivian E. Hussey Primary School
$500.00 - Discretionary
Maine Authors in the Schools
Two Maine authors, Sarah L. Thomson and Cathryn Falwell, met in the spring with students in grades 2-4 at the Vivian E. Hussey Primary School in Berwick. The authors spoke about their inspirations, struggles, and lives as writers in Maine as well as the process of publishing a book, and there was opportunity to take questions from the students.
- Bethel - The Northern Forest Center
$4,000.00 - Major
Ways of the Woods: People and the Land in the Northern Forest
The project will support the center’s mobile museum display as it travels to under-served rural communities in northern and western Maine during 2008. The display, originally built with support from the NEH, uses the humanities to help people appreciate the past, understand the present, and plan for the future of the Maine Woods and broader Northern Forest region.
- Bethel - Bethel Historical Society
$500.00 - Discretionary
2008 Lecture Series, Maine History: Varied and Vivid
A series of six lectures between May and November will address Maine’s history from a variety of directions, including historical figures, election campaigns, and water quality. Speakers include Thomas Desjardin, Neil Rolde, Donna Cassidy, and Earle Shettleworth, Jr.
- Brunswick - Spindleworks
$765.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Spindleworks Oral History
Spindleworks, a center for artists with disabilities founded in 1978, worked with a local historian to host a series of oral history workshops. Paricipants learned how to record oral histories of artists in the program and presented their work to the community.
- Camden - The Camden Conference
$5,000.00 - Major
Religion as a Force in World Affairs
The 21st annual conference, held in February 2008, will explore the role of religion as a potent influence upon the formation and implementation of foreign policy, especially the shaping of foreign policy in the U.S. Community events leading up to the conference will broaden participants’ understanding of the issue and increase their awareness of various cultures involved.
- Damariscotta - Skidompha Public Library
$300.00 - Discretionary
America’s Ten Greatest Presidents
Several libraries are offering a summer program under the leadership of scholar Don Lord, this one in Damariscota. Participants will study ""yardsticks"" that have been developed by historians to evaluate past presidents, discuss whether the criteria for greatness has changed over time, and evaluate the possible qualities which signify presidential greatness.
- Deer Isle, - Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
$500.00 - Discretionary
Visiting Artist David Jauss
Award winning writer David Jauss will be an artist-in-residence at Haystack August 2-15, 2008 as part of their Visiting Artist Program. Mr. Jauss will work with 5th session workshop participants at Haystack, present a public program, and write a monograph interpreting the contemporary craft world and craft making.
- Dover-Foxcroft - Center Theatre for the Performing Arts
$450.00 - Discretionary
Gettysburg at the Center Theatre
In June, the Center Theatre and Dover-Foxcroft Historical Society sponsored a day-long commemoration of the Battle of LIttle Round Top near Gettysburg and the role of the 20th Maine Infantry in the battle. In addition to a screening of the 1993 film ""Gettysburg" there will be exhibits and reenactments during the day.
- Eastport - "Stage East, Inc.
$500.00 - Discretionary
Maine Youth Summer Theatre Institute (MYSTI) Scholarship Program
The Maine Youth Summer Theatre Institute, working under the auspices of Stage East (a nonprofit arts organization in Eastport), provided a two-week program for youth to experience creativity, community, art, and fun while engaging in theatre pursuits. The students produced a full-length Shakespearean play at the end of their two-week session.
- Farmington - University of Maine at Farmington
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Driving in Maine: Four Poems of Wes McNair for Soprano and Orchestra
A pre-concert discussion and performance of four poems by Wes McNair put into a musical setting by composer Nancy Gunn.
- Freeport - Freeport Performing Arts Center
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
From Desert to Sea: A Celebration of Cultual Diversity
This project in May built on the visit from Indian folk art ensemble Rajasthani in 2005. The group consists of eight young people who use music and dance to promote good will and understanding. This time the schedule was adjusted to allow students’ greater access to them and to make the concert available to students and teachers from surrounding schools.
