Waldo County Arts Discovery Project

Sushi Sets by Barbara Walch
Photo by Jennifer Pierce

THE WALDO COUNTY ARTS AND HERITAGE DISCOVERY PROJECT is a community-based, grassroots effort to identify and inventory our county’s cultural resources; to strengthen our cultural life; and to protect our local heritage for the future.

We are currently conducting a county-wide survey of artistic and cultural resources, to be included in a FREE print directory and web site (this one!) that lists, among other items, the county’s cultural and historic organizations, craftspeople, professional artists, hobbyists, keepers of local stories, performing arts venues, and the facilities and services they offer or represent. The listing is noncommercial and will be distributed free of charge throughout the entire county in libraries, visitor information centers, town halls, schools, galleries and the like.

To be included in the print and web directory, simply submit your profile on this web site. Browse through the on-line Directory to get a sense of what it’s all about, then Join the Directory. Your profile will be approved within a short time, and added to the on-line directory, and added to our database for inclusion in the print directory, the Arts and Heritage Guide to Waldo County, to be published in summer 2003.

THE GOAL OF THIS PROJECT is to engage Waldo County residents to “discover” the traditional arts and cultural heritage of a rural county, as well as expand awareness of other newer arts and cultural resources, and then use the information to promote cultural activity and participation.

WE NEED AN ARTS AND HERITAGE DISCOVERY PROJECT TO:
• Document our cultural resources to enhance opportunities for future cultural development through Waldo County;
• Help artists and arts organizations find each other and build networks for collaborating, supporting, and sharing information;
• Enable teachers to more easily find resources to use in classrooms or with after-school activities;
• Help town planners and other municipal employees to better incorporate arts and cultural issues in local planning;
• Give the public access to up-to-date information (including a common database) about our cultural resources;
• Provide information about our vibrant and varied cultural life as a way to attract new businesses and families to our area;
• Learn where the gaps are in cultural resources such as presenting facilities, gallery space and the like;
• Promote cultural tourism, through which artists will be helped to market their work; businesses will benefit from indirect expenditures related to cultural tourism; and Waldo County will be identified as having significant cultural amenities.

“ARTS” ARE DEFINED IN THE BROADEST POSSIBLE SENSE for the project. Doing so might help bridge gaps in cultural experiences and social assumptions about what is art and culture, thereby enabling more people to appreciate the diversity of culture expression in Waldo County--from renowned musicians, artists and theater groups, to the Indian place names in the county and the traditional arts and skills of the agricultural and rural heritage of our region.

THE FINAL INVENTORY WILL INCLUDE (but not be limited to):
• Local artists, craftspeople, musicians, dancers, writers, among others. We’re especially interested in people who interact with the public (teachers, artists who have galleries or studios open to the public, etc.).
• Arts and cultural organizations of all kinds-choral, music, theater, dance and reading groups; museums and curling clubs!
• Cultural heritage resources-granges, historical societies, historical and cultural studios and sites.
• Educational resources-arts educators, schools, venues for art classes, sources of materials for artists and arts educators.
• Community cultural events such as Cabin Fever Reliever, Arts in the Park, Freedom Follies, parades, field days, Church St. Festival, and the Bearfest.
• Agricultural groups--such as MOFGA, Kelmscott Farms, farmers’ markets and the Belfast Coop--that are integral to our cultural heritage.

THE PROJECT IS FUNDED in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional funding is from the Unity Foundation, MBNA, and the Maine Community Foundation.

HOW DO I GET MORE INVOLVED? Contact: Nancy Hauswald, Arts Discovery Project Coordinator 338-3879; nancy@waldoarts.org