In the fracus of First Friday it’s easy to lose sight of what artists in Portland, and creatives in Maine in general, have in common. We talk about authenticity, respect for materials, an awareness of time and the craft of making as attributes of the Maine brand that Portland’s creative economy embodies. Starting this Friday night, at the Coleman Burke Gallery in Brunswick, (and running through May 19) is an opportunity to see a version of that shared sensibility enacted in the work of five accomplished Portland artists.

 A Thickening Rhythm is a show curated by artist Julie Poitras Santos that brings together work that embraces “slowness.” Of the five artists in the show, Lauren Fensterstock, Carrie Scanga, Ling-Wen Tsai, Deborah Wing-Sproul and Julie Poitras Santos herself, all teach at Maine College of Art (MECA) except Scanga, who teaches at Bowdoin College. The pieces range from Fensterstock’s Colorless Field, a black-on-black expanse of tall “grass,” to Scanga’s Ballast, a lightweight stack of intaglio printed “bricks,” to Tsai’s silent Water & Wind video and Sitting Quietly installation of noise-canceling headphones, to Wing-Sproul’s Intimate Distance, a 24-minute video that explores what it means to be seen, to Poitras Santos’ raven mirror/unravel, a performance for actors wearing feathered wings to the constant sound of rolling dice.

Coleman Burke also has a gallery in Chelsea, in New York and a storefront in Portland. The Brunswick space is in the converted Fort Andross Mill building. The Mill is a bustling hive of creative economy activity similar to the State Theatre building or the old Railroad Terminal buildings in Portland, but with the addition of restaurants, a huge indoor flea market and a Saturday morning farmers market.

Fans of “Slow Food,” will enjoy the pleasures of slow art as well. And the drive from Portland to Brunswick, where Bowdoin is located, is easy and not particularly slow, and good eats are just down the hallway from the gallery at the Frontier Café.

Creative economies prosper when they think creatively about themselves. In Portland, you can see that in action in the “Springboard” sessions run by Common Good Ventures.

Every month or so, Springboard pulls together local business leaders to think as out-of-the-box as possible about a nonprofit organization’s problem. In just 90 fast-paced minutes, some of Portland’s most resourceful businesspeople cluster around a table and help the organization develop ideas about a better business plan, more savvy marketing or, really, any business issue.

It all happens at the offices of the VIA Agency, in the historic Baxter Library building, which they have completely retooled for their own look and style. Around the table are local representatives from the worlds of marketing, law, finance, media, retail, and more. Up steps the nonprofit’s Executive Director and he/she walks the group through the organization’s background and particular issue.

What follows is a zippity-quick process of tossing out ideas that are posted on the wall, with time for explanations. In a structured format, the conversation goes back and forth boisterously and convivially. At the end of an hour-and-a-half, the nonprofit comes away with a raft of implementable ideas and perspectives. The for-profit attendees come away knowing that they have had direct—and quick—input into a local organization’s core concerns.

For example, a Springboard session this morning focused on Community Television Network, Portland’s cable access channel. CTN wanted ideas on how to boost sales of their video production services, which in turn support their nonprofit programming. By the end of 90 minutes, the wall was covered with colored stickies categorized into topics like Outreach, Cool Quotient, Social Media, Re-Branding, and Local Products.

Will Springboard replace McKinsey’s management consulting teams? Unlikely. But the process does provide a way for Portland’s nonprofit and for-profit communities to interact in a cooperative, non-threatening, results-driven atmosphere. Plus, it’s free for the nonprofit—and fun for the participants!

You can contact Chad Sclove if you want to attend the next Springboard.

Photo by John Spritz

In a world of uncertainty, why celebrate risk? Why put everything you have into a crazy idea with only the barest beginnings of a plan? Ask that to Corey, Tyler and Seth, above, when they leave Love, The Bus in LA and fly back to Camden to be among the keynote speakers at the Juice 3.0 Conference in Camden on November 4 and 5th. In the case of Tyler Dunham, Seth Brown, and Corey McLean, these three “lifelong friends, filmmakers, and adventurers from the coastal town of Lincolnville, Maine (pop. 2,042). …[are] brimming with optimistic energy and a desire to accomplish something epic.” So they converted an old schoolbus into a grease-powered, web video road trip mobile and have been travelling around the country raising money to fund projects for community organizations and uploading the results in real time. If they can do all that, what else can they do?

