University of Southern Maine

News Releases

USM Area Gallery Exhibit Showcases Recent Percent for Art Purchases at USM

August 1 , 2005

“Recent Projects: USM Percent for Art” will be the first exhibit of the 2005-2006 school year running Friday, September 2 through Thursday, October 20, in the Area Gallery located in the University of Southern Maine Woodbury Campus Center on Bedford St., Portland. Gallery hours are 8 a.m.-10 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Friday.

Finalists from recent projects will have work on display that sheds light on their individual creative processes.  From proposals, to preliminary drawings and models, each artist will reveal how they completed their journey through the Percent for Art process at USM.  Among the artists represented are Duncan and Catherine Hewitt, whose sculpture and landscape design was chosen for the USM Bioscience Research Institute in Portland; Shoshannah White, whose digital photography [explain here what the photography was for]; and Aaron Stephan, whose sculpture, “Lift,” was chosen for the lobby of the newly built Joel and Linda Abromson Community Education Center in Portland.  Artists who made it to the final round of the selection process, and those who had their work chosen as Percent for Art purchases, will be represented.

Stephan will give a free public lecture about his work at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, October 20 in Room 10, Bailey Hall, Gorham.

For more information about the exhibit or Stephan’s lecture, please contact USM Gallery Director Carolyn Eyeler at 780-5008.

Maine’s Percent for Art law was enacted in 1979 and requires that one percent of construction costs be set aside to purchase original works of art for new or renovated buildings receiving state funds.  For more information about the law, see

http://www.mainearts.com/public/percent/index.shtml.

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