Public Programs
The Maine Studies Program has brought information and ideas about Maine to the wider community through public presentations as well as through projects that involve different sectors, such as artists. Two major projects in recent years have been organized and funded by the Maine Studies Program, in collaboration with the Maine Folklife Center. Read more about these projects below, and by clicking on their names to go to pages with more information.
Framing Maine
Framing Maine was an occasional event series held at the University of Maine in Orono. The purpose of the series was to bring noted Maine artists from various genres to the campus to talk about their work, and in some cases to give a live performance. There were four events, featuring television host and reporter Bill Green (interviewed by NPR’s Brian Naylor); musician and songwriter David Mallett (interviewed by Rob Caldwell); writers Paul Doiron and Kristin Lindquist (interviewed by author Monica Wood); and a panel of Maine artists, interviewed by art critic and author Carl Little. Framing Maine 4 also included an exhibition of contemporary Maine art at the Lord Hall Gallery on the University of Maine campus. To learn more about these events, and for links to recordings, click HERE.
The Jack Pine Project
The Jack Pine Project was carried out in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A number of Maine artists in various media were contracted to teach their crafts to non-professionals in a series of workshops, and then to help them use these skills to tell their stories of the pandemic. The workshops included songwriting, printmaking, weaving, dramatic monologues, drawing, and mind mapping with images, among others. Some of the workshops were then featured in a speaker series hosted by the Hutchinson Center, UMaine’s community outreach and education center in Belfast, Maine. To learn more about this innovative project and see some of the work created, as well as read profiles of the artists, click HERE.