Four Maine arts groups receive $328,000 in federal money
The Portland Museum of Art will receive $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support its upcoming exhibition about Haystack Mountain School of Crafts – one of four Maine organizations to benefit from a round of federal grants announced Thursday.
It’s the first time the museum has received NEH funding for an exhibition, said Graeme Kennedy, the museum’s director of communications. “We’ve received NEH money for special projects in the past, but never for an exhibition. We’re pretty excited,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, announced the funding Thursday morning. The Maine Humanities Council will receive $98,779 to support programming for war veterans, and the Maine State Museum will receive a $95,000 matching grant to help raise additional capital for a special project. St. Joseph’s College in Standish gets $34,995 to support academic programming.
“These competitive grant awards speak to the quality of these organizations and Maine’s remarkable leadership in the arts and humanities,” Pingree said in a press release.
Thursday’s announcement means Maine arts groups have received more than $500,000 in federal money since February, when the National Endowment for the Arts announced $205,000 in grants to 11 Maine arts groups. The largest grant in that batch was $40,000 for the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston.
In addition, this week in Lewiston, the newly formed LA Public Art Working Group met for the first time since receiving a $75,000 Maine Arts Commission Creative Communities = Economic Development grant for the implementation of a regional cultural plan. Community leaders hope the money will help improve the image of Lewiston and Auburn with public art projects.
The Portland Museum of Art opens its Haystack exhibition May 24. “In the Vanguard” will explore the Deer Isle school’s early years and its influence on 20th-century craft in America. It is organized by PMA curator Diana Greenwold and Rachael Arauz, an art historian and independent curator. The exhibition will include craft objects in a variety of material as well as correspondence, articles, posters, brochures and other items from the school’s archives.