MECA Announces 2013 Commencement Speaker
and Honorary Degree Recipients

John Coleman of Portland’s VIA Agency to Address Newest Crop of MECA Grads: Honorary Degrees Granted to Betsy Evans Hunt and Christopher M. Hunt, MD.

Portland, Maine - John Coleman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of the The VIA Agency in Portland, Maine, which was named Ad Age’s 2011 Small Agency of the Year will deliver the Commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Maine College of Art’s 102nd  Commencement, which begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 11 at the State Theatre at 609 Congress Street.

John Coleman founded The VIA Agency in 1993 and has since led the Portland, Maine-based agency to its current stature as one of the two best small agencies in America. He’s worked with organizations ranging from nonprofits to political movements as well as marketing giants like Samsung, Unilever, Disney, HBO, Discover, Welch’s, DuPont and others. John is a world traveler and yet a proud native of Maine, who holds both an M.B.A. and a B.S. in mechanical engineering. John has served on MECA’s board of trustees since 2001.

The college will also confer honorary degrees on Betsy Evans Hunt and Christopher M. Hunt, MD.

Betsy Evans Hunt served on MECA’s board for 17 years and successfully led the recently concluded capital campaign to finish the consolidation of all academic and administrative services within Porteous. Betsy received her undergraduate degree in art history from Colorado College and went on to serve as Director of the Simon Lowinsky Gallery in San Francisco and as Manager of the Robert Mapplethorpe Studio in New York. She has worked as a sailmaker, cataloguer, curator, and interior designer. She holds a certificate from Sotheby’s American Art Program. She is the Executive Director and Owner of The Evans Gallery in Portland, which maintains and supports the photographic archives of Todd Webb.

Christopher M. Hunt, MD serves on the Board of Directors of the Roy A. Hunt Foundation. He received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine. He completed graduate research at the University of Pennsylvania, Institute for Environmental Medicine and his Internship and Residency in Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. He has continued his study of promoting health with Postgraduate Studies in Alternative Medicine, Yoga, Acupuncture, Nutrition, Meditation, Stress Management, Death and Dying, Philosophy of Change, and Jungian Psychology.

Donald Tuski, Ph.D, president of MECA, will confer the honorary degrees. “It is a profound honor to recognize the accomplishments of these three distinguished individuals and welcome them to our alumni ranks,” said Tuski.

Located in the heart of the Portland Arts District, MECA offers a BFA degree in 10 studio majors, an MFA in Studio Arts, a Post­Baccalaureate in Art Education and continuing studies for youths and adults. The Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA and the Joanne Waxman Library are free and open to the public. For more information, see www.meca.edu or contact rdersimonian@meca.edu. 

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Student Affairs would like to congratulate the recipients of the first annual Student Affairs Leadership Awards.

The Leadership Awards were created by Student Affairs as a way of thanking, appreciating and acknowledging some of our students, student clubs and organizations and faculty and staff for their outstanding contributions to the MECA community over the course of the 2012-2013 academic year. Nominations for all the awards were collected from the MECA community.

Please join us in congratulating the 2012-2013 recipients:

* Outstanding Student Group or Organization: MECA C.A.R.E. (Celebrating all Realms of Ethnicity)

*Outstanding Event or Program of the Year: Rob Doane for The Peninsula School

*Outstanding Faculty or Staff Involvement: Jeff Waites for his commitment to the Free Radicals Futbol Club

*Outstanding Contribution to Diversity: MECA H.O.P.E. (Helping Our People to Equality)

*Outstanding Student Employee: Andi Croak

*Outstanding Student Leader: Chloe Beaven

* Outstanding Contribution to Community Service: Carlin Soos

* Outstanding Contribution to MECA Life: Kyle DiMare & Jerrica Demers

We also want to send a shout out to everyone for doing your part in helping us all have a wonderfully successful year at Maine College of Art!

Bluestocking Film Series
Osher Hall, Maine College of Art
522 Congress Street, Portland, ME
www.bluestockingfilms.com

Screening: May 18, 2013 at 7:00 p.m.
Tickets: $9/general | $6/student
FREE Women in Film Symposium: May 19, 2013 at 4:00 p.m.

