2012 Project summary
The goal of CSA: Community Supporting Arts in 2012-2013 was to promote both local art and local food by partnering 14 artists with 13 CSA farms in and around central Maine. The artists created art inspired by their farmers’ lives, work, landscapes, challenges and ideals since the beginning of the growing season in early spring 2012.
CSA: Community Supporting Arts is a project of the Harlow Gallery and the Kennebec Valley Art Association (KVAA) in partnership with the Kennebec Local Food Initiative, an organization based in Gardiner, Maine that strives to strengthen community food security through access, education, information and advocacy. The KVAA is a membership based 501(c) nonprofit that has owned and operated the Harlow Gallery in downtown Hallowell, Maine since 1963.
The Harlow Gallery and KLFI invite other arts and community groups to consider replicating CSA: Community Supporting Arts in their own community. Click here for an informal “how to” manual.
We would very much appreciate hearing back from any organization or group that uses this guide as a launching point for its own version of CSA: Community Supporting Arts. Kindly send us an email or even snail mail. We’d love to see pictures, links, stories and news about how you adapted the project into your own community. Give Deb Fahy a call if you have specific questions at 207.622.3813.
CSA: Community Supporting Arts by The Harlow Gallery in Hallowell, Maine is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://harlowgallery.org/csa-community-supporting-arts/.
CSA: Community Supporting Arts has been made possible by grant funding from the Maine Community Foundation, the Maine Arts Commission, the Davis Family Foundation and by donors to our online Indiegogo fundraising campaign. The fundraiser ended as of July 2nd, but you can check it out here: www.indiegogo.com/CSA-Community-Supporting-Arts.
CSA: Community Supporting Arts SLIDE SHOW: Click on any image in the slide show to visit our online photo album in Picasa, where you can look through the images at your own pace, read captions and leave comments. This slide show is an assortment of images from all the farms. There are other albums available in Picasa where you can see pictures documenting each artist and farm in more depth. Funding to hire Maine photographers to document the project was available thanks to a grant from the Maine Arts Commission.
Here is the short version (about 4 minutes) entitled CSA: Community Supporting Arts 2012 on YouTube, by Art Mayers with music by Nat Hussey: http://youtu.be/U-rr_JPU77M
Here is the full version (about 20 minutes), entitled CSA: Community Supporting Arts 2012 – Local art Local food on YouTube, by Art Mayers with music by Dave Mallet, Nat Hussey, Narrow Gauge String Band, Bob Baldwin & Dave Pope: http://youtu.be/zge-s0xJuTg
CLICK HERE to view our CSA project blog from 2012.
CSA: Community Supporting Arts artist/farm partnerships are as follows.
PRESS
Community rallies for art, When a Hallowell gallery sounded the call for artists for its Community Supporting Arts (and agriculture) show, it turned into a veritable bucket brigade. By Bob Keyes. October 21, 2012, Portland Press Herald
New exhibitions to supplement series of art inspired by farmers, December 30, 2012 Portland Press Herald
Artists and farmers cultivate art together, January 1, 2013 Encore, Sun Journal
Maine’s artist and farming communities are vibrant, idealistic groups, both key to our state’s unique sense of place. CSA: Community Supporting Arts organizers believe that artists can use the power of their artistic voices to effect social change. Artwork by all the participating artists will be exhibited at the Harlow Gallery in October 2012. Additional exhibitions focusing on select artist/farmer pairs will take place at partner venues between November 2012 and February 2013. The timing of the art exhibition series is meant in part to help spread awareness about local CSA farms as they begin recruiting new members for 2013.