- Hinckley, - L.C. Bates Museum (Good Will Home Assn.)
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Some Homes
Exhibit and related programming will provide an informative community interpretation of the concept of home and what it means to people. The project goal is to promote discussion, knowledge, and interpretation that focuses on the experience of home, specifically Maine homes and the related philosophy of home at Good Will-Hinckley.
- Jackman - MSAD #12 Community Leadership Team
$500.00 - Discretionary
MSAD #12 Leadership Team Community Outreach Project
The project involves outreach activities between the MSAD #12 Community Leadership Team and the communities of Jackman and Moose River, linking community members, business owners, students, and staff.
- Kittery - Kittery Art Association
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Russell Cheney & His Artistic Comtemporaries in Southern Maine 1925-1945 - A Symposium
A day-long symposium on early 20th century artists of southern Maine will be held August 2nd in conjunction with local exhibitions of Kittery artist Russell Cheney’s paintings. Speakers will explore Yankee Modernism in Maine through the artistic careers of Cheney and his contemporaries: Marsden Hartley, F.O. Mattiessen, and the Ogunquit School painters.
- Lewiston - Bates Dance Festival
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Exploring the Contemporary African Dance Aesthetic
During this year’s Bates Dance Festival in July, filmmaker/dance scholar Joan Frosch will conduct a one-week residency including a lecture on choreographers Gregory Maqoma and Nora Chipaumire and a screening of her award-winning film ""Movement (R)evolution"".
- Lewiston - Lewiston Public Library
$500.00 - Discretionary
Darwin at 200: Evolution and Intelligent Design in the 21st Century
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the Lewiston Public Library is hosting a reading and discussion series using the book Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin. In addition to the 5-part reading & discussion series, activities include a public lecture and film presentation.
- Lewiston - Franco-American Heritage Center
$3,227.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Lighting Our Past for the Future
The Franco-American Heritage Center will obtain museum-quality lighting for 18 exhibit cases and two murals in their downtown Lewiston location. The cases house photographs, musical instruments, household items, crafts, maps, military memorabilia, and other examples of Franco-American culture.
- Lille - Assoc. culturelle et historique du Mont-Carmel
$10,000.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Musee on the Web
The grant supports the development of a bilingual website to explain this museum’s renovation process, showcase items from the collection, and serve as a resource for students and educators. The museum, which is dedicated to the preservation and development of Acadian and QuZbecois cultures, is now housed in a renovated church in the St. John Valley.
- Lisbon Falls - Friends of the Lisbon Library
$325.00 - Discretionary
Wings, Stings, and Leggy Things Summer Reading Program
The Lisbon Library will present Greg McAdam’s show "Stop Bugging Me, I’m Reading!" as a culminating activity for their ""Wings, Stings, and Leggy Things"" summer reading program. The show features storytelling, puppetry, and audience participation.
- Livermore - Washburn Norlands Living History Ctr.
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Mainers & Their Neighbors Who Went Into the World
At the 15th Annual Humanities Seminar of the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center (June 5-7, 2008), participants explored the experiences of Northern New England and Maritime residents who ventured beyond the region’s boundaries.
- Machias - Lubec Landmarks
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
McCurdy’s and the Smoked Herring Industry Downeast: Visual Documents as History and Art
The story of the smoked herring industry in Washington County in the late 1800s will be on display through this exhibit and related public programs during the summer of 2008. Visitors are asked to think about how photographs in the exhibit may serve as history and as art.
- Mount Desert - Mount Desert Island Historical Society
$4,300.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Making Mount Desert Island History Accessible by Touch Screen Exhibit
The historical society is creating a touch screen exhibit, funded by this grant, that will be a user-friendly entry point for exploring the history of Mount Desert Island, including its social history, labor and economics, and architecture. Touch screen buttons leading to photographic images will introduce viewers to stories being narrated by local experts.