BLUESTOCKING FILM SERIES BRINGS 2 DAYS OF WOMEN IN FILM

The Bluestocking Film Series has found a new venue at Osher Hall at Maine College of Art, Maine’s only women’s film event is expanding to two days, celebrating the accomplishments of women in film with an international roster of provocative, award-winning short films on Sat., May 18 and a free-to-the-public symposium on Sun., May 19 titled “Why We Need The Bechdel Test Now.”

The Bluestocking will once again showcase woman-directed short films from the US and around the globe. “This is our biggest, boldest screening yet,” Kaminski says, “with stories that run the gamut from the darkest of dark comedies to thoughtful dramas and more.” There will also be a raffle fundraiser with fun prizes.

"To go alongside such a strong roster of films, it seems the right time to bring about some public discussion of the importance and value of gender equality not just behind the camera but to what’s on-screen as well.” Which is why Kaminski organized “Why We Need the Bechdel Test Now,” the May 19 symposium the day after the Bluestocking screening event. Helping to lead that conversation will be Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch, a magazine devoted to an “engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture” (bitchmagazine.org) and Kyna Morgan, founder of Her Film Project, a “global project to support women filmmakers and build audiences for their films” (herfilmproject.com/).

Use of the Bechdel Test can be a catalyst for shifts in how women’s on-screen characters are perceived by viewers and filmmakers alike. “The more this idea percolates into the public consciousness, the more likely it is that real change will be seen on the screen,” Kaminski says. “It’s become clear that television is now the primary medium where well-rounded, flawed, and complex women characters flourish –– we want to see the same thing happen on the big screen.”

The Bluestocking films will screen in Osher Hall at Maine College of Art at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 18. Tickets are $9/general and $6/student and are on sale via Brown Paper Tickets - brownpapertickets.com/event/371184 - or at the door the evening of the screening. Some of the featured filmmakers will also be on-hand for a post-screening Q&A. The symposium will take place in Osher Hall on Sunday, May 19 at 4:00 p.m. and is free to the public.

WHO:  The entire MECA community, Michael Crowley's firefighting and faith communities.

WHAT:  Italian Dinner Fundraiser for MECA Cafe' employee and Saco Volunteer Firefighter Michael Crowley ("Chef Michael")

WHY: MECA Cafe' employee and Saco Volunteer Fire Fighter Michael Crowley ("Chef Michael") has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  Michael is currently undergoing chemo and radiation therapy and is unable to work. Please join the MECA community in our efforts to raise funds for Michael and his family during this difficult time.

WHEN:  Sunday, April 14 from 4pm-6pm

WHERE: Cafe' at Maine College of Art 522 Congress Street, Portland Maine

MECA will be making some big changes online! We’re striving to streamline, organize and expand our social media presence. But before we make these changes, we want to hear from YOU. We want to tailor our online presence to best serve our students, faculty, and broader community.

WHO:  The entire MECA community

WHAT:  Opening up dialogue about MECA’s social media presence

WHERE: Osher Hall

WHY: To discuss and determine the most effective, productive, and engaging ways that MECA can use social media. To identify specific faculty roles and create an information workflow and posting protocol.

WHEN:  Wednesday, April 17 at noon

MECA student Chloe Beaven will receive Maine Campus Compact’s 2013 Heart and Soul Award. This award recognizes the accomplishments of six Maine students who have demonstrated exceptional leadership both on campus and within their community.

 In addition, MECA faculty member Paul Gebhardt will receive Maine Campus Compact’s 2013 Donald Harward Award for Service Learning Excellence. This award recognizes the accomplishments of faculty members in making public service an integral part of their teaching, in forging strong reciprocal partnerships, and in advocating for service learning.

