Art & History Museums - Maitland grows

A&H’s annual Participation event will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 24, at the Maitland Art Center. This year’s theme is “Circus of the Surreal”. Tickets are $90 for A&H members and $100 for non-members. For more information, visit ArtandHistory.org

A workshop between the Maitland City Council and A&H will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 13, at the Maitland Council Chambers.

The directors of Art & History Museums – Maitland want you to do more than just view the art they have on display at the annual Participation fundraising event, they want you to see, touch, hear, smell and even taste the best of what the local art community has to offer.

“It’s local artists, local performers, and local food in a venue that’s a local treasure,” A&H Director Andrea Bailey Cox said. “It’s really about everything great that the local community has to offer.

Nearing the end of its inaugural year — following the initial merger of the Maitland Historical Society and Maitland Art Association in May 2010 — A&H is taking this time to look back at what they’ve accomplished so far. Through the Participation event on March 24, it will work to set the stage for what kinds of events and programs it hopes to host in the future.

A&H will also be participating in a workshop with the Maitland City Council on Tuesday, March 13, to evaluate and discuss the status of its past, present and future relationship with the city — spurred by a request by Councilman Phil Bonus at a January City Council meeting.

“It’s an opportunity for us to come in and give them any information they’re looking for, and an opportunity for us to touch base with them on the progress of a lot of our shared goals,” Cox said. “We look forward to telling them about all the great things we’ve accomplished in such a small amount of time.”

Past, present, future

On March 24 the Maitland Art Center will open its iron-crafted gates for an evening of performance, still life and interactive art. This year A&H’s Participation event is themed “Circus of the Surreal”, and aims to make all attendees part of the art in an evening of art, dining and diversions.

Held annually to help engage the community in the creative and cerebral process that goes into the art on display in the Maitland Art Center — and raise money for its programs and operations — this year’s event, A&H Director Andrea Bailey Cox said, is going above and beyond.

Each of this year’s 14 participating artists are not only contributing a piece of artwork for the evening’s silent action, but also have been given free rein to design the table at which they will dine with attendees, as a work of installation art.

The artists, Devin Dominguez, A&H’s director of development says, have worked to create “full on environments” for their table settings. From creating entirely new table structures and flatware for their pieces, to building sculptural centerpieces and formatting projections of digital imagery onto the tables, she says attendees are in for an immersive art experience.

“They essentially become part of the artwork and that’s sort of the surrealist tie-in to the theme,” Dominguez said. “It’s not just about what you see, but how you interact with it… it hits all of the senses and that’s really one of the things we’ve worked hard to do.”

The Maitland Art Center, originally an artist colony and research studio when it opened in 1937, has served as the hub of Maitland’s artistic cultural core for generations.

With the Maitland Art Association’s merger with the neighboring Maitland Historical Society in May 2010 forming the Maitland Art and History Association — now known as Art and History Museums–Maitland — Cox said it offered them, as a bigger, unified organization, a strengthened role in the community and more opportunities for both organizations to succeed.

“We’ve been literal neighbors for many, many years, and this was an opportunity for both of us to improve how we work in our missions to promote arts and history in the Maitland community,” she said.

From physical facility improvements, to upgraded programming, surpassing its fundraising goals, and with more renovations on the horizon, Cox said A&H is well on its way to a continued long, prosperous future.

Pending the end of the one-year trial period A&H signed onto with the city of Maitland, which will automatically renews for a 51-year lease in July if it passes review, Councilman Bonus proposed a workshop to examine A&H operations, scheduled for Tuesday, March 13.

Bonus said he doesn’t think the citizens of Maitland are getting enough value in the programs and services provided by A&H for the amount of money the city is putting into it. He says due to economic pressures he thinks the city would fare better running the art and historical centers itself, through its leisure services department.

“I think the meeting on the 13th will be instrumental in allowing us to exchange information and draw the appropriate conclusions,” he said.

Cox, however, said A&H has been operating more programs than ever on less money from the city, from its two annual fundraisers — Participation and Evening in the Grove — to its Culture and Cocktails and Artists in Action programs, making it an economic asset for the city.

Mayor Howard Schieferdecker said he is looking forward to hearing presentations from both sides at the workshop, but says that aside from Bonus, in his own observations he’s heard and seen nothing but positive things about A&H’s progress in the past year.

“The art center is a major part of Maitland history; it’s a very special part of our culture,” he said. “I wish nothing more than to do what we can to see it succeed.”