- New Gloucester - United Society of Shakers
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Maine Festival of American Music
This multi-disiplinary four-day festival presents the Portland String Quartet and members of the Shaker community at the Shakers’ historic home in New Gloucester. Events include two chamber music concerts, workshops for amateur ensembles, and an evening devoted to Shaker culture and history including a tour of their art exhibit, ""The Human and the Eternal"".
- New Gloucester - Merriconeag Waldorf School
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Merriconeag Waldorf School Poetry Festival
The school hosted the culminating event in a poetry competition for public and private high school students in Cumberland, Androscoggin, and Sagadahoc counties at its new campus in New Gloucester. On May 18, twenty students read their work and participated in a seminar on poetry as a tool for social change.
- New York - Bar Harbor Music Festival
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
"Bar Harbor Music Festival: "New Composers Concert"
The Bar Harbor Music Festival’s "New Composer" forum and concert will feature guest composer Peter Michael Von derNahmer and will explore America’s musical heritage over the last 25 years.
- Orono - Maine Folklife Center - U. of Maine
$4,000.00 - Major
Maine Stories of Place
This August program will be part of the American Folk Festival in Bangor. The story theme will center on Maine’s "Sense of Place" and will be facilitated by folklorists Jo Radner, Peggy Yocom, and Karen Miller. There also will be a Story Bank booth where visitors can record their own stories which will be preserved.
- Orono - Senator George J. Mitchell Center
$990.00 - Community Outreach
Senator George J. Mitchell Lecture on the Environment
The second annual lecture (9/18/08) features Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-founder and co-director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology and Senior Lecturer at Yale University. Professor Tucker, a scholar focused on the role of religious movements in confronting the growing environmental crisis, will speak on "The Environmental Crisis as a Moral and Spriitual Challenge."
- Peaks Island - Brackett Memorial United Methodist Church
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
For the Love of Peaks
The project is a photographic and written exhibit at the Gem Gallery on Peaks Island. Fran Houston, who attended a Maine Humanities Council oral history workshop after moving to Peaks Island in 2003, has interviewed many older island residents about their memories and stories from childhood and taken photographs of them for the exhibit.
- Peaks Island - 5th Maine Regiment Museum
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Found Treasures
The artifacts on display in the museum’s 2008 exhibit (June to October) were "rescued" from the island transfer station or unearthed from basements and attics. Included are diaries, business documents, and an 1879 bible full of mementoes from its previous owner. The artifacts will be connected by provenance or theme and accompanied by interpretive text.
- Portland - Maine Jewish Film Festival
$5,000.00 - Major
Maine Jewish Film Festival 2008 - Labor in Three Parts
The theme for this spring’s film festival in the Greater Portland area will be Labor explored in three parts: labor camps (concentration camps), organized labor or unions, and blacklisting.
- Portland - Portland Museum of Art
$4,000.00 - Major
Public programs for the Andre Kertesz: On Reading exhibition
Andre Kertesz was a leading photographer of the 20th century, and this exhibition of his work explores the subject of reading as a basic human endeavor. A full slate of educational programs (teacher workshops, family events, a Read In, and the launch of a blog about reading) will complement the exhibit.
- Portland - Victoria Mansion
$4,000.00 - Major
Edith Wharton and The Age of Innocence
In the spring of 2009, the museum will offer educational and interpretive programming about Edith Wharton and her novel The Age of Innoncence as part of the NEH ""The Big Read"" program. Events will include a keynote presentation , discussion groups, a panel discussion, and a presentation of late Victorian dress, dance and music.
- Portland - SPACE
$950.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
USM/SPACE Philosophy Symposium Film Series
SPACE Gallery’s Philosphy Symposium Film Festival this spring sought to bring philosophy out of the academy and into a venue accessible to all. At each of four screenings, professors from the University of Southern Maine’s Philosophy Department led public discussions to investigate the films’ subjects.
- Portland - Maine Alliance of Media Arts
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
In Good Time: The Piano Jazz of Marian McPartland
Maine-based filmmaker Huey’s current project is a documentary film about Marian McPartland who turns 90 in 2008. McPartland is a pioneering woman jazz musician, composer, and host of NPR’s longest-running music program, Piano Jazz. Upon completion, the film will be distributed to PBS stations and made available for educational and home DVD sales.