MECA student Carly Soos was also nominated for the Heart and Soul Award. Students not chosen for this award will be receiving a Maine Campus Compact PILLARS award, which will be sent to your civic engagement office.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony on Tuesday, April 30^th at the State House Hall of Flags in Augusta. We will share a press release with your public relations office in the week leading up to the ceremony.  The ceremony, which includes hors d'oeuvres, will run from 2:30 to 4:00pm. We would be delighted if you would join us. 

MECA will be making some big changes online! We’re striving to streamline, organize and expand our social media presence. But before we make these changes, we want to hear from YOU. We want to tailor our online presence to best serve our students, faculty, and broader community.

WHO:  The entire MECA community

WHAT:  Opening up dialogue about MECA’s social media presence

WHERE: Osher Hall

WHY: To discuss and determine the most effective, productive, and engaging ways that MECA can use social media. To identify specific faculty roles and create an information workflow and posting protocol.

WHEN:  Wednesday, April 17 at noon

FMI, visit www.cmcanow.org

Jake Michaud, Junior Woodworking & Furniture Design major and Public Engagement minor, came in first place 13th Annual University of Southern Maine Royal Majesty Drag Competition and Show on Friday, November 16th, 2012. In his first drag performance ever, Jake transformed into diva "Betweenya Thighs" and electrified the audience by lip-syncing and dancing her heart out to Beyonce's "Move Your Body.  Betweenya received a standing ovation from the 700+ crowd housed in the Holiday Inn By the Bay's Grand Ballroom. 

As part of winning duties, Betweenya performed again at the 14th annual event on November 22nd, 2013 at the Holiday Inn by the Bay. This year's event raised $4,000 for USM's Center for Sexualities and Gender Diversity.

MECA parents, families, and friends are invited to join us on campus for Family and Friends Weekend 2012 on Friday, November 2nd and Saturday, November 3rd.

Registration and schedule information can be seen by clicking here.

A block of rooms have been reserved at Holiday Inn By the Bay for the nights of November 2nd and 3rd at a rate of $109 plus tax, per night. To take advantage of this discounted rate, please call the Holiday Inn By the Bay's local reservation office at 207.775.2311 ex. 2150 and ask for the MECA room block.

Please contact Anna Schwartz, Director of Student Engagement, with any questions:207.699.5034 or aschwartz@meca.edu. 

Maine College of Art will hold the 16th annual Art Honors gala celebration in the Porteous Building to recognize leaders in Maine’s creative sector on Tuesday, May 8, 2012.

This year, the College presents the Award for Leadership in Art Philanthropy to
S. Donald Sussman and the Award for Leadership in Community Service in the Arts and Education to Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.

About the Honorees
The Award for Leadership in Art Philanthropy goes to S. Donald Sussman for his deep and far reaching support of cultural programs and institutions within Maine and nationally.  The honor allows the College to pay tribute to Sussman’s personal belief that the arts play an important role in our civil society and acknowledges his encouragement of emerging and living artists.

The Award for Leadership in Community Service in the Arts and Education recognizes Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. for his deep and long-term commitment to Maine’s cultural heritage.  Shettleworth’s dedication and attention to the preservation of our State’s architecture—firmitas, utilitas, venustas—encompasses the same values embedded in MECA’s curriculum, where students consider the ideas of durability, utility and beauty within their work.  

Art Honors recognizes artists, philanthropists and art educators with significant ties to Maine who offer MECA’s students, as well as the public, powerful examples of lives in the arts. Past honorees have included David Driskell, Bernarda Shahn, Beverly Hallam, Will Barnet, Neil Welliver, Alex Katz, Robert Indiana, Alison Hildreth, Angela Adams and Pandora Lacasse, among others.

For more information about tickets, visit meca.edu/arthonors or please call 207-775-5098.

This year marks a return to the MECA’s Faculty Selects exhibition series, which presents the work of MECA faculty alongside professional peers of national/international regard. The artists in "A Perpetual Present" will exhibit work that examines a disappearance of a sense of the past. Degrowth, preservation of traditions, and investigations of the beginning stages of tragedies are all themes explored by the artists.

Selected artists include: Philip Brou will be exhibiting with Johan Grimonprez, Judith Allen-Efstathiou with Eirene Efstathiou, and Matt Hutton with Corey Robinson.

