The Maine Arts Commission has announced the 2015 recipients of two of its most prestigious grant programs: the Individual Artists Fellowship, and the Creative Communities = Economic Development Grant. The total monetary amount of grants awarded in these categories is $110,000.
The recipient of the CCED grant this year is Schoodic Arts For All, a community arts program centered in the Hancock County town of Winter Harbor. The $75,000 grant, awarded in three increments over three years, will allow Schoodic Arts to continue offering year-round arts programming for the Schoodic peninsula, including concerts, art exhibits, theatrical performances, workshops, cooking classes, film screenings and SAFA’s yearly summer Schoodic Arts Festival, held for two weeks in July and August, which offers hundreds of workshops, performances and other events.
“The community made a conscious decision to keep the economy going through the arts when the military left the region many years ago,” said Maine Arts Commission executive director Julie Richard, in a statement released last week. “That decision has helped this area remain strong and viable, drawing new residents, tourists and development because of the strong arts presence in the area.”
The Individual Artists Fellowships were awarded to seven Maine artists in diverse fields. Each grant is for $5,000, and the artists are selected by a panel of jurors who reside out of state, in order to avoid conflicts of interest. In previous years, the grants were awarded in the amount of $10,000, and were given to five recipients. The recipients are:
- Christine J. Dentremont of Swan’s Island, is the recipient of the Functional Craft Arts Fellowship. Dentremont moved to Swan’s Island in 2000, where she works as a sternman on a lobster boat, and creates fresh, contemporary furniture and useable art items out of repurposed wood and steel.
- The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers, of Bar Harbor, are the recipients of the Performing Arts Fellowship. Comprised of siblings Eric and Brian Torbeck and Robin Torbeck Erlandson, for the past 14 years the trio has crafted their own puppets and performed original shows for tens of thousands of children and adults all over the country. The grant will allow the group to create a new show about dinosaurs, including the crafting of over 20 new puppets and a handmade exploding volcano.
- Wade Kavanaugh, of Albany Township, is the recipient of the Visual Arts Fellowship. Kavanaugh is a Skowhegan native who works with materials like stone, paper, sheetrock and wood to create evocative large-scale installations, in both galleries and museums and in natural settings. Kavanaugh is best-known in Maine for his permanent installation at Peaks-Kenny State Park in Dover-Foxcroft, where he created twelve site-specific picnic tables, fused into glacial erratic boulders found in the park.
- David Meiklejohn, of Portland, is the recipient of the Media Arts Fellowship. Meiklejohn is well known in Portland for his many locally produced films, including “My Heart Is An Idiot” and a number of music videos, as well as co-producing the yearly Maine horror film shorts program “Damnationland.” During his fellowship year, Meiklejohn plans to work on a short film adaptation about young boys struggling to understand the purpose of prisons.
- Jonathan Mess, of Jefferson, is the recipient of the Contemporary Craft Fellowship. Mess uses reclaimed ceramic materials to create bold, abstract works of art that blur the lines between sculpture, ceramics and painting. His work has been exhibited all over the country, including the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, Vessels Gallery in Boston and the Portland Museum of Art.
- Glenn Morazzini, of Cumberland, is the recipient of the Literary Arts Fellowship. Morazzini is an acclaimed poet, who has been published in journals including Rattle and on Poetry.org. His poems have won a number of awards including the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, the Paumanok Poetry Prize and the Martin Dibner Poetry Fellowship. He plans to use his grant money to finish his long-awaited book of poems. By day, he is a psychotherapist working out of Falmouth.
- Brian Theriault, of Fort Kent, is the recipient of the Traditional Arts Fellowship. Continuing a Native American tradition that began centuries ago, Brian has been making one-of-a-kind snowshoes for over 40 years. His father, Edmond Theriault, taught him how to both make and repair snowshoes when he was a young man. Known for their strength, durability, and flexibility, Theriault snowshoes are handcrafted using local brown ash and cattle hides.
