EAST BAYSIDE COMMUNITY ART By Andrew Schoultz and local youth. |
MAPPING PUBLIC ART
Thank you for the lively and informative article on Portland murals (see "Every Friday Art Walk," by Anna Perocchi, with photos by Margo Roy, August 7). I appreciate you calling attention to the works that are on display outside of gallery walls and that are part of the everyday lives of Portland residents.
I teach in the art department at University of Southern Maine, and am offering a course next fall called "Shaping the Terrain: Digital Mapping of Portland Public Art Spaces." You can visit a Facebook page about the course at www.tinyurl.com/PortlandArt.
I'm going to be working with students to map potential sites for public art projects, and am very interested in connecting with others who are thinking along the same lines.
My favorite mural in Portland, outside of the legal wall, which you already mentioned is actually in two parts: 1) "The World We Come From and the World We Are Making" and 2) "Hope, Try, Do Work, Dream." The mural(s) were a community art project that took place in the East Bayside neighborhood in 2004. Artist Andrew Schoultz, who is a well-known muralist, was commissioned by the city to serve as an adviser to East Bayside youth to design and create a mural. He then created a second mural of his own design and execution. Both murals are located on the maintenance building by the basketball courts at Fox and Anderson streets. The vision of the project was to facilitate the creative transformation of a group of young people by putting them in contact with artists and community members, and by giving them the materials, structure, and artistic direction to undertake their own collective artistic production. Attached are a few images from the murals.
Jan Piribeck
Art Department
University of Southern Maine
NICE MOVE
Thank you for asking June Vail to review our concert series (see "Swing, Tramp, and Trudge," August 7). At a time when nearly all dance criticism is disappearing from print it is extremely helpful for our artists and encouraging to Portland audiences to see good writing about dance in the press.
Laura Faure
Director, Bates Dance Festival
KUDOS FOR COVER STORY
Great piece ("Every Friday Art Walk," by Anna Perocchi, with photos by Margo Roy, August 7). I very much enjoyed the background information about the art readily available by just walking around Portland, and learning about the history of each piece.
Betty Cunningham
Andover, Massachusetts
BRINGING JUSTICE BACK
In Maine, as far as meeting the challenge of education costs and the crisis of swelling prison populations served by fewer corrections personnel and continuing budget cuts is concerned, no one in Augusta appears connected.
By making a go-for-broke commitment to education, Ireland saw its economy and personal income move to the top in Europe in less than a generation. As others follow that example, in Augusta we have only talk of harmful cuts in higher education services and reduced education budgets at all levels.
