—What is Arts@theIntersection
Arts@theIntersection is an innovative new program designed to meet students and educators where they are and promote accessible arts integration learning opportunities for the community it serves. Launched in Fall of 2022, we work with regional school partners, a roster of teaching artists who offer multiple perspectives and dynamic conversations about art making, and many community partners in the region in a year-long program that will culminate in an exhibition of student – centered art based on learning themes created when educators, students, artists and Farnsworth museum Learning an Engagement staff work together, side by side.
Debuting in Spring 2023, will be our new and exciting Learning and Engagement gallery in the museum, a study classroom for all participants in the Arts@theIntersection program, which will be open to the public year round to explore the many connections between learning, art, multi-disciplinary studies, and our community.
Engaging in critical thinking, building relationships, and visual storytelling are core to Arts@theIntersection. Each classroom designs their own inquiry-based project inspired by student interest and curiosity. Students work directly with experienced Maine-based artists whose multifaceted work allows for their projects to come alive. Over the course of the Winter and Spring semesters, the Arts@theIntersection artists, students, and classroom teachers work collaboratively on art-making and process-oriented workshops inspired by student interests and curricular connections.
Daniel Quintanilla is a documentary filmmaker and virtual reality storyteller who grew up in a multicultural home in México. He has worked on NSF and NEH-supported projects documenting endangered languages in México and the U.S. Daniel’s animated short documentary, Not A Citizen, was featured in the U.S. national film tour Stories Beyond Borders. He has edited numerous feature films, including the VICE/MOTHERBOARD film, The Most Unknown. Daniel’s most recent virtual reality documentary, Returning to Dadaab, follows co-director Shuab Mahat as he returns to Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya to see his mother and siblings for the first time, 15 years after resettlement to the U.S. The 2021 documentary film, The Intersection (Le Carrefour), co-directed by Daniel Quintanilla and Jessamine Irwin, focuses on past and present Maine immigrant communities who share a common bond: The French language. This film won the Audience Award for Best Short at the Camden International Film Festival as well as the Tourmaline Prize for Best Short at the Maine International Film Festival.
Kel Differ has a BFA in Printmaking from the school of Massachusetts College of Art and Design. They specialize in hand engraving and etching but also have vast knowledge in silkscreen and litho. At MassArt, Kel monitored the printshop and also the letterpress studio. They also were a teaching assistant for etching, lithography, and letterpress. Kel is now working at Rockcity Coffee as a production assistant and likes to build model boats. Kel lives with their wife Emily (ceramics monitor!) and two wonderful cats named Dana Scully and Fox Mulder.
Kim Bernard creates sculpture that is recycled, kinetic, interactive, public and involves the community. She creates installations upcycled out of trash and is currently focusing on transforming plastic waste into sculpture using her portable recycling machines. She shows her work nationally and has been invited to participate in many exhibits, some of which include the Portland Museum of Art, Currier Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum, Harvard University, Art Complex Museum and UNH Museum of Art. Her work has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, Art News and Art New England. Bernard is the recipient of the Artist Advancement Grant, Kindling Fund Grant, NEFA grant, 6 Maine Arts Commission Grants as well as funding from the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation. She was an artist-in-residence in the Physics Department at Harvard University and at the University of New England. She received her BFA from Parsons in 1987 and her MFA from Mass Art in 2010. Bernard teaches at the Maine College of Art, Colby College, Haystack and regionally as a visiting artist.
Siem van der Ven’s work follows three primary threads from his life: making things, cooking, drawing, sailing, teaching, and being a father. His undergraduate degree is in printmaking with a minor in sculpture. He also worked as a goldsmith and carpenter/builder before becoming an award-winning high school art teacher. Seventeen years in the classroom were interrupted only by a year-long sabbatical in the south of France, where Siem worked in Atelier Buffile and studied painting and critical theory at the Marchutz School. Later, while still teaching, Siem earned an MFA with a concentration in ceramics and drawing.
He has taught as an adjunct professor at University of Maine Augusta, U-Rock, and Unity College and facilitated numerous workshops. He has been a resident artist at Anderson Ranch, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
Currently, Siem lives and works in Lincolnville Center, Maine with his wife Kate Braestrup. They share loving six grown children.
Tim Christensen’s work is about the ever changing web of relationships that surround us. Individuals make contact to create relationships, relationships collide to create systems. These systems change over time in response to the other systems around them. He envisions his world as an infinite collection of active counterparts, individuals symbiotically wriggling and moving and jostling for space and resources. In this sea of systems, of relationships, he sits and attempts to untangle it, sits and attempts to communicate what he sees changing, being created, or disappearing into the past. For these reasons he works in our most durable medium, porcelain, and in our longest unbroken historical record, pottery. Tim’s goal is to make work which still speaks clearly in 10,000 years, and more importantly to convey the complexity and richness of the world in which we are most fortunate to live.
Tim lives and workd in Roque Bluffs and Portland, ME, generally splitting his time. Roque Bluffs is an off-grid home and studio he built with a former partner starting in 2009. In Portland, he works at Running With Scissors Studios, providing him with a rich community of potters, artists, brewers, arts professionals, gallerists, and friends, amongst whom he creates work. He also fires at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, in Newcastle, Maine, using their wood and salt kilns to add varying amounts of chaos, chance, or natural variation to his controlled etchings.
He has been a potter since 1999, and working in black and white porcelain on sgraffito since 2004. He has shown his work all over the world, and this year completed a very limited edition book entitled “Reflect, Adapt, and Persevere” with co-author Carri Lange, about his travels and thoughts on environmental philosophy.
Pam Chévez is a motion designer and illustrator born and raised in Mexico City where she got her BFA in Graphic Design. Shortly after graduating, her curiosity and passion for audiovisual experiences got her into Motion Graphics and 3D modeling. While in Mexico City, she worked for a variety of studios where she got the chance to be involved in broadcasting, explainer videos, and video-mapping projects for clients like Nickelodeon, Sam’s Club, Kinder, The National Institute of Archeology in Mexico, and more.
Moving to Portland, Maine, gave her the opportunity to go back to branding, illustration, and web design. Today, she is collaborating as a freelance designer with different businesses and studios in Portland, NYC, and Atlanta. She is also now developing her AR and VR skills as she wants to create a more interactive scene for the community in Portland.
Pam has a call for adventure and will take any opportunity that gets her out exploring the world, whether it’s chasing waves to surf, kayaking in the open ocean, or hiking and camping in remote places. She stands for diversity and wants to make the outdoors more accessible for under-represented immigrants.