posted 7-1-08

Upcoming Workshops at Portland Pottery
Maureen Mills: Slip and Resist Decorating Techniques
This workshop will cover a variety of slip and resist decoration techniques – singly and in combination, to alter surface appearance and color. Students need to bring a piece of leather hard high fire stoneware, sponges and brushes. Maureen has an MFA from the University of Nebraska, teaches at the Manchester Institute of Art, owns the Pottery at Strawberry Banke and has a book on Ceramic Surface Design scheduled to be published in July of 2008.
Saturday July 12th 1-5PM $60
Chris Archer: Moving Beyond the Jar: Glaze Formulation at Cone 5/6
Chris will discuss basic glaze chemistry and glaze formulation processes for potters working at cone 5/6. He will demonstrate how to make triaxial blends, line blends, how to use a triple beam scale, and discuss safety considerations for working with glaze materials. This is the perfect workshop for high school teachers who wish to move beyond opening a jar of glaze for their students and for those studio potters who always wanted to develop their own signature glazes. Chris teaches at the New Hampshire Institute of Art and is an exhibiting artist.
Saturday July 26th 1-5PM $60
Tacha Vosburgh: Painting the Fire - Sagger Firing and Terra Sigillata
Serendipity – the by-word of pots licked by flame to bring out wondrous colors and effects on the clay surface. Students will need to bring a bisque fired pot, no larger than a soup bowl to fire. We will learn how to work with Terra Sigillata and the sagger fire process. Tacha received her BFA from the Maine College of Art and has been teaching workshops, doing glaze and firing research and exhibiting since 1975. She has also had her work published in American Crafts, Ceramics: Art and Perception and in Pomegranates, Mirrors & Meanings: Ruminations on the Women’s Clay Movement. 
Saturday August 9th 1-5PM $60
If you have any questions, please give us a call at 207.772.4334 or visit our website at www.portlandpottery.com


posted 6-26-08 PMA Biennial

DOWNLOAD ENTRY FORM HERE
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DOWNLOAD ENTRY FORM HERE

posted 6-4-08

HAND-MADE POTTERY FOR SALE AT:
PORTLAND POTTERY’S ANNUAL SIDEWALK SALE & OPEN HOUSE

 
Portland, ME. . . Portland Pottery and Metalsmithing Studio is hosting its Annual Sidewalk Sale & Open House beginning Friday June 6th from 9am – 8pm.  Come check out great pots, get a tour of our studio, watch pottery demonstrations, and enjoy some refreshments!  The fun also continues on Saturday June 7th from 9am-5pm.
 
A portion of the proceeds from this event will benefit The Roots Cellar.  For more information and/or photographs call Portland Pottery at 772.4334


posted 5-8-08 COMMON GROUND FAIR POSTER CONTEST

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Each year, MOFGA hosts an artwork contest to find an illustration that captures the essence of the Common Ground Country Fair. The winner gets $1000, as well as the satisfaction of seeing her/his creation on posters and t-shirts all over Maine and beyond! We chose the artwork for 2008 last August. Grace Keown, of Dixmont, won that contest with her illustration of a red barn and hayfield.

The contest is open only to Maine residents and MOFGA members (regardless of residence). If you are not yet a MOFGA member,
click here to join. Welcome!

Artists may submit two entries. All entries must arrive in the MOFGA office by 4 p.m. on Friday, August 8, 2008. We generally make the final selection in August but it may take us a couple of months so be prepared to leave your submission(s) with us in the MOFGA office for a while. MOFGA will retain full rights to the winning design.

MOFGA will feature the winning design on the 2009 Fair poster, t-shirt and promotional literature. A profile of the artist will appear in this newspaper. MOFGA also sends out a press release focusing on the artist and the artwork. In addition to these promotional benefits, the winning artist receives $1,000.

While we do not want to discourage creativity in any way, we do want you to be aware that the Artwork Selection Committee disqualifies many absolutely outstanding works of art simply because they do not fit our technical requirements. The Committee considers how artwork will look on a poster, a t-shirt, and other Fair promotional materials and merchandise. Artwork must be beautiful as well as practical for it to work as our poster/T-shirt design.

