As we transition the blog from one (personal) account to another (specific for UMVA), the September show is on the website...  This from Exhibit Organizer Mark Barnette: The September UMVA Gallery show is online now at https://umvagallery.wixsite. com/exhibits     Missing Maine Landscapes features stellar work by 17 UMVA member artists in response to places or things that have been removed, obscured, replaced, or that disappear (and sometimes re-appear) in the landscape which Maine artists inhabit.  The photo above is by the remarkable Dave Wade and entitled: Portland's Fading Past. If you'd like to to grace your home or office, this 2011  16 x 20" pigment print will set  you back only $360! Shoot us an email here at the blog and we will send you Dave's email so you can work out the details.  And for that matter, any of the work in the exhibit is for sale, so if you see a piece you want to add to your collection, contact us here and we will p...

The Union of Maine Visual Artists is asking Maine artists to submit proposals for our 2021 Calendar year exhibitions to take place at our UMVA Gallery located in Portland, and/or potentially online. There are some peculiarities in our  current planning, based on the impact and anticipated problems of the Covid19 pandemic. Some of our 2020 calendar has been significantly disrupted, and so some 2020 shows will be rescheduled for 2021. The logistics of using the gallery space may also be impacted, so please be aware of how you may have to manage the exhibition process in the current and future situation. That said, we are looking forward to another inspiring and exciting gallery season! Details of how the calendar selection typically works include these: The voting for exhibits includes those UMVA Members who show up to vote, either in person at the Portland Gallery, or in online meetings, which will take place in the fall of this year. We use a loose system o...

Open call for UMVA artists: Missing Maine Landscapes at the UMVA Gallery, Portland The Portland chapter of the Union of Maine Visual Artists invites UMVA member artists working in all media to submit work for a planned exhibition of landscape and landscape-related art at the UMVA’s Portland gallery in September, 2020. In the event that COVID-19 safety-related issues prevent a physical show at the gallery, work will be presented and promoted online. The show is titled Missing Maine Landscapes . Much of the appeal of the most popular subjects for Maine landscapes is their visually unchanging nature. The coastline, forests, lakes, and rivers appear eternal. But the environments that surround these landscapes have been changed, and are changing still — often too rapidly to recognize. Many of these changes are the result of economic and cultural upheavals from capital and development (i.e., manufacturing and fisheries decline, loss of ancestral lands, forestry and agriculture, sprawl, gen...

The Covid pandemic reshapes our lives. It continues to strip down our existence, separating us from loved ones and exposing weaknesses in our system of governance and our political leadership. It demonstrates the devastating impact of the nation's grave social injustices. Systemic racism and socioeconomic disparity put oppressed peoples at greater risk for Covid-19. Then, on May 25, as many of us bunkered inside our homes, we witnessed the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd. This videotaped tragedy and the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests across the nation revealed the depth and breadth of racism in America. It is a contagion every bit as present and virulent as the coronavirus. In the face of both existential challenges – pandemic and racism – we can only recover through radical social change. The images and words of UMVA artists in this online exhibition surface from the isolation and compression of life in the pandemic. The works express personal and universa...