News

Fostering relationships between emerging and established artists is at the core of what we do here at Maine Media. Many of the bonds that were built here in Rockport decades ago continue to thrive today, and our faculty enjoy the privilege of watching their students become masters and mentors themselves. We are honoring this spirit of creative collaboration as part of our year-long 40th Anniversary celebration, and we want to hear from you about the mentors who have shaped your creative lives. This month we will be partnering with Cowbird, an amazing online venue for sharing your stories and pictures with the world. Cowbird provides the tools for storytellers to upload words and pictures to an interconnected public library of human experience. It's very cool. And also free. 

Here's how it works: you can join Cowbird as a "nomad" for free, or as a "citizen" for $5/month. Both types of members can post, like, share, and receive stories. The paid membership gives you a few more bells and whistles, like the ability to tell stories in your own handwriting or create multiple-page stories. When you build a story on Cowbird, you can choose to connect your story to others by a person's name, a place, a date, or a subject. Your story can also be a part of a "project", like our own Maine Media Mentors Project, or part of a "saga", a larger grouping of stories based on a particular theme that anyone can participate in. Each month, Cowbird presents a new saga to its members. Maine Media has partnered with Cowbird to present the June saga, Mentors. 

We know you have stories to share about the people who opened your eyes to those "Aha!" moments, or who had a unique ability to tease free a voice that always seemed to be hiding just out of earshot, or who drove you perfectly crazy before their lesson was revealed to be perfectly brilliant. We would especially love to hear about mentorship relationships that began here at Maine Media Workshops + College. For those stories, be sure to add them to the Maine Media Mentors Project. We'll share our favorites on our website. So put your phone away, dust off the keyboard, and tell us your story.

After 30 weeks of immersion into learning to see and craft images with a unique and personal voice, our Professional Certificate students are ready to show the result of all their hard work. Opening first in Rockport at the Maine Media Gallery on May 30, and later in Portland at PhoPa Gallery on June 12, the 2013 Graduation Exhibition will showcase the work of Collin Howell, Sujata Khanna, Adam Pitula, and Jourdan Selkowitz. "The talent and poise of this certificate group is significant," says Certificate Program Chair Brenton Hamilton. "In genres ranging from classic street photography, lyric documentary, personal autobiography, and cultural investigation, the group has created a superb and articulate body of work."

Maine Media's Professional Certificate program is a comprehensive immersion experience in which students spend a year honing their skills and tailoring their unique personal vision. Courses focus not only on technique and craft, but also on photographic seeing, history, and the business of art. Through regular critiques, students push themselves and each other towards complete and polished portfolios. This program prepares storytellers and photographic printmakers for a wide range of careers in photography as well as for a creative life of imagemaking that can grow and evolve over a lifetime. 

We congratulate Collin, Sujata, Adam, and Jourdan on an amazing year of focus, tenacity, courage, and creativity. Your work inspired us, and we can't wait to see what you will do next.

Opening receptions for the exhibition will be held on Thursday May 30 from 6:30-8:00pm at the Maine Media Gallery at 18 Central St. Rockport, and on Wednesday June 12 from 5:00 to 8:00pm at PhoPa Gallery at 132 Washington Ave. Portland.

Maine Media Faculty & Alumni Collaborate on Farnsworth Exhibition

Running through September 1 is a new exhibition in the Farnsworth's Julia's Gallery that was produced through a collaboration of efforts by four Maine Media Faculty and Alumni. Stories of the Land and It's People is a year-long arts integration initiative that brings students from Midcoast public schools together with museum educators, professional artists, teachers and community members to tell the story of their community through art. MFA alum and Yo Pho instructor Matt Smolinsky, MFA faculty Charlotte Dixon, workstudy instructor Reid Elem, and teaching assistant Kelsey Floyd teamed up for the project, which is now reaching 240 local students in its second year. "We got involved in this collaboration so that we can offer kids not only a way to express themselves creatively, but also to offer a new approach to learning," says Matt Smolinsky. "By introducing students to photography, and by integrating it into the study of other subjects, we provide them with new skills, and more importantly, new perspectives."

Solo Exhibition for YO Alum

Talented Young Artist alum Olivia Eckerson will have her work exhibited at the Clemens Gallery of the Hingham Public Library in Hingham, MA through May 30. Her series, Envy of Innocence, is a reflection on her own childhood coming to an end, and an attempt to capture its unfettered joy. "In the summer of 2012 I felt very old. I recognized I was growing up and facing the reality of adulthood," says Eckerson."This collection of work was meant to capture the essence of childhood, when life's simple pleasures were endless. In every photograph, there is a bit of my own youth." After spending the past three summers with us here at Maine Media, Eckerson is now gearing up for her next educational leap at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. We can't wait to see where Olivia travels next with her photographic eye!