And that’s just the point. The creative economy, the innovation economy, the experience economy—these are all expressions of the fluidity required by this crazy world—call it the improvisation economy. The Juice Conference is dedicated to bringing together a wide range of creative, innovative thinkers who have figured out how to put their ideas into action. Speakers and panelists include Maine heavyweights like Governor Angus King, Eliot Cutler and Roxanne Quimby, art world luminaries like Louisa McCall, Donna McNeil, and Eric Fischl and technological innovators like Kerem Durdag, John Ferland and  Steve Page. Portland’s creative economy is well represented by Ben Sawyer, of Digital Mill, Josh Broder of Tilson Technologies, Paul Dobbins, of Ocean Approved, Stephanie Volo of Planet Dog and Jaime Parker of Portland Trails.

One of the highlights of the conference is the pitch contest with $150,000 in financing to the winning business plans. (The deadline has been extended to Friday, October 28, so there’s still time to apply). If you’re not up for facing the “shark tank” in the pitch contest, they also have a short film contest (the deadline to apply is also now this friday.) Putting business plans and people who think about making business plans in front of investors and experts about those businesses is exactly what Juice is trying to do. And if your plan sounds like a mystery bus ride, what start up these days doesn’t?

Maine is full of smart people doing interesting things, but we may all be a bit too independently minded for our own good. That’s why conferences like Juice (and TEDx Dirigo) and places like Portland are so important. As the innovation economy spreads out through Maine, Portland has a role to play as a place to bring people together, to develop stories, to share a great meals, to cross-pollenate and propagate. Josh Broder of Portland’s Tilson Technology was just named to MaineBiz’s Next List for 2011. In the article he predicts that certain parts of the economy are poised for significant growth, “especially in those industries with strong ties to the creative economy. ‘American centers of innovation are our capital—the companies coming from technology, software and social media,’ he says. ‘All of those new things require significant infrastructure, and we’re the infrastructure provider.’”

And the same could be said of Portland. If risk is the juice of the Maine’s creative economy, Portland is it’s glass.

Photo from Love, The Bus

The First Friday Art Walk has entered a new phase in its life cycle as the flagship of Portland’s creative economy. Since July, designer Jennifer S. Muller has been producing a beautiful broadside map and program distributed the previous Thursday in The Portland Press Herald. The way the heavy, uncoated stock of the piece absorbs the ink makes it look more hand made than commercially printed, which is just the right touch for the Art Walk that aims to stoke local commerce through the propagation of fine art.

And building on the uproarious success of the What Cheer? Brigade at the SPACE Gallery Block Party, tonight’s festivities include New York’s Asphalt Orchestra for more street band fun. (Thank you, Portland Ovations) Programs? Marching Bands? And soon food carts? This is beginning to sound like a sporting event for creatives!

Some of tonights highlights include: a performance at 4:30 in Congress Square by The Milkman’s Union presented by the Portland Music Foundation to highlight this year’s Portland entries in the NYC’s CMJ Music Marathon; the opening reception of Good Design is Good Business: The Elements of Branding, the 2011 AIGA Maine Annual Exhibit at the Lewis Gallery, Portland Public Library, 5 Monument Square; an exhibit of photographs from the Portland Ballet’s “Who’s Your Dancer” project will be  on view at the KeyBank Monument Square branch; and the work of at least one Portland mayoral candidate is on view!

The summer’s other great sequel was not in 3-d multiplexes but right on Congress street in Portland. Ad Age named the VIA Agency, Small Agency of the Year, Gold. Why the Harry Potter motif? “The Via agency is housed in the Baxter building, built in 1888 as the public library of Portland, Maine. The imposing peaks and gables of the stone facade and wooden beam-studded high-ceiling interior led one Via client to dub the building the “Hogwarts of Advertising.” … And if the building is Hogwarts, then CEO and founder John Coleman is its Harry Potter. With similar rounded black-framed glasses, an affable charm and wide-eyed curiosity about everything, Mr. Coleman even seems to have Master Potter’s magic touch — in the advertising industry at least,” reads the lead of the Ad Age piece.

