Here at Andersen Studio we are currently preparing for the Southport Yacht Club Art Show coming up this weekend. The Following weekend we will once again be at Orr's Island for the week starting the 17th of August, after which the show will move to Bailey's Island.

In East Boothbay we just painted our storefront a beautiful shade of Azure Blue so you can't miss us. We are working on a large order of baby penguins and so have lots of baby penguin seconds as well as other seconds and one of a kind pieces that are not available elsewhere. Stop in to visit. We are on the road to Ocean Point, one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Meanwhile, I am following my own private campaign against the New England Cultural Data Base's terms of Agreement, which benefits the tax exempt corporation, The New England Foundation for the Arts. Congress has just historically increased it's funding for the National Foundation to the Arts, which, under other circumstances, I might welcome, but the New England Cultural Database shines a dark light on arts funding, as it exploits the individual artist,(see blog archive), who are also among the small business people community. The New England Foundation for the Arts just received a large grant from Jane's trust, which purports to be established to benefit undeserved populations.

"Jane's Trust was created through the beneficence of Jane B. Cook, who died in 2002. The Trust honors her legacy by supporting organizations and projects that primarily benefit underserved populations and disadvantaged communities.Jane's Trust makes grants in Massachusetts, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont in the areas of arts and culture, education, environment and health and welfare."

"(BOSTON) New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) announced today that it has received a two- year $200,000 award from Jane's Trust. The funding will support the establishment of a New England public art network to coalesce
assets, address needs, and pursue opportunities for collaboration and knowledge-sharing among the region's public art practitioners, select community groups, and funders. NEFA will build on the models of its existing public art programs---Fund for the Arts (FFA) and Art and Community Landscapes (ACL)---supporting public art projects to address environmental issues with an emphasis on rural and underserved communities in northern New England."

Jane's Trust is administerd by the law firm of Hemenway and Barnes, who as attorneys should have reviewed the New England Cultural DataBase Terms of Agreement

I need to do more research on the veracity of emphasis on underserved communities, but the Maine Governor Baldacci's "Creative Economy" is influenced by Richard Florida's idea that there is a monied creative class that no longer is tied to a particular community for work purposes and that communities need to support the development of arts and culture in order to attract such people, and supposedly, the benefit of having a monied class resident in a community will "trickle down" to the rest of us. In fact such a policy benefits the real estate industry, driving real estate prices up and forcing those who cannot compete with the resources of " the creative class" to move to lesser desirable locations. I haven't heard about "creative economy" projects supporting "affordable housing" for the general public. Perhaps if such projects exist they are not well-publicised. The creative economy links on this blog are focused on affordable housing for the group of people that can be classified as "artists".