HALLOWELL — The Kennebec Valley Art Association recently received a $5,000 grant from the Kay E. Dopp Fund of the Maine Community Foundation in support of the planning and partnering phase of Community Supporting Arts, a community based arts project that will match artists with farmers. The artists will visit their partner farms regularly over the 2017 growing season, creating artwork based on their experiences, inspired by their partner farmer’s lives, work and landscape. The project will culminate in exhibitions of the work at three Maine venues, The Harlow Gallery in Hallowell, Maine Farmland Trust in Belfast, and Engine in Biddeford. A call to artists and farmers is underway, with submission deadline of Sept 1. The first CSA project took place in 2012.

Participating farmers are required to have a CSA program and can be located in Maine. In a CSA, customers invest a “share” in their farm at the beginning of the growing season. In return, farmers are committed to provide fresh food of the highest quality to CSA members, usually on a weekly basis though the season. This project will use the power of art to promote the economic and environmental benefits of organic farming and of buying locally grown food instead of relying on the corporate food industry, especially in an era of rapid and sustained climate change.

CSA 2012 Artist Kate Emily Barnes was paired with Grassland Organic Farm in Skowhegan. Photo by Michael Ferry

"Coolidge Effect," Linocut, by Scott Minzy,was paired with Long Meadow Farm during CSA 2012. Contributed photo

For more information, visit harlowgallery.org, mainecf.org or call 877-700-6800.

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