In celebration of 30 years of Maine's Percent for Art program, the Maine
Arts Commission announces a series of free public art events that feature
world renowned artists. This series, highlighting successful and innovative
public art, will take place at venues throughout the state beginning May 29
in Portland and ending at the Juice Conference on the creative economy in
Camden, November 13.

Through a juried selection process, five arts organizations were funded by
the Maine Arts Commission to present dynamic speakers who make significant
contributions to our notions of public art. The arts organizations that
received funding are: Tides Institute and Museum of Art in Eastport,
Portland Arts and Cultural Alliance, Waterville Arts Council, SPACE Gallery
in Portland and Maine College of Art.

These arts organizations have put together a staggering series of events
that include world famous artists, such as Jean Shin, who currently has work
on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; New York street artist Swoon
who will discuss her public installations and interventions, from cut paper
paste-ups to collaborative public events; and MacArthur Award recipient Liz
Lerman, founder of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.

Since the creation of this series other organizations, such as the Schoodic
International Sculpture Symposium, have joined with the Maine Arts
Commission to present an entire season of public art events to honor the 30
years of Maine's Public Art program.

Following federal policy, in 1979 Maine began incorporating artwork into
every new or renovated state-funded building. Sculptures, murals, paintings
and other structural and freestanding elements have been selected by local
committees throughout the state. Public art now graces schools, governmental
buildings, libraries, ferry terminals and college campuses to enliven spaces
and reflect the community's relationship to the purpose of the facility.
Along with municipal and federal public spaces, Maine boasts nearly 450
pieces of public artwork, from Kittery to Fort Kent.

"Public art provides a vehicle for healthy public dialogue around definition
of place while enhancing our quality of place and defining a community's
people, their history, interests and endeavors across time," said Maine Arts
Commission director Donna McNeil. "America's Statue of Liberty, Vietnam
Veterans Memorial and Saint Louis Arch demonstrate how public art functions
as a signifier of place, telling the story of who we are throughout our
history.

"As Maine celebrates 30 years of support for public art, the lecture series
will broaden this dialogue by highlighting the knowledge, understanding,
implementation and contemporary expressions of public art."

Percent for Art is also about a community investing in its own imagination.
Beyond traditional memorials, the Percent for Art commissions are defined by
citizen participation and can integrate into the life of a building in new
and bold ways. At its best, public art enhances the environment, creates a
sense of place, and expresses a community's values and identity. Public art
can transform and heal a site; it can remind us of our past, and point to a
future.
The inaugural event is Friday, May 29, when the Portland Arts and Cultural
Alliance presents an evening with Amy Hausmann, the assistant director of
New York City's Arts Along the Way Program in the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority. She will discuss artwork that graces subway
stations throughout New York City. The event begins at 6:00 PM at SPACE
Gallery, 538 Congress St, Portland. For further information on the Public
Arts Event Series, please visit www.ManieArts.com

The series in full:

May 29: Amy Hausmann from MTA Arts for Transit
The New York City subway system hosts more than tracks and trains; for over
two decades temporary and permanent artworks have graced stations throughout
the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The Arts for Transit's (AFT)
public art commissions create a preeminent underground art museum with more
than 200 projects including work by Roy Lichtenstein, Elizabeth Murray, Al
Held, Romare Bearden, Nancy Spero, Jacob Lawrence and many more. The AFT
hosts a constantly growing collection of works that utilize the materials of
the system ˜ mosaic, ceramic, tile, bronze, steel and glass.

AFT Assistant Director Amy Hausmann will discuss the program's growth and
the process by which artists are selected. She will present a survey of
permanent art projects, highlighting recent work by Sol Lewitt at 59th
Street/Columbus Circle, Jean Shin at the Long Island Railroad Broadway
station and the Starn Studio installation at South Ferry.

June 5: Eighth Annual Sculpture Garden Invitational
The Art Gallery on the Westbrook College Campus of the University of New
England will open their Annual Sculpture Garden Invitational on June 5,
2009. The exhibition features the work of
Anne Alexander, Tom Chapin, Edward Friedman, Lucy Hodgson, Pandora LaCasse,
Sandy MacLeod, Harriett Matthews, Nancy Nevergole, Jean Noon, Stephen
Oliver, Roy Patterson, Roger Prince, Duane Paluka, Andy Rosen, Carolyn
Treat, Ed Twilley, Andreas von Huene and Melita Westerlund.

