four i

4I - Backchanneling in Rural Maine – Employing and Enjoying Breakdowns & Work Arounds in the Internet Age

Moderator:

Waterfall Arts

Waterfall Arts has offered relevant and cutting edge programs in the fine and performing arts and in design in mid-coast Maine. Since 2000, when the organization began at its Kingdom Falls - Montville site, it has specialized in arts education, artist residencies, public events and exhibits promoting the visual and other fine arts and energizing the mid-coast community with a mix of arts resources and artist participants of both local and national reputation.

Speakers:

Kenny Cole, Artist

Kenny Cole is a contemporary artist living in the mid-coast region of Maine. His art draws from the Outsider and New England traditions of independence and spirited rebellion. His work is both political and intuitive and has been exhibited nationally and locally, often in self-organized themed shows: 20/20 Hindsight,Oily Business, Bring it On, Operation 21 Prayer Salute, Crying Uncle, These Colors Don't Run & the very successful Prison Papers. His goal is to inform and uplift.

Abby Shahn, Artist

Abby Shahn was a student at California School of the Arts, Skowhegan, and the Arts Students League. She has taught at the Thomaston State Prison, College of the Atlantic, Maine College of Art and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and has exhibited her work throughout Maine, New York and the Northeast. She has lived in rural Maine for many years, a fact that is crucial in describing who she is and what her art is about. "Isolation from the 'art world' and from current trends in art has had both good and bad effects," she says, "On one hand I’m glad to be free of the dictates of style and the marketplace. I like my ideas to develop at their own pace. At the same time I feel fortunate to be part of a loose group of artists scattered around in the boondocks who have evolved in many different ways, sometimes overlapping with current ideas floating around the 'big city', sometimes veering off in crazy and unexpected directions. The artists that I’ve come to know here have been a constant source of inspiration to me."

Natasha Mayers, Artist

Natasha Mayers’ work marries art, community, and activism. As a touring artist with the Maine Arts Commission since 1975, Mayers has supervised more than 500 community murals. She has been an artist-in-residence for Peace Action Maine, and was a National Endowment for the Arts Millennium Artist, creating community art in Portsmouth, Ohio. In 2005 she received the Arthur Hall Award “for an artist whose work, community service and commitment inspires others to reach to their highest potential.” She has taught students from nursery school to college and in diverse populations: immigrants, prisoners, the homeless, and the “psychiatrically labeled.”

Rachel Spatz, Education and Program Director for VSA Arts of Maine

Rachel Spatz is the Education and Program Director for VSA arts of Maine, where she coordinates inclusive artist residencies and teacher workshops throughout the state. She has worked in children's education and the arts in Maine for the past decade. She is also a performing artist & musician, touring Europe and the United States with several groups. She has recordings on several record labels including Time-Lag, Ecstatic Peace and Blackest Rainbow. She received her B.A. in Visual Anthropology & German from Bennington College.

Emily Posner, Co-founder of the Winter Cache Project

Emily Posner is 28 years old and an off-the-grid organizer in Montville, Maine.  She is a co-founder of the Winter Cache Project in Portland, Maine and is a board member of Common Ground Relief in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Today Emily organizes through a variety of mediums for environmental and social justice.