Program Type:
ExhibitAge Group:
All AgesProgram Description
Event Details
Join Portland Public Library for First Friday Art Walk from 5:00-7:00pm. This month, we celebrate the opening reception of Pencils and Inks. In addition, Envision Resilience: Designs for Living in a Changing Climate will be on display through mid-March in the Camden National Community Gallery.
Pencils and Inks
Pencils and Inks is a curated exhibition that focuses on the unseen process behind the creation of comics. Comics (sequential art) is an incredible and versatile medium that employs words and pictures to tell stories in ways that prose and static images cannot. Cartooning (making comics) is a multifaceted process that combines writing, drawing, graphic design, and a secret fourth skill that involves the pacing of panels and the unique way time works in sequential art. In this exhibit, we explore the stages of cartooning and shine a light on the hard work and many rounds of revision behind the final pages. From digital artists that start by storyboarding in a sketchbook to artists who loosely paint ideas before committing to a final layout – our aim is to highlight the different processes that artists use to create the comics we love to read.
Pencils and Inks will be on display in the Lewis Gallery from March 7 to April 19, 2025.
Envision Resilience: Designs for Living in a Changing Climate
Curated by local artist Brian Smith, the Envision Resilience: Designs for Living in a Changing Climate exhibition features innovative and adaptive architectural and landscape design concepts by student teams that took part in the 2024 Envision Resilience Portland and South Portland Challenge.
The Envision Resilience Portland and South Portland Challenge semester brought together graduate and undergraduate students studying urban planning, architecture, environmental justice and landscape architecture to connect with community stakeholders for an iterative process of researching, developing and proposing adaptive solutions for vulnerable sites along the cities’ coastlines. Participating institutions included Cornell University, Harvard University, the University at Buffalo, the University of Maine at Augusta, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, Yale University, and the program’s first international partner, the University of Toronto. Students immersed themselves in the culture, values, and history of Portland, South Portland, and the Casco Bay Island communities to develop innovative design strategies that address challenges like affordable housing, transportation, urban heat, equity, local industry, and ecology through the lens of climate and adaptation.
The exhibition serves as a call to action, encouraging the public to envision neighborhoods, working waterfronts, parks, housing, and infrastructure with hope. Punctuating the designs throughout the exhibition is a compelling collection of artwork by Lin Snow, whose work examines the natural world through a vivid chromatic lens.
The Portland Public Library exhibition marks the first in a series of displays throughout Portland and South Portland that showcase the students’ design proposals from the fall 2024 semester. Learn more at https://www.envisionresilience.org/exhibitionsevents.
Envision Resilience: Designs for Living in a Changing Climate runs from late January through mid-March, 2025.
Click below for more information about the Lewis Gallery:
Lewis Gallery | Portland Public Library (portlandlibrary.com).