Cocoa Tea’s new song “Barack Obama”

Interview with Cocoa Tea about his song “Barack Obama”

I am going to put it out there that the North Street Community Garden in Portland is the most scenic community garden in the country. Maybe there are others that compete . . . I might ultimately be able to settle for top ten. But if there are others that are as nice- I want you to tell me about them!

Peter and I have a plot in the North Street Community Garden in the East End of Portland. We were on the waiting list for two years, but it was worth it. From our little patch of paradise, we can watch the sun set over Back Cove and Mount Washington in the distance (on a clear day).

The North Street Garden was just doubled in size, bringing the total number of garden plots managed by the city to 126 (at North Street and several other gardens around town). The expansion also included a pretty sizable school garden for the East End Community School across the street (in the background of the photos below- you can just make out the solar panels on the top of the building), and a small orchard of apple and pear trees- a pet project for Jeff Tarling, the City’s Chief Arborist and one of my heroes here in Portland.

Not only is the view awesome- but the dirt is good and the sun is strong. Combined with the regular rainstorms we’ve been having- it’s a freakin’ vegetable factory up there!

It is still pretty early in the season for Maine, but I am really enjoying the leafy green colors and textures in our garden. In the next few weeks our lavender, coreopsis, and lilies will blooming- giving it a whole different ambiance.

Hello!

I am the very proud first intern ever at Port City Studios! And I am so very thrilled to be here. I’m going to be a senior at Bates College in Lewiston this fall. I attended Connecticut College for my first two years of college (where I assembled a great little toolbox of design skills), before transferring to Bates. Having grown up in Maine, I found it hard to be away from the snowy winters and friendly locals. I’m an Art and Visual culture major at Bates, concentrating in photography and design. I was introduced to book art while at ConnColl and instantly fell in love with it.

[Read more →]

Yesterday Bitsy (our new intern for Port City Studios) and I went over to watch Vivian Beer finish up the installation of her two public art pieces at Winslow Park. As co-chair of the Winslow Park Selection Committee with Jay York, I was part of the group that selected Vivian’s work for this location. It was a fun process, and it is particularly exciting to see the pieces in place. Over the course of the summer, the remainder of the work will be completed including some landscape and planting work, as well as a granite veneer on the base of Rustle.

We were joined by Jack Soley, the new Chair of the Public Art Committee, and his daughter Luna, and Joe Malone, a former Public Art Committee member.

I got to be the first person to sit on the Cloud Couch after its installation. That was kind of fun. Bitsy took all of these pictures.

As part of our 2008 Independents Week activities, Portland Buy Local is sponsoring a Buy Local shirt design contest.

The winning submission will become the design for Portland Buy Local’s 2009 shirt.  The contest winner will receive gift certificates to three of our member businesses along with a free shirt.

Contest guidelines are as follows:

• Design can include PBL’s existing logo (or some adaptation of it) or not.  The logo is available for download on our web site at www.portlandbuylocal.org.
• Please submit designs as tif or jpeg files in 300 dpi, as Word documents, or on paper.
• Designs may be submitted by email to info@portlandbuylocal.org or post at PIBCA, P.O. Box 584, Portland, Maine 04112.

Submissions are due by Friday, July 11th. The winner will be announced in early August.

I was in New Orleans over the weekend as part of a convening of grantees of the Andy Warhol Foundation. Walking around the Warehouse/Arts District I spotted this urban infill project.

Seen at the Porch in the Seventh Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Not Our Problem Dude - Seen at a the Barrister’s Gallery in New Orleans. The story is that the NOPD is known to say, Not Our Problem Dude. The signs are cut out of sheet metal from junk cars and assembled into messages of all sorts. Artist Unknown

I finally got around to making some final updates to the Indie Biz Awards site. Perhaps most importantly, I added an “Acknowledgements” page, giving thanks to the incredible volunteer committee (Avery, Susan, Peter, Dave, Heather and Brianna!!) that worked with me to organize the event, as well as the event sponsors, the silent auction and food contributors, and several organizations that provided support and materials so we didn’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Thank you!

