Portals: Environmental Art Installations Opens September 6th and Eve Mosher at Waterfall Arts......

The exhibit is designed to engage the audience in a dialogue about environmental sustainability and will run through November 27th.

In 2001, Waterfall Arts exhibited ten environmental art installations at their Montville site, amongst the first in the state to do so. Over the years, the arts organization has maintained its mission of "creating community in harmony with nature through the transformative power of the arts," hosting numerous artists to make temporary or long-lasting place-based natural assemblages. The Portals exhibition in Belfast will include installations by Joline Blais, Alan Crichton, Krisanne Baker, Nancy Manter, and Barbara Andrus. The show will also feature the first work resulting from the Georges River Land Trust Artist Residency; artists Elizabeth Billings and Michael Sacca are the inaugural recipients of this residency.

Sam Bower, the founder of greenmuseum.org, the premier website during the 2000's on environmental art and practitioners, recently said that environmental art "can be a portal for people to alter their relationship with nature." The upcoming Portals exhibition shows seven very different entry points – woven and growing plants, natural wood sculpture and structures, water projected, photographed, and drawn on roofing paper.

A Portals exhibition artist panel is planned for a later date and will draw out the dialogue between viewers and installation, between different works in the exhibit, and between the artists themselves.

On Thursday, Oct 3rd at 7 PM, leading environmental artist Eve Mosher of New York will speak about her work, High Water Line, and the power and impact of community art within the environmental movement.

Her works use investigations of the landscape and raise issues of involvement in the environment, public/private space use, history of place, cultural and social issues and individual understanding of the urban ecosystem. Her work has been profiled in international media including the New Yorker, New York Times, ARTnews, L'uomo Vogue, and Le Monde. Mosher's public and community based artworks have received grants from New York State Council on the Arts, the Compton Foundation, Invoking the Pause and The City Parks Foundation. She has an undergraduate degree in architecture and a Masters in Fine Arts and is currently an assistant professor at Parsons the New School for Design on the advisory team for Schuylkill Center Environmental Art Department and a consultant/leader for the Professional Development Program at Creative Capital. More information can be found on her website: www.evemosher.com.

On Friday, October 4th from 9 to 4, Mosher will lead a day-long Design Charette of selected leaders in the arts, design, environmentalism, and science fields to collectively address a specific issue on food availability. This is a fast-paced solution-oriented process, engaging participants to develop an elegant, realistic and sustainable plan. Results will be presented to the public after the charette.

The Eve Mosher talk and charette and Portals events are part of MEAD (Maine Environmental Art & Design), a collaborative effort of Waterfall Arts, Unity College, CMCA and other organizations to celebrate elegant solutions to environmental issues. The Portals exhibit and events are sponsored by Harvest Energy, Coyote Moon and other area businesses. Mosher's visit is partially funded by the Maine Community Foundation.

Waterfall Arts is located at 256 High Street in Belfast. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 AM to 5 PM and Saturdays through the end of September from 12 noon to 4 PM. For more information on Portals, Eve Mosher's lecture, the Design Charette, all related events as well as classes, studio rentals and general information, visit www.waterfallarts.org or call 338-2222.