Portland’s Indigo Arts Alliance is highlighting recent coverage, publications and projects involving its co-founders and artists in residence, from an exhibition exploring Black cultural memory to new books about land and justice.
“Thresholds,” organized by Indigo Arts Alliance in partnership with the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University, brings together work by Daniel Minter, Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Portia Cobb and Stephen Hamilton. The artists explore the depth, complexity and resilience of Black cultural memory, working at the threshold between the seen and unseen, the present and the ancestral, and the place left behind and the place arrived at.
A recent Colossal review examines Minter’s carved wooden assemblages and the ways his practice creates vessels for spiritual and ancestral knowledge. Dozens of hand brooms line the exhibition’s first gallery, transformed through a collective process of binding, weaving and layering during a July workshop at Lynden Sculpture Garden. Minter, the alliance’s co-founder and artistic director, called the sweepers a “talisman, tool, and object of remembrance.”
ARTISTS’ LEGACIES
The Joan Mitchell Foundation’s new report, “Creating Future Memory: Building the Field of Artist Legacy Stewardship,” examines how the arts field can preserve, document and carry forward artists’ stories and creative legacies. Indigo Arts Alliance co-founder Marcia Minter participated in the foundation’s May 2025 convening, joining 150 cultural workers for resource-sharing and exchange. Her comments about how larger institutions can support artists’ legacies appear on page 46 of the report.
Boston Art Review’s spring/summer Issue 16 includes “Where Bodies Gather: In Conversation with Benjamin Spalding.” The interview, conducted early this year as Spalding prepared for his solo exhibition “Go Bang!” at the Farnsworth Art Museum, explores how legacies of movement and community have shaped his practice. Spalding was a David C. Driskell Fellow in 2022 and 2025.
NEW BOOKS
In her forthcoming monograph “Does the Land Remember?” Maya Tihtiyas Attean explores the Wabanaki landscape and the relationship between land, history and identity. A 2026 mentorship artist in residence, Attean uses image-making to weave together forgotten truths and personal narratives, engaging with the land as both witness and archive.
Maya Williams, a 2025 mentorship artist in residence, is one of four coeditors of “Ground Truth: Writing Towards Justice.” The forthcoming book brings together perspectives from 40 Maine writers and activists on contemporary issues in Maine and across the nation. Contributors include Arisa White, a 2022 mentorship artist in residence, and verónica a. pérez, a 2021 David C. Driskell Fellow.
Indigo Arts Alliance connects Black and Brown artists from around the world with local artists of African descent through its residency programs, creating opportunities for critical feedback, relationship-building and the exchange of creative practices and resources.
Indigo Arts Alliance is at 60 Cove St., Portland. For more information, email info@indigoartsalliance.me or visit indigoartsalliance.me.
Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland is featuring “IDK,” an exhibition of paintings by Tollef Runquist that explores the intersection of personal reflection, archetypes, fantasy and play. Runquist’s paintings combine images and symbols drawn from lived experience, emotional landscapes and cultural influences, creating an intuitive dialogue between imagery and meaning. “My work explores a space where […]
Meetinghouse Arts in Freeport is presenting a full schedule of fall exhibitions and performances, including a members show, a collaborative exhibition by longtime artist friends Tim Sample and Linda Rowell-Kelley and several concerts. The gallery’s fall members exhibition, “Nature’s Palette: Art Inspired by the Season,” will remain on view through Oct. 18. Featuring paintings, drawings, […]
Local Color Gallery in Belfast will feature printmaker, collage artist and sculptor Jeff Wahlstrom from Oct. 19 to Nov. 22. An Art Walk reception will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 23, with an artist talk at 5 p.m. Based in Bangor, Wahlstrom creates block prints and watercolor collages inspired by the natural […]
Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD), based in Berkeley, California, is accepting submissions for its 2027 members exhibition, “Prototyping Futures of Making: Water, Data, and Living Systems.” The exhibition will explore the relationships among water, data, ecological systems and emerging technologies, asking how artists can engage with living systems as sites of collaboration, construction and consequence. […]
Triangle Gallery in Rockland is presenting three exhibitions through Oct. 31, including an extended solo exhibition by Carter Wentworth, a group fiber arts show and a fall exhibition of work by gallery artists. Wentworth’s “Sound of Rain Crossing the Lake” will remain on view in the upstairs gallery through the end of October. “Interwoven,” a […]
Waterfall Arts in Belfast will present “Found in Translation,” a mixed-media exhibition featuring Maine artists Deborah Jellison, JoAnne Houlsen and John LeBlanc, from Oct. 23 to Nov. 28. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Oct. 23. The exhibition brings together three artist friends whose work explores familiar Maine landscapes, objects […]
Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth is presenting “Form Meets Surface,” an exhibition highlighting porcelain ceramics by potter Mark Bell and collaborative works created with painter William Irvine. The artists, both established in their respective fields, have worked together since 2015 to create porcelain vases and plates that combine Bell’s ceramic forms with Irvine’s painted […]
Barn Gallery in Ogunquit concluded its 2026 exhibition season Oct. 12, but the venue will continue to welcome visitors for two performances in the 19th annual Elizabeth Dunaway Burnham Piano Festival. Pianist, composer and vocalist Zahili Zamora will return to Ogunquit with her Afro Cuban Jazz Trio for a performance from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. […]
The Brunswick Guild Fine Craft Show will return to the historic Fort Andross Mill in Brunswick on Oct. 24 and 25, celebrating its 10th season with work by 40 juried Maine craft artists. Presented by Shop Maine Craft, the indoor show will feature basketry, ceramics, decorative and wearable fiber art, furniture, glass, jewelry, mixed media, […]
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