Here are some suggestions on how to make sure your submission will be usable:

  • Do not use crosshatching as shading - ­ Very, very fine pen lines, spaced closely together in a crosshatching technique, are not cleanly reproducible on cloth. Unlike paper, t-shirt fabric is textured. The fineness of detail achievable is therefore limited in comparison to what can be achieved on the smooth surface of paper.
  • Stay away from large geometric borders - Frames or borders using large geometric shapes, which must be precisely controlled during printing, will often become skewed or distorted on fabric. T-shirt fabric is not dimensionally stable like paper, therefore during the printing and handling process the material will shift and large geometric shapes become distorted.
  • Avoid watercolors - Soft gradations of color, such as what is seen in watercolor-work, are exceedingly difficult to reproduce in the T-shirt screen-printing process. Screen-printing as a technique is a stenciling process that relies on modulating the density of a spatter pattern of fairly large flecks of color to simulate gradations of color. The spatter flecks make watercolor reproduction onto a T-shirt inexact. When possible we will avoid selecting watercolors as winning entries.
  • Don't use too much white - The Fair T-shirts are printed on colored fabric; they are not printed on white. Thus, whenever white or pale tints of color are used in original artwork, white ink must be printed on the shirt. All of the subtleties of pale color seen in original artwork will not be reproducible on Fair shirts.
  • Dimensions should be roughly the same - Entries definitely do not have to be exact squares, but your submission should be pretty close in height and width dimensions. Panoramic artwork does not fit well on our shirts.
See artwork from fairs past.

Applications for the Artwork Contest are posted below and available by contacting the Fair office at
cgcf@mofga.org or 207-568-4142.

If you would like us to return your submission by mail, please include either $5.00 (regular mail) or $10.00 (registered mail), along with adequate packaging. If you would like your piece insured when we send it back to you, please call the office to determine what extra charge will need to be assessed.

Below are links for downloading guidelines and the application form for the contest.
  • Artwork Contest Cover Letter (Word doc)
  • Artwork Contest Guidelines (Word doc)
  • General Guidelines for Participating in the Fair
  • Artwork Contest Application (PDF)
Good luck in creating your design and thanks for participating! Again, the deadline for submissions is August 8th, 2008. Please call 568-4142 or email us at: cgcf@mofga.org if you have questions.


call for artists
posted 2-26-08 Portrait Group
There is a new portrait group that will be meeting every 4th Thursday in the Stroudwater area. The first session will be on Thursday Feb 28 from 10-1. There will be a clothed model present. The cost will be 10.00 per session. This is not a workshop and no instruction is offered but I'm sure there will be plenty of helpful advice available if needed. Bring a lunch. For more information and directions to the location contact Donald Drake at ddrake3@maine.rr.com. Don is a board member of Pastel Painters of Maine but all media are welcome in this group. You can also contact SEA member Kay Daughan at da38902@yahoo.com
 


posted 12-8-07 CALL for ARTISTS
Call for artists: High traffic healthcare office in Falmouth. High ceilings/large open space - great for showing medium to large pieces.Prefer still life, abstract, geometric pieces vs. living subjects/portraits. Venue has a SOLID history of SELLING pieces. Contact lorirae@wetpaintstudios.com for additional information or to submit your link - submissions will be for 2008 & 2009 show.




Still available 5-8-08 Studio/Gallery space at 144 Cumberland Ave.

Commercial space available for rent in the space where the "People's Free Space" has been.
Available NOW
900+ square feet on 1st floor
terms negotiable
call 775-1208 for more details & to check it out.



6-21-07 • BACK Country Art Trips ... Check it OUT!

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www.backcountryarttrips.com



WHAT'S THIS?
Backcountry Art Trips are instruction-based workshops for a dventurous artists
and artistic adventurers of all ability levels, led by Maine artist Michael Branca.
Lots of information and the complete vision are online at
www.backcountryarttrips.com


SPREADING THE WORD
Please let us know if you have an opinion about receiving or
not receiving these announcements by responding to:
backcountry@mikebranca.com

Also, any assistance in passing the word along to potentially interested folks would
be greatly appreciated as we get this exciting new program off the ground. Thanks!


Michael Branca 
207 - 443 - 4718
www.mikebranca.com
www.backcountryarttrips.com