Selected Grants: Spring & Summer 2008

 

BETHEL

Ways of the Woods

$4,000: The Northern Forest Center has spent the better part of a decade developing and implementing its Ways of the Woods: People and the Land in the Northern Forest exhibit. This mobile museum display is housed in an 18-wheel tractor trailer, allowing it to travel to under-served rural communities in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. 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. The organization notes that “the Northern Forest has been a melting pot of philosophies and attitudes toward the natural world. Without imposing value judgments, Ways of the Woods explores and contrasts all these attitudes.” In 2008, the bus stopped at five events in Maine: Canoe Hullaballoo in Old Town, the Acadian Festival in Madawaska, the Houlton Fair, Forest Heritage Days in Greenville, and the Fryeburg Fair. For a journal documenting the truck’s travels, please visit www.northernforest.org.

Left: Young visitors to the exhibit contribute their ideas during the truck’s inaugural stop in Medway in 2006. Middle: The Northern Forest Center’s Ways of the Woods exhibit is housed in this 18-wheel tractor trailer. Right: A grandfather and his grandsons tour the exhibit during its visit to Jackman in September 2006. PHOTOS: NORTHERN FOREST CENTER

DAMARISCOTTA

America’s Ten Greatest Presidents

$300: In the summer of 2008, under the leadership of scholar Don Lord, a group of Damariscotta citizens met weekly at the Skidompha Library to discuss some timely questions: what makes a great president? Have the criteria for greatness changed over time, or just the perspectives of the historians? In evaluating greatness, how important are the unique obstructions or opportunities afforded by the historical moment? Can a really average person make a great president? What qualities does a bad president lack? By studying various lists of the greatest presidents based on “yardsticks” developed by historians such as Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., and Thomas A. Bailey, the group developed criteria for its own list of presidential greatness. Similar groups met in public libraries in Waldoboro and Rockland.

HINCKLEY

Some Homes

* $1,000: The goal of “Some Homes,” the 2008 summer exhibit at the L.C.Bates Museum in Hinckley, is to stimulate thinking about the meaning of Home through discussion and interpretation of contemporary art and historical context on the experience of Home, specifically Maine homes and the related philosophy of home at Good Will-Hinckley. Accompanying events included a lecture by Earle Shettleworth on domestic architecture in Maine, a panel with artists and representatives from Waterville Main Street and the Margaret Chase Smith Library, and a film screening at Railroad Square Cinema.

Right: Bruce Habowski’s oil painting, “15 Degrees,” was completed in the winter of 2008 and almost immediately displayed as part of the “Some Homes” exhibition at the L.C.Bates Museum in Hinkley.
PHOTO: BRUCE HABOWSKI

LEWISTON

Maine Folk Art Symposium

* $1,000: The capstone event in the statewide Maine Folk Art Trail project was a symposium on Maine Folk Art that brought nationally-known scholars to engage the public in an exploration of the place of folk art in Maine history and culture. The symposium took place in September at Bates College; proceedings were captured on video for future reference. Speakers covered such topics as scrimshaw, quilts, redware, and hooked rugs. For more information on the Maine Folk Art Trail and its participating institutions, please visit www.mainefolkarttrail.org.

ORONO

Maine Stories of Place

$4,000: The Maine Folklife Center is immersed in a Story Bank project on Maine’s sense of place, inspired in part by the “Charting Maine’s Future” report from the Brookings Institute. The project engages storytellers, writers, and trained community fieldworkers in the tradition of place-based narratives that build on local and regional identity. Project staff are also interested in engaging the general public, and planned a presence at the 2008 American Folk Festival where folklorists Jo Radner, Peggy Yocom, and Karen Miller facilitated story-telling at the Story Bank Narrative Stage on the Bangor Waterfront. Nearby, visitors were invited to record their own stories of place in a story-collecting booth (actually an RV) run by producer Rob Rosenthal. The stories collected at the folk festival will be preserved at the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History, edited for radio broadcast, and transcribed for publication in Northeast Folklore. After its debut in August, the Story Bank RV moved on to other venues, such as the 2008 Common Ground Fair. For information on the Story Bank project, please call the Maine Folklife Center at (207) 581-1891 or visit www.umaine.edu/folklife.