- Portland - Portland Public Library
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Poetry Festival 2008
Festival activities feature a lecture and discussion with renowned Shakespeare scholar Dr. David Kastan; a four-session workshop for teens; readings, performances, and panel discussions with at least eight Maine poets; and a public poetry contest for all ages.
- Portland - Portland Ovations
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
The Ties That Bind: Maine’s Connection with Africa and Canada
The project includes a community-based lecture series, performances, and book discussions as part of a year-long celebration of the NAACP’s 100th anniversary. Events will examine the community’s ties to African culture in a variety of ways.
- Portland - Victoria Mansion
$500.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
The Architecture of Henry Austin and His Time
This half-day symposium will close a year-long celebration of the 150th anniversary of Henry Austin’s famous building, the Victoria Mansion, originally known as the Morse-Libby House. Four speakers will profile the national and local architectural scene in the 1850s and the development of the Italian villa syle, of which the house is an outstanding example.
- Portland - Maine Historical Society
$500.00 - Discretionary
Responding to Longfellow: The Poet in American Culture
As a culmination of the year-long commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s birth, the Maine Historical Society hosted a two-day poetry festival and symposium in November 2007. An evening event, with readings by more than 15 Maine poets, was followed by a day of lectures and discussions by prominent poets and scholars.
- Portland - Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes
$200.00 - Discretionary
We Take to the Woods: Historic Preservation in the North Woods
In March, a public discussion was held to address the challenges of protecting sporting camps, historic sites and the cultural landscape of Maine’s northern forests. The Commissioner of the Maine Department of Conservation and the Deputy Director of the Maine Bureau of Public Lands were on hand to address issues like public access, public process, and future planning.
- Portland - Zero Station
$435.16 - Discretionary
Portland Film & Video Artists Collective 007: Acts and Actions Program Notes and Advertisement
This project funds the production of an illustrated program to complement a video screening exploring various elements of the media arts. The screening consists of thirteen videos from around the world which use diverse artistic processes and concepts, and the printed program will tie together image and text.
- Portland - Portland Trails
$5,000.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
The Cumberland and Oxford Canal Interpretive Project
This grant funds permanent educational and interpretive signage along Portland Trails’ walking path on the historic Cumberland and Oxford (County) Canal. Portland Trails is working with 3 guest scholars to create this signage for two locations in the Fore River Sanctuary overlooking important canal sites.
- Portland - "Greater Portland Landmarks, Inc.
$3,050.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Educational Enhancements at the Portland Observatory Museum (1807)
Greater Portland Landmarks will use new computer equipment, enhanced historic images, PowerPoint presentations, and furnishings to provide a comprehensive overview of educational information about the Portland Observatory Museum to students and tourists alike.
- Portland - Spirits Alive
$955.00 - Community Outreach
Spirits Alive Lecture Series
This three-part public lecture series will focus on the place of historic cemeteries in our collective past, both New England cemeteries in general and Portland’s Eastern Cemetery specifically.
- Portland - University of Southern Maine
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Beyond the Clash of Civilizations: A Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding,
The second annual Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture on Genocide and Human Rights took place at Hannaford Hall in Portland on April 7, 2008. Professor Judea Pearl, father of murdered reporter Daniel Pearl, and Professor Akbar Ahmed, a leading authority on contemporary Islam, tackled sensitive issues in Judaism and Islam through a candid public dialogue.
- Portland - Maine Reads
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Maine Festival of the Book
The second annual Maine Festival of the Book, a three-day extravaganza of reading and writing in downtown Portland, took place May 15-17, 2008. Celebrating our rich contemporary literary scene and its heritage, the festival presented literature in all its forms, aiming to appeal to a range of tastes, audiences, and reading abilities.