Careful readers of this blog will remember that VIA won silver for the same prive last year, no mean feat for a Portland agency. But the intervening year has been a very good one for VIA and they attribute at least a bit of that good fortune to being located here. ”To live in a smaller town and to go to baseball games and do the grocery shopping and all of that, helps in understanding the broad spectrum of different kinds of people, but I truly believe that what it really does is afford us the opportunity to think,” Mr. Coleman said. “I love New York, but I feel blessed to live in a place like Portland.”

Go to the Portland section of the Via website and the first thing you read is “Portland isn’t just where we are. It’s who we are.” (I wish we had written that!) They then lead you through three iPad swipes of highlights that tell you why it’s great to live in Portland followed by listings for eight (at last count) really great jobs. Talk about brand story! VIA is itself one of the best advertisements for Portland that Portland’s got. And for those of you who like a little wistful bitterness to temper your jubilation, read Chief Creative Officer Greg Smith’s reaction to the award, “So That Didn’t Suck.”

For some reason Portland is possessed of a number of hypertrophied creative communities relative to our population: architecture, culinary arts, literature, music and particularly advertising. I asked Dave Goldberg of Kemp Goldberg how big the agency scene is here. “Between ad agencies, PR firms and digital/interactive marketing firms in greater Portland, there are WAY more companies in this business than an area this size should or deserves to have,” says Dave. “I have 27 bookmarked, but there are more.” I asked him what he thought accounted for the disproportionate numbers and he answered with an anecdote, “I was down in West Hartford recently at my 30th high school reunion. I was talking to a woman I knew from school who does PR. From our discussion my guess is that in greater Hartford, an area larger than greater Portland, they have half as many agencies. Hartford does not have a “creative economy.” It doesn’t attract the creative talent, leadership, investment, etc. We in Portland are different.”

To celebrate that difference, the VIA agency is hosting this year’s Broderson Awards, The Ad Club of Maine‘s “Celebration of Commercial Artists from the State of Maine.” In a recent post on Forbes.com, I talked about Dunbar’s number and the size of cohesive social communities. In the hunter gatherer terms I was considering, our advertising community is one of our few creative enclaves larger than a clan and approaching a tribe. A clan, however, would fit the theme of this year’s competition which (mis)quotes the great (and greatly inebriated) Irish poet Dylan Thomas with the title ”In Our Craft or Sullen Art.” Why a sullen art? For Thomas, the poet’s craft was practiced while others slept so as to earn “the common wages /Of their most secret heart.” Sounds a lot like advertising!

In the words of VIA creative director, Teddy Stoecklein, ”To outsiders Maine, let alone Portland or Bangor, is usually just vacationland. Our Fine Art community is often overshadowed by bigger cities like Boston, New York, Providence, even Montreal. The same is true of our Commercial Art community, yet we have some of the most talented people in the nation, right here. The Broderson Awards is hosted by the Maine Ad Club to reward the very best in Maine. But it’s more than just a pat on the back or a trophy. It’s also an acknowledgment that our craft is indeed a Fine Art. It’s both a showcase and a moment of inspiration.” To make that acknowledgement stick, they have lined up some first rate judges: Nina DiSesa, Former Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of McCann Erickson, New York; Rupal Parekh, Agency Editor of Advertising Age; and Peter Friedman Former Executive Producer at Wieden + Kennedy and McCann Erickson, New York.

The deadline for all entries is next Friday, July 1, 2011 at 5 p.m. Late entries will not be accepted. See the Broderson site to find out more.

Like this month’s Abstract conference that created an intersection between the design communities of New York and Portland, the Broderson’s in October will do the same for advertising. But whereas the designers convened in the very nice but clan sized Hannaford Hall at USM, the ad tribe will take over the 2,500 seat State Theatre. In honor of Dylan Thomas, sullenness will not be banished, drinks will be served!

