The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland has named Rori Smith as its new director of education.
Smith brings nearly two decades of experience as an educator, scholar and artist, having worked with institutions including the Penn Museum, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in dance and performance from Temple University and continues to maintain an active practice in performance and movement. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maine, with a forthcoming dissertation on environmental performance art.
Smith has worked with CMCA for the past year as education programs assistant and Artist Toolbox coordinator. As director of education, she said she is motivated to continue the generosity with which CMCA Education shares its time and resources with the community, with an enhanced focus on helping visitors interpret exhibitions and engage with artmaking.
Smith led the first tour in CMCA’s 2026 Summer Tours series July 10. The series offers guided conversations through CMCA’s four summer exhibitions, led by curator Grant Wahlquist and Smith. Remaining July tours include a 1 p.m. tour July 19.
CMCA’s Artlab for All Ages also has a new time and refreshed focus. The free intergenerational program encourages families to learn together through guided sessions of creative and adventurous artmaking. Sessions are held one Saturday each month from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Adult Makerspace will be held from 10 a.m. to noon July 19. Led by Smith, the program will explore image-making through touch and gesture in dialogue with Abbey Williams’ “Fugue.” Attendance is capped at 20 guests and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. The program is open to adults 18 and older, with a sliding fee of $5 to $15.
CMCA’s 2026 ArtCamp will run July 20 to Aug. 13 for ages 5 to 14. Each week is a standalone experience with its own theme, and campers may enroll in any week that interests them. Age ranges vary by week.
CMCA is located at 21 Winter St., Rockland. For more information, go to cmcanow.org.
Please join the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts on Friday, July 24, from 5-8 pm for an elegant evening of art and ideas. We are hosting a panel discussion with artists in the LOOKING AT YOU exhibition: featuring Jack Montgomery, Barbara Peacock, Richard Wexler, Jan Pieter van Voorst van Beest, Bret Woodard , Arlene Collins […]
Summer is the perfect time to pull out the paints and pencils, and even tissue and glue for experimentation or to develop one’s creative talents. Upcoming classes at the Maine Art Gallery offer three opportunities to expand your abilities. In “Charcoal and Line: Drawing the Landscape,” both intermediate beginners and those with more advanced […]
The Colby College Museum of Art is pleased to announce the gift of Henri Matisse’s Océanie, le ciel, a monumental screenprint on linen conceived in 1946 and printed in 1948. The significant acquisition reinforces Colby’s position as a leading academic art museum and adds to Maine’s growing profile as a major destination for American and […]
Richard Estes (born 1932) is best known for his complex photo-realistic images of urban shop windows and their mind-eye confounding reflections. However, his work also attests to a well-traveled eye for distant places, including Mount Desert Island and Lake Champlain. While helping Alice Walton select artworks destined for the permanent collection of Crystal Bridges […]
Waterfall Arts in Belfast invites the community to explore creativity, craftsmanship and collective imagination through PLAY, a season of workshops, exhibitions and special events featuring nationally recognized artists Valeska Populoh and Mark Matthews. From illuminated lantern parades to crafted glass spheres, the visiting artists bring decades of experience and a shared belief that art has […]
The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland has named Rori Smith as its new director of education. Smith brings nearly two decades of experience as an educator, scholar and artist, having worked with institutions including the Penn Museum, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the National Museum of the American Indian and […]
Kittery Art Association presents “Lucid Coastline” through Aug. 2 at its gallery in Kittery. The exhibition explores the many ways artists interpret the shifting moods of the coast. From abstraction to realism, each work reveals a personal dialogue with nature’s edge — the lucid space between the tangible and the transcendent. An opening reception was […]
Jean Kigel Studio + Gallery in Waldoboro is currently featuring “Patchwork,” an oil painting by Jean Kigel. A few years ago, Kigel was one of 11 artists chosen to spend a day painting on Allen Island, six miles off Port Clyde. “I had passed this bleak island many times en route to Monhegan and had […]
The Union of Maine Visual Artists will present “Dreaming at Dawn,” an exhibition inspired by daybreak in Maine, from Aug. 1 to Sept. 30 at Bangor Public Library. The exhibition features 68 pieces by 51 artists from across the state, with work installed in the library’s Cyr, Stairwell and Lecture Hall galleries. Interpretations of the […]
Receive news and information about Maine artists and events delivered right to your inbox.