- Portland - Maine Historical Society
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Agreeable Situations
In 1987, the landmark book Agreeable Situations: Society, Commerce, and Art in Southern Maine was published, following a statewide material culture inventory sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council. This anniversary celebration features a day-long symposium with scholars, curators, and the public exploring the significance of the book in Maine today.
- Rangeley - Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust
$350.00 - Community Outreach
Experiencing Maine
As part of this public lecture series in August, author John Christie gave a presentation on his recent book, The Story of Sugarloaf. Christie is the president of the Ski Museum of Maine and former general manager of both Sugarloaf/USA and Mt. Snow in Vermont.
- Richmond - Maine Folk Art Trail 2008
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Symposium on Maine Folk Art
This project will bring together eleven of Maine’s major art and history museums in concurrent exhibitions of Maine folk art during the summer and fall of 2008. The statewide event will culminate in an educational Symposium on Maine Folk Art to be held at Bates College in September 2008.
- Rockland - Northeast Historic Film
$3,000.00 - Major
The Language of America - Native Cultural Survival in a Global Age
A documentary film which explores the forces affecting how native languages survive or decline. The Passamaquoddy language, which is now on the UN list of endangered languages, becomes the central example to understand historical and contemporary factors affecting heritage languages.
- Rockland - Rockland Public Library
$300.00 - Discretionary
America’s Ten Greatest Presidents
Participants in this project will examine the historical process of evaluating past presidents and the numerous ""yardsticks"" developed by historians for this purpose. By the end of the six-week series, the group will have developed criteria for its own list measuring presidential greatness.
- Rockport - Mainely Girls
$4,346.17 - Major
Girls’ Point of View Book Club - 4th & 5th Grade
Mainely Girls’ reading clubs have become very popular with middle school girls, and this project will expand the clubs to girls in the 4th & 5th grades. Through the use of age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction, these clubs can provide strong, positive literary role models and a supportive experience that will create enthusiastic, life-long readers.
- Saco - Saco Museum & Dyer Library
$10,000.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Public History in Public Places for Saco Bay Cities
This project creates 3 related, permanent local history exhibitions: permanent panels and objects at the Saco Museum (local history is a focus of the collection but isn’t currently presented to the public comprehensively); permanent panels at the local train station; and a traveling exhibition for schools in Saco and Biddeford, featuring objects from the museum’s collection.
- Searsport - Penobscot Marine Museum
$8,500.00 - Humanities Infrastructure
Fisheries: A New Exhibit at Penobscot Marine Museum
This comprehensive permanent exhibit will combine gear, photographs, models of boats, and educational films to inform visitors about the four major types of Maine fisheries (catching shell, ground, sea run, and schooling fish). Visitors will view fisheries from various perspectives and gain an understanding of both their past and today’s questions about their future.
- Skowhegan - "Loving Learning, Inc.
$300.00 - Discretionary
Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) in MSAD #74 Anson, ME
Loving Learning, a family literacy organization, first brought a program to MSAD #74 in 2006, when each of145 students in two area elementary schools received three new books. In 2008-09, the project will be expanded to all 340 students in the district’s five elementary schools. Book distribution events will take place in October and December 2008 and March 2009.
- South Portland - Open Waters Theatre Arts
$425.00 - Discretionary
Feverfest 2008
The event is built around a performance of Wallace Shawn’s ""The Fever"" in which an anonymous character violently comes to terms with her/his role in global economics. To provide context for the play, there will be an accompanying community dialogue, a panel discussion, and a free workshop.
- South Portland - South Portland Historical Society
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
South Portland Historical Society’s Evening Chat series
The historical society’s Evening Chats are annual oral history events, live at City Hall and also airing on local community television and archived in DVD format. Each Chat has a pre-selected topic pertaining to South Portland around the time of World War II. In 2008 the topics are specific to South Portland’s wartime housing complexes Long Creek and Red Bank.
- Stonington - Opera House Arts
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
New Orleans: Culture and Crisis
This project in Stonington will gather musicians, craft artists, scholars and others for public discussions, workshops, film screenings, art exhibitions, craft demonstrations, and concerts to explore the significance of culture in community recovery and development, both in New Orleans and in rural, coastal Maine.