The ABSTRACT Maine 2011 conference this Friday is a great opportunity for designers and publishers of all kinds to come to Portland and get a glimpse of the future of the presentation of content from six creative directors on the forefront of what was, until recently, considered the magazine business in New York. Magazines are morphing into multi-channel, multi-screen streams of branded content, but they still are about telling stories. So consider Abstract to be a kind of 21st century Chautauqua: story-tellers telling stories about how to tell stories. Of course, at LiveWork Portland, we try to tell the story about how smart, independently-minded creative people find Portland to be the perfect place to develop their talents and enjoy their lives. We didn’t really think that Fast Company creative director Florian Bachleda was thinking of relocating to Portland, but we thought we would ask anyway…

1) The emphasis of the ABSTRACT conference seems to be about the ways that technology has transformed the presentation of media. Where on the tech spectrum do you fall personally, from card-carrying Luddite to bleeding edge geek?
I’ve sometimes been a card carrying Luddite who finally tasted geekdom and now I can’t get enough of it. The different options we now have as story-tellers is intoxicating.

2) With all of the additional demands and opportunities that multi-channel publishing presents, do you still consider yourself a designer, or have you become something more hybrid and hyphenated?
I still consider myself a designer, it’s just that the job description for being a designer in 2011 and beyond has radically changed. I see this in my colleagues also: Arem Duplessis at the the NY Sunday Times Magazine has been directing his digital and motion graphics team. Dirk Barnett at Newsweek is about to tackle that side of his new gig. Luke Hayman at Pentagram is always out in front with things like this.

3) What are the specific skills that this new world of media requires, have you been able to develop all of those skills yourself, and if not, has your process become more collaborative?
I have not been able to develop as many of those skills as I’d like, but you realize (again) that as long as you have a team of people with those skills, your job as the creative director is to direct. Understanding what everyone does, what’s possible, and being able to give direction is the key, not so much mastering those skill sets yourself. In a perfect world, I would have the time to do that. But even if I did, there’s no way I’m going to be as good as my team that have those specific skill sets. We’ve all heard this before: You’re the conductor and you write the music, but you need a great orchestra to play the individual instruments.

4) Based on your own experiences in the magazine publishing world of New York, what kinds of businesses, design studios, creative communities, etc. will best be able to take advantage of the kinds of cross-platform workflow solutions that you will discuss at the conference?
Any type of company or community that is willing to embrace the future and not always attach a P&L to it. Especially organizations with leaders that are willing to champion new technology. From our crew, you see Scott Dadich at Conde Nast and Gael Towey at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia taking the lead on this within their companies, and the way they’ve been able to move mountains is so impressive. At Fast Company, we’re pushing forward with a tablet app for our annual 100 Most Creative People package because we think it will be a value to our readers, not because it will be some huge money-maker. We’re a magazine about progress and innovation, and there’s never a line item for that.

5) And this is for our local angle: To the extent that technology allows you to move your life and work to another city, which ones would you consider? What are the most important factors for you about the geographic location of where you live and work? And if you didn’t answer Portland, Maine, what factors (other than moving it to Brooklyn!) would make you consider relocating here?
Sorry, it might be impossible for me to leave New York right now. My cat loves it here too much…

Two Fat Cats Bakery sign photo from PeaceLoveandFood blog

Of all the world-class creative directors alighting on Portland, Maine this Friday for the Abstract: The Future of Design in Media Conference, Gael Towey is perhaps in the best position to “get” Portland. Towey has been the Creative Director for Martha Stewart’s magazines and other omnimedias for the past 20 years. Together, Martha and Gael have made the well-crafted and well-curated life knowable and accessible to a generation of Americans that was losing touch with the basic competencies of their own lifestyles. From heirloom apples to the perfect turkey, Martha Stewart Living has shown and told us what to buy—and more importantly—what to do with what we buy.

So it was serendipity last week, as I was considering how to introduce Gael Towey to Portland, that designer Brook Delorme, of Brook There on Wharf Street, posted a piece on her blog entitled “Artisanal Living.” If Martha Stewart turned the artistry of everyday life into an aspirational pastime, many of us in Portland have turned it into a full-time occupation. Brook begins, ”I understand, in theory, the way to really make money … invent something and then remove your personal body, self and time from the process of building and distribution.” But that, of course, is not what Brook is doing in her design business at all, she’s making things, herself, by hand. “The artisanal approach is limited—by working hours in the day,” she continues. “Artisanal manufacturing; whether it’s bread or pottery or handmade clothing— isn’t very scalable.”

