Connecting People, Place and Culture
In Baldwin, Bridgton, Casco, Cornish, Hiram, Naples, Parsonsfield, Porter, Raymond and Sebago

Community Meetings and Events

We will gather together to identify and discuss our many cultural assets:

Regional Arts, Culture & Heritage Workshops

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 9 a.m. to Noon

Dancemore on Route 113 in West Baldwin

(Baldwin, Hiram, Cornish, Kezar Falls, Porter, Parsonsfield)

MILLIE RAHN, FOLKLORIST TO SPEAK

Millie Rahn, Folklorist, will speak at the second of two Regional Arts, Culture & Heritage Workshops on Saturday, November 15^th at Dancemore, Route 113, West Baldwin (9:00 AM to Noon).  Before coming to the Western Maine Lakes Region Discovery Research project, Millie has undertaken fieldwork and cultural inventories throughout Maine, particularly in the St. John Valley, coastal Hancock County, and the Sebasticook Valley under the aegis, respectively, of the Maine Acadian Heritage Council, the Hancock County Planning Commission, and the Maine Arts Commission. She has also worked with the Maine Office of Tourism and the Maine Arts Commission on their arts and heritage tourism initiative.

She writes and speaks extensively about the 1960s folk revival; produces museum exhibitions and media documentaries based on fieldwork; and serves on federal, state, and regional panels to evaluate and recommend funding for projects involving folk culture.

This workshop is open to the public and those involved with the arts and our cultural heritage are encouraged to attend.  Attendees of the first workshop held on Saturday, November 8^th in Naples came away with a very positive feeling about the future of the arts in our communities.  Many exciting ideas were discussed including the use of the Naples Community Center for performance and exhibition space, a cultural heritage center where artists could work and arts and heritage schools could operate, an events calendar among many towns, and a historic pageant depicting our early history. 

The Western Maine Lakes Region Discovery Research Project serves the towns of Baldwin, Bridgton, Casco, Cornish, Hiram, Naples, Parsonsfield, Porter, Raymond and Sebago.  The project is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. 

These workshops are the first step in a process of creating an art and culture inventory of the Western Maine Lakes Region.  Be there at the beginning!!!  We invite all individuals interested in the arts, artists, designers, traditional craftsmen, writers, and performers, historians and story-tellers, town leaders, community organizations, owners of arts-related businesses, contra-dancers, crafters, everyone!  Could we form a coalition or build a Cultural Heritage Center?  Could business gain from a wider awareness of cultural tourism?  Let’s discover together the benefits of arts and culture to the economic life of the community…and share our dreams of the future.