Category — Arts

Free trolleys for First Friday Art Walk  starting May 7!
The trolley will make the following loop every hour, beginning at 4:30, with the last run at 7:30. Each stop will be about 5 minutes.

1. Longfellow Square (start)
2. Congress Square
3. Monument Square Washington Avenue @ Congress St.
4. India Street @ Middle Street
5. Exchange Street @ Middle Street
6. Longfellow Square (return)

The free trolley service is financed by the Portland Arts & Cultural Alliance, with generous donor support. If you or
your organization would like to sponsor the trolley please contact PACA at info@portlandarts.org or at 772-6828.
Special thanks to Portland Discovery Land & Sea Tours, owners and operators of the Portland trolleys.

Portland Arts & Cultural Alliance and SPACE bring you another season of Creative Conversations, mediated discussions about the Arts from a personal, local, and regional perspective.

The Arts in our Communities program will highlight several arts projects currently engaging diverse communities in Portland. Panelists will discuss programs in Public Art, individual initiatives, and Art At Work, a national venture to improve municipal government through strategic art-making projects with city employees and elected politicians. The program will be moderated by Marty Pottenger, PACA board member and Director of Art At Work with the City of Portland, www.artatworkproject.us. The public is invited to join program participants Elizabeth Jabar (Associate Professor and Chair of the Printmaking Department, Maine College of Art), Daniel Minter (Portland-based visual artist), Donna Gaspar Jarvis (Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs & Diversity Programs, University of New England), Tessy Seward (Co-founder, ROiL theatre group; Maine Inside Out) and Jennie Hahn (Artistic Director, Open Waters Theatre Arts) for an informal Conversation about The Arts in our Communities.

Creative Conversati is hosted by SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress Street; doors open at 6:30 and the program starts at 7 pm.

PACA kicks off an all new series of Creative Conversations on March 17 with “YOUR TURN!”.

All Creative Conversations take place at SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress Street, Portland, www.space538.org.
Doors open at 6:30, program from 7 to 9 pm.

YOUR TURN! is a Creative Conversations comment box, moderated by Jessica Tomlinson.  This an open-forum discussion with members of PACA, the newly minted Creative Portland Corporation, City of Portland representatives, local press and the music and gallery communities. Come to this informal roundtable for answers to your questions or to voice your concerns about the future of the Arts in Portland. There are a few different avenues you can take to contribute to the conversation: during the discussion; submit an email anytime up until the day of the event with your question or comment to info@portlandarts.org, include the subject line “Your Turn”; or fill out a comment card anonymously and drop it in the comment box provided at the beginning of the night. Come be a part of setting the Arts agenda for years to come.

Future Creative Conversations:

April 13 – The Arts in our Communities.  This program will highlight several projects that are currently engaging diverse communities in Portland through the arts.  Panelists will discuss programs in Public Art, individual initiatives, and Art at Work, a national venture to improve municipal government through strategic art-making projects with city employees and elected politicians.  This program will be moderated by Marty Pottenger, PACA board member and Arts & Equity Director for the city of Portland, www.artatworkproject.us.

May 19 – Cool Ideas!  This evening, PACA invites several arts leaders in the community to discuss recently developed projects that have made Portland a more exciting, interesting, and creative place to be.

This Friday is the first FFAW of the fall season, and to celebrate, PACA is teaming up with Portland Discovery Land & Sea Tours to run the trolleys during the art walk!  The trolleys will run from 4:30 until 8:30, and will be available to transport art walk participants from Longfellow Square in Portland’s West End to Washington Avenue on the East End.

Board Secretary Virginia Rose commented, “With so many new venues across Portland, we are hoping to make travel between downtown and Munjoy Hill easier, and bring more art walk participants across the Franklin Artery in style.”

The trolley will run, free of charge, making stops along the following route: Longfellow Square, Congress Square, Monument Square, Washington Avenue & Congress Street, India Street & Middle Street, Exchange Street & Middle Street. For more information about Portland Discovery Land & Sea Tours, see their website: www.portlanddiscovery.com.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

September 17, 2009 – The Portland Arts and Cultural Alliance (PACA) announced today awards of $26,000 in grants for the last fiscal year, as well as the appointment of four new board members.

In the 2008-09 fiscal year, PACA received $10,000 from the Maine Arts Commission for building capacity in Maine’s cultural communities and $4,000 for the Public Art Lecture Series. The Davis Family Foundation granted PACA $7,500 for the First Friday Art Walk, and the City of Portland contributed $5,000 for general operating support.

Board president Alice Kornhauser commented, “We are deeply gratified to have such substantial support from public, private and non-profit sectors for programs like First Friday Art Walk that contribute so much to the quality of life in Portland, not to mention over $250,000 a year to the local economy.”

PACA’s four newly-appointed board members include: Peter Bass (President of Random Orbit, Inc. a progressive real estate development company and member of the Developers Collaborative), Ezekiel Callanan (co-founder and Executive Director of Maine Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts), Amanda Flanagan (Account Executive, gBritt PR), and Marty Pottenger (Director, Arts & Equity Initiative, City of Portland and Executive Director, Terra Moto Inc.).

About Portland Arts and Cultural Alliance (PACA):
Founded in 1985 and designated as the City of Portland, Maine’s local arts agency in 1997, PACA’s core programs include First Friday Art Walk and Creative Conversations. PACA also provides support to the City of Portland’s Public Art Committee as well as the newly established Maine Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. PACA was the facilitating agency for Portland’s participation in the Maine Arts Commission’s Discovery Research and “Arts and Economic Prosperity” national survey through Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America.