And there you have it, Martha Stewart in New York creating content (at scale) about the joys of doing things by hand and recognizing things well done, and Portland artisans filling the hours of their days practicing, in a sense, what Martha is preaching. There is a bit of a fret underlying all of the emphasis on craft in Portland—are we too artisanal for our own good? But in Portland, which was Brooklyn before Brooklyn was Brooklyn, it is not just the art of the hand-made garment or the perfect baguette that consumes us, but also the art of the community. When Brook muses, ”So, were I to desire to grow this business, I’d need to find someone else to at least do some of the stuff I like doing, and I’d have to spend more time doing things I dislike,” we can echo as well that people live in Portland so they can spend more of their time doing the things they like and less time doing things they dislike. Finally, Brook asks, “Can I reframe this somehow? what am I missing?”

This is the question that Portland is asking and to a certain extent, what the Abstract Conference is answering. The conference grows out of the incredibly dense media community in New York that has spent the last few years battling its own extinction from the pressures of what in the ’90s was quaintly called “new media.” But the strength of the community was such that, with the help of technology, they have led the “old media” print publishing companies into the new world of branded apps, social media and mobile content. These creative directors have all “reframed” their skills and talents in the context of multi-platform publishing. So the promise of the conference to participants is a concentrated glimpse of the way forward for designers and publishers, but in a more concrete sense it is about how a critical mass of talent in one place leads to innovation and the growth of new businesses.

Portland aspires to be such a community of creative innovators, and I think many of us have a sense that we are approaching a tipping point beyond which we will spontaneously begin to emit new products and businesses like strange quarks in a particle accelerator. That is the spirit behind LiveWork Portland and our new networking group 2 Degrees Portland. As Brook Delorme wrote in a post we commented on last year, we think more competition from more creatives will be better for everyone’s business. So we’re trying to connect the dots for people interested in relocating here by hooking them up with volunteers here who can help them find their place in Portland.

I asked all of the Abstract panelists “To the extent that technology allows you to move your life and work to another city, which ones would you consider? And if you didn’t answer Portland, Maine, what factors (other than moving it to Brooklyn!) would make you consider relocating here?” Not surprisingly, Gael replied, “I can’t move to Portland because my husband and kids are in NYC, and I love it too much. However, I am excited to visit Portland. I think technology allows us to travel more and live in other cities besides NY.” So we know that she is not coming to Portland on Friday to scout the location, BUT IF she were, this is the kind of thing that 2 Degrees Portland would do for her:

[If the English language had a subjunctive tense with a connotation that means AS IF, we would switch to that at this point in the post!]

2 Degrees Portland coordinator Laura Burden would receive an email from Gael through the 2 Degrees website or Facebook page. Since she would have just read the “Artisanal Living” post, Brook would immediately spring to mind as a good “connector” for Gael. [To become a connector for 2 Degrees Portland, just fill out this short form.] Laura would email Brook and ask her if she would be willing to talk to Gael on the phone or meet with her on her next trip to Portland. Brook would say, ”Sounds like fun! and thank you for thinking of me ” Perhaps Brook would invite Gael to her workshop on Wharf Street and tell her about starting a lifestyle brand in Portland. Then maybe they would walk over to Custom House Wharf for a hands-on stitching demonstration at Sea Bags and then to 2 Note Perfumery on Moulton Street to pick out a gift for Martha. in parting, Brook would wish her luck, ask her to keep in touch and pass on a list of places she thinks Gael would enjoy:

a short list in portland!

my favorites:
fore street <—favorite nice restaurant because it’s relaxed
boda <—-only thai food in portland that’s actually like food in thailand
rosemont market <—they make the best hummous in portland, & competitively price their excellent quality produce
micucci’s <—-luna bread-  the best bread in portland
arabica, bard, hilltop  <—I can’t take sides, I love them all, but almost every day I get a latte from arabica.
quimby colony <—Roxanne Quimby’s exciting and emerging artist colony, with a focus on design
bar lola <—Our artisanal version of “Everyday Food”

granted, most of my list is food-related…but that’s what portland’s about, right?