- Syracuse - Seal Bay Festival
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Seal Bay Festival- Workshops with Students and Regional Artists: Finding Creative Links between the Arts through Improvisation
During the 2008 Seal Bay Festival, composers and instrumentalists will interact with grammar school students and local artists in workshops that explore the creative links between verbal narrative, visual imagery, physical movement, and music composition. The workshops will use musical improvisation as a starting point for discussion and discovery.
- Thomaston - General Henry Knox Museum
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
General Henry Knox Museum Colonial and Early American Weapons Exhibit
This summer, the General Henry Knox Museum in Thomaston will mount an exhibit of armaments and weapons, centered around a cannon on loan from Fort Ticonderoga, NY. Several lectures in conjunction with the exhibit will highlight Henry Knox’s career as Chief of Artillery and the nation’s first Secretary of War.
- Vinalhaven - Partners in Island Education
$4,000.00 - Major
Bringing It Home
This Maine Authors series is designed to promote reading and discussion across generations on Vinalhaven. The project will include a series of author residencies to reach all Vinalhaven students Pre-K through high school. There will also be workshops, evening presentations, and book discussion groups for the extended island community."
- Vinalhaven - Partners in Island Education
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Poetry Alive!
A slam poetry workshop in April for students in grades 6-12 at the Vinalhaven School featured slam poet Hashim Allah as a resident artist who worked with students on writing, performing, and critiquing poetry.
- Waldoboro - Waldoboro Public Library
$300.00 - Discretionary
America’s Ten Greatest Presidents
Several libraries are offering a summer program under the leadership of scholar Don Lord, this one in Waldoboro. Participants will study ""yardsticks"" that have been developed by historians to evaluate past presidents, discuss whether the criteria for greatness has changed over time, and evaluate the possible qualities which signify presidential greatness.
- Washington - University of New England
$1,000.00 - Community Arts & Humanities
Textiles Translations
In conjunction with an exhibition of Alice Spencer’s work entitled ""Textiles/Translations" the University of New England’s Gallery of Art will hold a series of five educational programs, each program approaching textiles from a different perspective, such as their cultures of origin, their common themes and symbols, and the role of women in their creation.
- Winslow - Living Water Spiritual Center
$725.00,Community Arts & Humanities
The Thinking Heart: Variations of Etty Hillesum’s Writing
Poet Martin Steingesser has reworked the diary and letters of Etty Hillesum, a Jewish woman from Amsterdam who was killed at Auschwitz, into a poetic performance for two voices and cello. In conjunction with the performance, Colby History professor Raffael Scheck will offer a synopis of modern European history in the context of religious and political strife during WWII.
- Winsted - Classical Association of New England
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Revolution and Reaction: Radical Changes and Continuities in the Ancient World (CANE Summer Institute 2008)
This grant supported Maine teachers attending New England’s premier Classical summer institute with New England’s most accomplished scholars for a six-day program of lectures and mini-courses on the campus of Dartmouth College. The 2008 program explores revolutionary change in Classical government, thought, art, and literature and how these changes resonate in today’s world.
- Winter Harbor - Schoodic Arts for All
$1,000.00 - Community Outreach
Lobstering and Fishing Industry in Downeast Maine
This six-week-long film series screened eight different films about the fishing and lobstering industry, with a panel discussion following each. Topics included the history and memories of lobstering, scallop dragging, salmon hatching, herring smoking, and marine harvesting.
- Yarmouth - Maine-Aomori Sister-State Advisory Council
$500.00 - Discretionary
Maine-Aomori Intercultural Exchange and Bilingual Book Project
In 2005, First Lady Karen Baldacci initiated a bilingual book project involving the sister states of Maine and Aomori, Japan. The project’s goal is to produce a picture book that will introduce children from each country to the culture of the other. In this phase of the project, the team is preparing to submit the manuscript for Hello from the Other Side of the World to publishers.
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