June 6: Jean Shin
Artist Jean Shin will discuss Celadon Remnants, a mosaic made out of broken
Korean ceramic and glass remnants, imported from Icheon, Korea as part of a
cultural exchange. Commissioned by MTA's Art in Transit program and located
in the heart of a vibrant Korean-American community, the overall piece
speaks to the rich, yet fractured, cultural history of the Korean diaspora.
Shin's work has been widely exhibited in major national and international
museums and it is currently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
in Washington, DC.

June 19: Eco-Motion
Belfast's Eco-Motion is a multi-site installation of interactive sculpture
(loosely based on bicycles) that encourage interaction and physical motion,
and reflects this art-friendly and environmentally conscious community.
Sculptures made by local well-known artists such as Cy Klausmeyer, Beth
Henderson, Bo Atkinson and others will adorn the downtown sidewalks all
summer.

5-8 PM, Friday, June 19 October 31
Downtown Belfast

July 25-September 12: Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium
Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium is a biennial cultural event that
brings together artists, visitors and communities to create a public
sculpture collection in eastern Maine. This gathering of sculptors is a fun
and educational way to see how large-scale sculpture is made from granite,
one of Maine's natural resources.
Each symposia last 6-weeks, from late July to early September. Visitors can
watch the sculptures in progress. Artists from around the world are selected
through a juried process to participate. The sculptures are then placed at
public sites in Maine communities. The symposium is free and open to the
public.

August 9-15: Parish Maps: Building a Sense of Place through the Work of
Common Ground
Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground in England, will be in Eastport
for a weeklong residency and exhibition at the Tides Institute and Museum of
Art. Distinguished by linking nature with culture, Common Ground helps
residents highlight the unique elements of their localities as a starting
point for action to improve the quality of everyday places.

A panel discussion on public art, "Public Art and Sense of Place," will take
place on Thursday evening, August 13, with Clifford; noted art critic, Lucy
Lippard; well-known British walking artist Hamish Fulton; and Ron Shuebrook,
past president of the Ontario College of Art and Design. Community Parish
maps created in England will be on display. On Wednesday, August 12, Ms.
Clifford will lead local communities in the development and subsequent
creation of a public art Parish/Community map.

October 9: Amy Franceschini
The Maine College of Art will host a talk by Amy Franceschini, an artist and
educator who creates formats for exchange and production that question and
challenge the social, cultural and environmental systems that surround her.
An overarching theme in her work is a perceived conflict between humans and
nature. Her work manifests as websites, installations, open-access
laboratories and educational formats that often take form as long-term
engagements with a specific place and public. She founded Futurefarmers in
1995, an international collective of artists which hosts an artists' in
residency program. In 2004, Amy co-founded Free Soil, an international
collective of artists, activists, researchers and gardeners who work
together to propose alternatives to the social, political and environmental
organization of space. Franceschini's work has been exhibited
internationally and she is professor of Art and Architecture at the
University of San Francisco.

October 17: Swoon
Internationally-known street artist Swoon will discuss her public
installations and interventions, from cut paper paste-ups to collaborative
public events. She'll discuss the importance of engaging artists and her
audience in these projects, and the value of creating a culture of
participation in art.

Swoon has been covering the streets of New York with her signature cutouts
for over six years. Often found in states of decay, her wheat-pasted figures
"collaborate" with the street to create a time-based public artwork. In
conjunction with her collective TOYSHOP, she has executed projects ranging
from billboard alterations and poster campaigns, to street parties and
sculptural installations. Her work has been collected by the Museum of
Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
SPACE will also host a collaborative gallery installation by Swoon and other
members of her collective, October 15 December, 2009.

November 13-14: Liz Lerman and Juice 2.0: Art, Innovation, and the Built
Environment
The Juice conference gathers entrepreneurs, artists and statewide leaders to
explore the role of creativity and innovation in the transformation of
Maine's economy.

Liz Lerman, founder of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and MacArthur Award
recipient, will be a featured presenter. Lerman is a choreographer who
practices an inclusive art that distills individual responses to a
provocative question to reveal a broader consensus. She will discuss the
artistic and political philosophies that sustain her efforts to catalyze
connections between art and community.
For further information on the Public Arts Event Series, please visit
www.mainearts.maine.gov.