PEAKS ISLAND

For the Love of Peaks

* $1,000: Fran Houston, a photographer and writer who moved to Peaks Island in 2003, attended an oral history workshop funded by the Maine Humanities Council in December 2007. Inspired by what she learned, she interviewed many older Peaks residents about their memories and stories from childhood. Her work came together in “For the Love of Peaks,” an exhibit of black and white portraits and writings at the Gem Gallery on Peaks Island. The exhibit opened on June 6, 2008, and ran for two weeks.

Right: Fran Houston’s portrait of Annie Romanyshyn; Annie’s stories of her homes on Peaks were lovingly and humorously described.
PHOTO: FRAN HOUSTON

PORTLAND

André Kertész: On Reading

$4,000: André Kertész was a leading photographer of the 20th century. “On Reading,” the exhibition of his work that appears at the Portland Museum of Art August 30 through November 16, 2008, explores the subject of reading as a basic human endeavor. A full slate of educational programs, including a teacher workshop on September 17 and the October launch of a blog about reading, complements the exhibit and coincides with National Book Month. For details, please visit www.portlandmuseum.org.

The Cumberland and Oxford Canal Interpretive Project

$5,000: Part of the historic Cumberland & Oxford Canal runs alongside a popular walking trail within an 85-acre nature sanctuary in the Stroudwater section of Portland. Portland Trails, a nonprofit land trust and trail-building organization, acquired the Fore River Sanctuary from Maine Audubon in 2007. With input from scholars, Portland Trails will create educational and interpretive signage for two locations along its Fore River trail, overlooking important canal sites. An orientation map will show the entire route of the canal, indicating the locations of other sites and restorations that people can visit. Signs and online information will sketch the history of the canal, describe canal-era commerce, explain canal engineering, and list references to canals in literature. This project takes inspiration from large-scale preservation projects around the Illinois & Michigan Canal and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. To learn more, please contact Portland Trails at (207) 775-2411, or visit www.trails.org.

STONINGTON

New Orleans: Culture & Crisis

* $1,000: The ninth annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival (a collaboration between Opera House Arts at the Stonington Opera House and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts) examined the impact of the improvisational creative tradition on community development. Mardi Gras Indian art and music have been central to the post-Katrina reconstruction in New Orleans. The 2008 festival explored how these traditions have been used in a time of crisis, and how the unique cultural heritage of Downeast Maine might be similarly used for community empowerment. In addition to concerts, festival events included a school-based residency program with The Hot 8, a lecture by visiting artist and Mardi Gras Indian scholar Donald Harrison, a town hall discussion and craft demonstration, a film screening and discussion of “All on a Mardi Gras Day,” a multimedia presentation by Katrina Media Fellow Larry Blumenfeld, and a traditional New Orleans Second Line community parade in Stonington.

Above: Community members from throughout the Down East area participating in a free master class with New Orleans’ Own Hot 8 Brass Band on Saturday, July 26, 2008, as part of the 8th Annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival: New Orleans-Culture, Crisis, and Community.
PHOTO: LINDA NELSON

WILTON

Peter Cook: Hands On PAH!

$1,000: Nationally renowned deaf storyteller Peter Cook visited Maine with his interpreter, Keith Wann, in April, 2008. Cook gave a storytelling performance and a workshop on ASL storytelling and visual communication in the Nordica Auditorium at the University of Maine in Farmington. His appearance was part of the Wilton Free Public Library’s Hands On PAH! initiative, intended to make the library more accessible to the local and larger deaf community through collection development, technical services, and programming.

Right: Deaf artist Peter Cook giving a workshop and storytelling performance at the University of Maine in Farmington, April 2008.
PHOTO: DCI INTERPRETER SERVICE



*Projects funded by the Council and the Maine Arts Commission through a joint Arts and Humanities grant program.