Switching out of the subjunctive, Gael, even if you’re not going to HQ your own multimedia empire here, we hope you enjoy Portland. If you have the time, Brook would be happy to meet you, Sea Bags really would make a photogenic how-to story for the iPad, 2 Note is great for gifts and the food really is as good as everyone says.

Muchness is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the quality or state of being great in quantity, extent, or degree. — much of a muchness. : very much the same.” And so it is on June 10th in Portland. Not only is AIGA Maine hosting the first Abstract: The Future of Design in Media conference (a much of a muchness itself), but on the same day Kemp Goldberg and GBrittPR are sponsoring the second of their Brand Roundtables, this one on ”The New Definition of Creativity.” Both forums take on what seems to be very abstract topics and render them into examples of constructive actions taken in increasingly complex worlds.

Abstract, in its most concrete terms, is about how designers can thrive in the emerging multiscreen world. It is telling that in this new world of content production, print is just another “screen,” albeit a privileged one with very high-resolution (but low interactivity). The six presenters for the Abstract Conference are all creative directors (or similar) for New York based big media brands, and all got their start (and have lived most of their careers) in print. Florian Bachleda (Fast Company), Dirk Barnett, (Newsweek Daily Beast), Scott Dadich (Condé Nast), Arem DuPlessis (The New York Times Magazine), Luke Hayman (Pentagram) and Gael Towey (Martha Stewart) have all transitioned their charges successfully into the world of websites and apps, and seem to be having a pretty good time juggling them all.

Registration for the conference is still being accepted. The conference will be held at the University of Southern Maine Abromson Center for Continuing Education at 88 Bedford Street in Portland, and will run from 9am-5:30 pm followed by cocktails till whenever.

The “New Definition of Creativity” that Lars Bastholm, chief of creative and digital for Ogilvy & Mather in New York, will talk about also engages with the quantum complexity of  contemporary communications, in this case in the worlds of advertising and marketing. Like the publishers and content creators represented in Abstract, the marketers that Lars will talk about have figured out how to enter the anarchic dialog that their customers engage with daily across multiple communications channels and emerge with their brands intact.

The brand roundtable is free and will include lunch. The event will be held at The Masonic Temple, 415 Congress St. in Portland. Lunch will be served at noon, the presentation will start at 12:30 pm and run until 2pm. RSVP required.

We will be following up with more posts about what the Abstract panelists will bring to Portland. And with local sponsors for the event including VIA, Maine Magazine/Maine Home + Design, Downeast, MaineBiz, USM and Portland Color, there are bound to be more design related events orbiting around the conference that we will report on.

Last night I attended the Portland Phoenix’s Best of Portland Awards at Port City Music Hall. The show began at 7:00, but when I arrived at 6:00 it was already filled with some of Portland’s most creative people. Granted there was a VIP special hour before hand, hmmm why wasn’t I invited? (hint, hint, wink, wink) Fortunately a dear friend held a seat for me, and to my delight food was being handed to me left and right from the wonderful staff of Black Tie Catering. Not to mention that as I looked to my right there was a gorgeous fondue table, which was completely swarmed by eager eaters, ooh if only I had a longer reach!

After Marie Moreshead finished her set (one of the night’s three musical performances), the award announcements began They even started with my favorite category, Arts & Entertainment! Boy, I tell you, the crowd was a super zealous one. As each nominee was announced, enthusiastic cheers made winners out of even those who did not receive an award. I was so excited that I tweeted almost every category and winner, my finger actually kind of hurts today!

The Great Lost Bear won for best burger, and when two loyal customers discovered that the owners were not in attendance they graciously accepted the award for them. “Evan Horton and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to accept the award for the Great Lost Bear. We were honored and promptly delivered it of course,” said Robert Barnes of  revDRTV. Now that’s dedication! I am so proud of the city I live in, I wish I could tweet it all!