The opening reception for "A Perpetual Present" will take place on Thursday, November 17th from 6 - 8pm.

Maine College of Art won three Broderson awards for print publications during a ceremony at the State Theater. Held every other year, the Broderson Awards celebrate the work of commercial artists in Maine. MECA won a silver award in the nonprofit annual report category, as well as a silver award for the MFA Thesis Catalog and bronze award for the ICA "Meticulous Ferment" catalog in the brochure category. Congratulations to the college designers Jennifer Muller and Mira Alden as well as faculty members Margo Halverson and Charles Melcher. The annual report also includes illustrations by students (now alumni) Morgan DiPietro '10 and Jeff Hoffman '10. Other award winning alumni included Ken Murphy '03, Patrick Sperry '00, and Regis Biron '09.

The ICA at MECA has converted the front gallery into a Time-Lag Records Listening Room from October 12-26. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, October 13th from 6 to 8pm with live music from 8-9:30pm with Prisma, Phantom Buffalo, and Big Blood.

Located in Portland, Time-Lag Records is an independent label that started in 2000, with a focus on vinyl releases that combine the highest possible quality production with an emphasis on the aesthetic of the object itself, and a deep love of interesting, unusual, and undiscovered music, both new and old. Come explore their full archive of vinyl artifacts and cds, as well as a 10+ year collection of poster art from concerts – all from the comfort of couches lining the gallery.

Brothers Matthew and Jason Tardy have created a show that features everything from high tech juggling and fire eating to physical comedy and full body contortion. They will give a public performance on September 24 at 7pm in Osher Hall. Suggested donation of $5-$15. All proceeds support the Nagaloka Buddhist Center in Portland.

The ICA at MECA will host a screening of Tala Madani's short animations on August 1 at 5pm as part of the exhibition "Drawn to Disaster." Stylistically ranging from lush painterly expressionism to loose, almost comical line drawing, Iranian-American Tala Madani, conveys her politically controversial subject matter with a genuine innocence and empathy. Appropriating the preconceptions of racial and gender difference as a departure point into the bizarre and surreal, Madani uses her position of ‘other’ to draft her own elaborate fantasies, detailing a riotous underworld of cliquey sect-like subterfuge.

This year her work has appeared in the 54th Venice Biennale, Danish Pavilion, Venice, Italy and the Singapore Biennale, Open House, Singapore. Last year her work was at The Drawing Center, in Greater New York, MoMA PS1, and the Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK.

ICA at MECA Director Daniel Fuller was awarded an Etant donnes curatorial research grant. Etant donnes is a French-American fund for contemporary art dedicated to nurturing and supporting outstanding programming of contemporary artists from France and the United States.

In his first five months at the ICA new Director Daniel Fuller has executed a video screening with Parisian artist Mircea Cantor and has organized upcoming exhibitions with both Lili Reynaud-Dewar and Pierre Bismuth, also of Paris. The ICA seeks and values cultural diversity in its exhibition program and has identified France, with Paris in particular, as rising towards a significant period of tremendous creativity and experimentation in regards to video and performance art.

It is especially imperative that the ICA accommodates artistic interactions with France in an attempt to best serve our community and surrounding regions. Maine is second only to New Hampshire in the percentage of French American residents in the United States and also has a greater proportion of people speaking French at home than any other state in the nation. This grant would allow us an opportunity to forge a stronger connection with an often-ignored regional constituency.

The culmination of this research will result in a series of rapidly changing video installations focusing on these experimental video artists currently residing in France.

Anthony Campuzano, one of the participating artists in the exhibition "Drawn to Disaster" in the ICA at MECA, will give a free public lecture on July 27 at 6pm in the gallery. Known for his use of found language, Philadelphia-based artist Campuzano activates text from a variety of sources - newspaper headlines, Wikipedia entries, the covers of paperback novels, trivial cultural events, common cliches, pop song lyrics - in drawings that couple intense color with the tangible presence of the artist's hand. He received his BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University.