An ongoing film series featuring some of Maine’s most distinguished artists
sponsored by the Union of Maine Visual Artists

 
About the Project

The MAINE MASTERS PROJECT is an award-winning video series sponsored by the Union of Maine Visual Artists, a not-for-profit educational organization established in 1975 with three chapters meeting monthly. The Maine Masters Project was begun in 1999 and has created an ongoing series of profiles of some of Maine’s most distinguished and often less recognized visual artists who articulate the importance of art making. There are currently twelve completed DVDs (see Artist DVDs) with eight more in production. A consistent theme throughout the videos is that art making enhances our culture by encouraging people to think and feel more deeply.

The purpose of the series is to support a vital contemporary artistic community and to inspire all people to create art and to recognize the value of art. Through our outreach program (see Upcoming Events) – through series screenings, broadcasts, and presentations in community libraries, museums, colleges, and art centers – we are successfully reaching adults. Through our curriculum guide series (see Curriculum Guides) that has now been launched with the first curriculum guide on painter Stephen Pace, we are beginning to reach a younger audience of high school and college students.
Raggedy Ann, B+W photograph by Olive Pierce.


Union of Maine Visual Artists’ Mission:

Our mission is to uphold the dignity of artists and to support a vital contemporary art community in Maine through promoting artist opportunities, educating artists about the works of others and the business of art, and by educating the public about the value of the arts.

The Maine Masters Project helps to fulfill this mission and preserve the legacy of Maine artists by creating a permanent video archive. Through broadcasts and public screenings we celebrate the creativity and wisdom of Maine’s artists.

Goals of the Maine Masters Project:
• to build an archive of video profiles of Maine artists in their studios discussing and showcasing their work, thoughts, creative process, sense of community, and reasons for living and working in Maine. The project was born out of a sense of responsibility to Maine’s cultural community.

• to document fine artists who live and work in Maine, many of whom in relative obscurity. In so doing we are helping to encourage and support Maine artists;

• to inspire young people to consider the wonders of creating art and to understand better the life of an artist;

• to raise public and student awareness about these artists’ work and to strengthen the connection between artists and their Maine communities;

• to convey the integrity and seriousness as well as the imagination and fun of the artistic endeavor;

• to place into context the artist's role in the intellectual and cultural fabric of the larger community;

• to help non-artists better understand the artistic impulse and the work; and

• to create an educational and cultural resource that public schools, universities, libraries, and museums can employ to study contemporary artistic expression.
 

Sponsored by the Union of Maine Visual Artists, an educational organization promoting Maine art.

© UMVA / Maine Masters Project 2009