Free Range Music in Belfast

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Lately, it seems like all the cool things in Maine are happening in Belfast. Case in point: the first Free Range Music Festival, featuring 25 bands in five venues on Saturday, April 24.

The lineup reads like a Who's Who of New England's indie music scene — The Jazz Mandolin Project, The Free Seedlings, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, The Fofers, Luna Madidus, Shawn Mercer and the Boondock Blues Band, Rural Electric and more. It sounds exhilarating — and exhausting (in a good way) — so you'll want to energize with a meal at Chase's Daily or 3Tides, of course.

As for us, we're just wild about the posters, designed by Eric Hou of Salty Kiss Press.

Want to try before you buy? Check out WERU's (98.9 FM) "On the Wing" show, which airs from 11 a.m. to noon today and Wednesday. Live out of range? It will also be broadcast online at www.weru.org

Tickets range from $9 for kids to $20 for an all-access pass and are available at Wild Rufus Records, The Green Store and Roots & Tendrils, all in Belfast, or on the Roots & Tendrils website.

For more information, visit http://freerangemusicfestival.com/

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An Artful Weekend

If you're interested in the visual arts — including wearables — you should probably head to Bangor this weekend.

From 5 to 9 Friday night, downtown artists, galleries and museums will hold another popular art walk, and while there are many highlights (click here to read a more detailed listing about the event), we're most intrigued by "Haiti Matrix," a collection of work by Haitian artists on view at Java Joe's on Central Street. Proceeds from the sale of any work will benefit La Maison de Naissance, a birthing center in Haiti that works to make quality health care and parent education accessible to Haitian women. Tour maps are available at Metropolitan Soul, the University of Maine Museum of Art, Bella Luna, Java Joe's, and Bangor Frameworks.

At Bella Luna, designer Mallory Bruns will have a trunk show of pieces from her Sophronia Design label. We're digging her new bags and can't wait to see what she has in store for fall '09.

Saturday, things will heat up at the University of Maine Museum of Art's Summer Oasis gala and fundraiser. In the interest of full disclosure, the Mavens are on the host committee, but even if we weren't, we wouldn't miss the opportunity to celebrate the museum, sip a glass of wine, listen to live music and bid on artwork by local children. For more information, click here.

It's bound to be an artful weekend.

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Everything In Its Place

You can drive down winding country roads with your Garmin leading the way, telling you when to turn right and when to bear left. You can walk through the city, iPhone in hand, and figure out exactly how to get to the hot new sushi place.

But there's a difference between pinpointing a place through GPS and getting to the soul of a place, which is what parish maps do. These heavily illustrated, often whimsical pieces don't just focus on routes and topography. They're a visual representation of what is truly important to a community.

"It provides a way to engage communities about what they value most about their place and its historic, cultural and natural environments and then present this information in a very accessible, engaging, imaginative, and artistic way," says Hugh French, director of the Tides Institute and Museum of Art in Eastport.

In August, The Tides Institute will present "Parish Maps: England to America," a series of workshops and a panel discussion on both sides of the Passamaquoddy Bay. French received a Maine Arts Commission grant to bring Sue Clifford of the England-based Common Ground to this side of the pond. She will visit five communities — Lubec, Calais, Pembroke and Dennysville, Maine, and St. Andrews, New Brunswick — to teach the basics of parish mapmaking.

We're particularly excited about the panel discussion on public art and sense of place, which will bring together critics and artists of international renown. In addition to Clifford, the lineup includes writer and curator Lucy Lippard, walking artist Hamish Fulton, and Ron Shuebrook, past president of Ontario College of Art and Design. The talk is scheduled for 7 p.m. Aug. 13 at Shead High School in Eastport.

With all of these great minds coming together in a great place, the resulting maps and conversation are bound to be intriguing. In any case, they'll surely be more interesting and engaging than what you see on the screen of your GPS.

For more information and a more detailed schedule of events, click here.

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Working Girls

You see them everywhere — those Rosie the Riveter-style T-shirts with Michelle Obama's face on them and the slogan "Yes We Can" emblazoned across the chest.

They're great. Even better is the iconic World War II poster that inspired it and a thousand other riffs on the theme. Similar work can be found at the Portland Harbor Museum, where "Good Work, Sister" celebrates women shipyard workers during WWII. This multimedia exhibit, which draws from the museum's extensive archives, explores the role of local women in the wartime effort and the lasting cultural impact of women doing "a man-size job."

Yes, we can. And yes, we did.

The exhibit is on view through Oct. 18 at the Portland Harbor Museum's new location at 510 Congress St. For more information, click here.

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Studio Audience

The Bangor arts community has been talking about this for years, but finally, Queen City art walks are a reality — and they keep getting better.

The Maven covered the arts in Bangor for more than a decade, and she watched as the momentum slowly but steadily grew among the city's artists and musicians. Last fall, things hit the tipping point, and interdisciplinary collaborations started springing up everywhere. The first art walk was one of them.


That first night, around Thanksgiving, a handful of artists on Central Street decided to open their studios to the public. Tonight's tour, which is scheduled from 5 to 9, will include more than 60 artists, museums and galleries, as well as live jazz at Giacomo's and a children's concert by The Flannery Brothers at 32 Central St. (second floor).

There are many highlights, but we're particularly excited to see the work of Liz Grandmaison, who won a Good Idea Grant from the Maine Arts Commission for a photography project capturing the work of Maine's stringed intstrument makers. Images from that project will be on display in the studio of luthier Nathan Slobodkin (31 Central St.). For a preview, click here.

If you go, be sure to check out Aaron Stephan's installation, Vessels Absent, at the University of Maine Museum of Art, and Michael Shyka's handpainted silks. And plan to make a night of it — don't just talk the talk, walk the walk.

Maps are available at the University of Maine Museum of Art, Metropolitan Soul, The Bangor Opera House, BookMarcs's, or The Hammond Street Senior Center.

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Taking It To The Streets

It's not exactly news that arts programs are being cut at an alarming rate. But often, the arts are a catalyst for academic success, connection and healing. Which makes the ArtVan — which provides art therapy on the go — more important than ever.

The city of Bath started ArtVan in 2004 as a way to reach out to low-income neighborhoods and seniors. Since then, its mission has grown, and the van now makes its services available to those on the streets, in public housing developments, corrections facilities, schools and group homes, and anyone with limited access to social services. Over time, its outreach has expanded, as well, to include Brunswick, Lewiston and Biddeford. In 2007, ArtVan began a successful collaboration with VSA Arts of Maine.

Curious? We thought you might be. So if you're in the Topsham area over the next two weeks, stop by the Barn Door Cafe, where "Art Speaks" will be on display through March 26. Working with words and images, students in ArtVan's Artists Xtraordinaire (or AVAX) after-school program at Bath Middle School have created a compelling exhibition.

The work will be on view from March 16 to March 26 during regular business hours (7 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday). The Barn Door Cafe and Bakery is located on 4 Bowdoin Mill Island, Suite 102. For information, click here or call 207.721.3229.

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