ANNEX ARTS Castine non-profit artist residency program EVENTS

 

ANNEX ARTS is a non-profit artist residency program located on the Blue Hill Peninsula in Castine, Maine.  We provide creative workspaces for artists and writers so that they can benefit from unfettered time and the opportunity to draw inspiration from our stunning village and coastal region. Annex Arts’ programming promotes the arts as a means to address the economic, cultural, and spiritual well-being of our community.

• Friday, June 21, 5-7pm: Closing Reception for Annex Arts’ Artists-in-Residence Drew Klassen and Shelley Mansel, painters from Ottawa and Nova Scotia. Come see what they made while in residence at Annex Arts, 8 Water St, Castine, Free and open to the public

DREW KLASSEN / JUNE 15 – JUNE 27, 2019

Ottawa, Ontario,Visual Arts

Drew Klassen, painter and educator, was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1964, and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He attended Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While teaching English in Japan, Klassen established a strong studio practice and began to exhibit regularly upon his return to Canada in 1998. His work is held in numerous private and institutional collections in Canada and abroad. In 2010 he received one of five Established Artist Recognition Awards presented annually by the government of Nova Scotia.

SHELLEY MANSEL  / JUNE 15 – JUNE 22, 2019

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Visual Arts

A landscape and figurative painter, Shelley Mansel attended UCFV in British Columbia and received a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has shown in solo, two-person, and group exhibitions internationally with works reviewed in magazines including House & Home and featured on HGTV. Her paintings are held in private collections in Canada, Germany, France, and the US, and in permanent public collections at St. Mary’s University Halifax and UBC Vancouver. She has received two Nova Scotia Creation Grants, a Presentation Grant, and has served on the selection committee for the Nova Scotia Culture Division’s Grants to Individuals Program.

• Friday, June 28, 5-7: Reception for Annex Arts’ Artist-in-Residence Kristy Cunnane – Bookmaker, illustrator, printmaker. Come see what she made while in residence at Annex Arts, 8 Water St, Castine, Free and open to the public

 

KRISTY CUNNANE / JUNE 24 – JUNE 30, 2019

Ellsworth, Maine, Visual Arts

Kristy Cunnane is an artist and educator who loves to cook and lives in the woods of rural Maine on a long old road called Happytown. Cunnane specializes in graphic and text-laden images that often mix humanity with the splendor of the natural world in witty and wonderful ways. In addition to spending much of her time teaching at a small Waldorf school in Blue Hill, Maine, where her days are full of lively children, she works as an illustrator, printmaker, and book artist and is a force behind “Table for Change,” an art and food dining experience which directs its proceeds towards specific charitable causes.

• Saturday, June 29, Time TBD: Demo/Workshop with Annex Arts’ Artist-in-Residence Kristy Cunnane –  Bookmaker, illustrator, printmaker. Come see how she does it at Annex Arts, 8 Water St, Castine. Check back at our calendar at www.annexarts.org

 

• Monday, July 1, 9-1: Writing Workshop with Annex Arts’ Writer-in-Residence at Annex Arts, Elizabeth Poliner- “Developing Character and Plot in Fiction Writing.” For all skill levels. To register email annexartsorg@gmail.com. 9 Main Street, Castine, $50

Where do ideas for creating fictional characters come from?  How are these ideas developed so that characters are both believable and complex?  In this half-day course, writer Elizabeth Poliner leads a lively exploration of these questions through discussion and the use of in-class exercises.  After developing characters through various techniques, participants will learn how an understanding of character can generate a story’s plot.  By the end, participants may have enough material at hand to go home and write a great story!

 

ELIZABETH POLINER / JUNE  5 – JULY 5, 2019

Hollins, Virginia, Literary Arts

Elizabeth Poliner is the author of As Close to Us as Breathing (winner of the 2017 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in Fiction and an Amazon Best Book of 2016); Mutual Life & Casualty, a novel-in-stories; What You Know in Your Hands, a poetry collection; and Sudden Fog, a poetry chapbook. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared widely in literary journals including the Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Colorado Review. She teaches creative writing in the MFA and undergraduate programs at Hollins University where she is an associate professor and current director of the Jackson Center for Creative Writing.

 

Friday, July 5, 5-7pm: Opening Meet-the-Artists Reception— meet Annex Arts’Artists-in-Residence, Moira Holohan & Xavi Comas, visiting from Miami, FL and Barcelona. Find out what this interdisciplinary artist and geophysicist duo will be doing while in residence. 8 Water St. Castine, Me. www.annexarts.org, Free and Open to the public.

• Sunday, July 14, 12-2pm, Children’s Workshop with Annex Arts’ Artists-in-Residence, Moira Holohan & Xavi Comas. This interdisciplinary artist & geophysicist duo will give a workshop open to children of all ages using the diverse and approachable materials and tools they use in their work.8 Water St. Castine, Me. www.annexarts.org, Free and Open to the public.

 

MOIRA HOLOHAN / JULY 1 – JULY 21, 2019

Miami, Florida, Visual Arts

A multidisciplinary artist, Moira Holohan merges two sets of temporal art practices: slow and meditative with fast and urgent. The laborious process of weaving and hand-marked flip book animation are paired with the immediacy of performance and video montage. Holohan explores the process as both signifier and instrument, while contemplating questions of meaning, purpose, and value. In collaboration with Dr. Xavier Comas, Holohan’s recent work employs geophysical profiles collected with a ground-penetrating radar. She received her BA at Bard College and her MFA at Hunter College and has exhibited widely.

 

XAVIER COMAS / JULY 1 – JULY 21, 2019

Miami, Florida, Interdisciplinary

Born in Barcelona, Spain, Xavier Comas earned a fine arts degree in graphic design and photography from the Superior Faculty of Fine Arts of Barcelona University and his doctorate in Environmental Sciences from Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Florida Atlantic University. Comas’ timely collaboration with Moira Holohan seeks unique fusions of art and science. His graphic designs, blogs, and photo essays have exhibited and been published in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and The Netherlands.

ª Friday, July 12, 5-7 pm:  Meet the Residents Reception— Annex Arts’ Artists-in-Residence, Painter, Sara MacCullouch from Nova Scotia. 8 Water St. Castine, Me. www.annexarts.org, Free and Open to the public.

ª Tuesday, July 9, 5-7pm:  Opening  Reception for Exhibition by Dez Ryan Odegaard at the Gallery B Project Space at 9 Main Street, Castine, www.gallerybgallery.com, Free and Open to the public. Exhibition runs from July 9 – July 17

 

• Friday, July 19, 5-7:  Big Multi-venue Reception/Exhibition for Annex Arts’ Artists-in-Residence Moira Holohan & Xavi Comas, and Sara MacCullouch. 8 Water St. Castine, Me. www.annexarts.org, Free and Open to the public.

 

SARA MACCULLOCH / JULY 10 – 19TH, 2019

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Visual Arts

Sara MacCulloch recently completed her MFA at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and has been painting for over twenty years. Her work centers on sense of place, memory, and the ephemerality of a moment. Her subjects are mostly of landscapes that have had an impact on her from childhood, and more recently of places where she has spent time with her daughter. She has shown extensively in Halifax, Toronto, and New York and has works in collections in the U.S. and abroad.