Oil tank design to be unveiled tomorrow

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It had to happen sometime: the Maine Center for Creativity plans to announce the winning design in its Art All Around oil-tank-painting contest tomorrow morning at the new Mercy Hospital building on the Fore River Parkway.

The winner will receive $20,000 and will have his or her (or their) design painted on the tanks just as soon as the MCC raises the rest of the $1.2 million needed to finance the job. (At last tally, the organization had $200,000. I wonder how this glorious economic boom is affecting their ability to reach the goal.)

The effort does seem to be having at least one struggle: its Web site is not working (www.artallaround.com - no link because it doesn't work).

And MCC founder/executive director Jean Maginnis is clearly protecting her pet project - since our stories early last month (see “It’s Not About the Art” by Jeff Inglis, and “Words Over Pictures” by Ken Greenleaf, published September 5), there’s been nary a peep from Maginnis in any media, in Maine or anywhere else.

We won’t pretend to be surprised that she didn’t include our stories - which were critical of the concept, the project, and the art - in the MCC’s Web page cataloging media coverage of the project, nor that Maginnis - who initially refused to give the Phoenix any information about the project at all - didn’t send us the press release about the impending announcement of the winner. (Thanks to Linda at SouthPortlander.com for posting it!)

Here’s Maginnis’s fair warning: she should be prepared to answer, at tomorrow’s press conference, the following questions:

1) How much money has MCC raised to date?

2) How long does she expect to need to raise the rest?

3) When will the painting of the tanks begin?