Peter and I are staying for a few days at Meg and Dave’s lovely new home in Bartlett NH. They built the house from scratch over the last year or so, from 100% non-toxic materials (no plywood, glues, formaldehyde’s, etc)– many of our regular readers are familiar with the house already.

Curious enough to come to see it? They’ll be hosting an open house on June 22nd with representatives from Revision Energy (formerly Energy Works), and several more of their vendors and partners.

Yesterday afternoon, Meg and I went for a little drive to Bethlehem – “the Poetry Capital of New Hampshire” – to catch a presentation by Michelle Long of Sustainable Connections. Michelle is always inspiring to listen to; she and her husband have made some incredible achievements in Bellingham Washington through their work with Sustainable Connections. I’ve heard her speak now 4 or 5 times and every time, though it is always generally the same outline, there is new material reflecting the amazing impact they have made since the last time I heard her talk.

For example this year one of the big gains was in renewable energy usage in their county. They went from 0.6% to 12% in a single year– as a direct result of the Sustainable Connections campaign. No only that, but because of bulk pricing, the price of renewable energy dropped 40%!

I took away a few important tidbits yesterday:

Number 1 was that for each of their programs they do three things: Market Development, Education, and Connections. This makes a lot of sense. For example with their Green Building program, not only are they training architects and builders, but they are also working with consumers to build demand for green buildings. And they are connecting the architects and builders with local government officials to help ensure that innovative projects can get through the regulatory process. Result: highest per capita number of LEED buildings in the country, two LEED Neighborhood Development pilot projects, and 800 LEED accredited professionals.

Number 2 was “Be specific!”. The example she gives is her “Bike Friendly” Campaign- rather than simply telling her member businesses to be bike friendly, she gives them materials that specifically describes 8 steps to become bike friendly, and includes with the materials a form you would need to submit to the city to get a bike rack in front of your store.

Number 3 was a “Bias for Action“. Just do something already! You can talk all you want about the perfect solution, but . . . there is no perfect solution, just thousands of good solutions working together to change our perspective and right some wrongs.

So, let’s get to it!

Last Friday and Saturday I joined more than 500 other business-people and “local” activists from around the country for BALLE’s 6th Annual Conference in Boston, entitled Grow Deep. BALLE (the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) is a nationwide organization that provides resources to local and regional networks of local and independent businesses working towards a sustainable, prosperous, more “local” economy. Portland Buy Local and the Portland Independent Business Alliance are members of a similar organization the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA).

Highlights included a panel on localized economic development, moderated by Micheal Shuman, a customer service “training” from Paul Saginaw of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, and some really exciting conversations with some other great folks working in New England about how we can work together to have a bigger impact and create a new vision for the New England economy.

This was my fourth BALLE conference, so it was great to see some familiar faces, including Keith Lasoya, Teddy Rouse and the gang from the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance, Chris Lindstrom from EF Schumacher and BerkSHARES, and some of the folks from New England whom I had just had the opportunity to meet a few weeks ago at a regional leadership gathering.

Peter joined me on Saturday and took some pictures- I hope to write a more complete description of a few of the more exciting panels and speakers. Here is the post we wrote last year about the conference in Berkeley.

This afternoon, in case I haven’t gotten enough BALLE yet this week, I am going to a presentation in New Hampshire by Michelle Long of Sustainable Connections at WREN (the Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network). I met a few folks from WREN at lunch on Saturday and am really looking forward to learning more about this exciting organization.

This post was on the Wooster Collective a few weeks ago and I finally put 2 and 2 together. The graffiti art on the back of the train is an image of Elizabeth Cotton, original composer of the song “Freight Train” Watch the You Tube video!

Amnesty International was in Downtown Portland for the last two days, featuring a Guantanamo Bay Cell. The Cell is a protest of the human rights violations of the United States in Guantanamo. The US Administration, being the smart cookies they are, uses this Cuban base to operate outside of the law of the United States.

Salt Institute For Documentary Studies held it semi-annual student exhibition at Space Gallery on May 26th. The exhibit featured radio, writing, and photography pieces of stories from Maine. It was pretty funny watching a crowd of people stare at an empty stage while the radio pieces were airing. Check out Salt here.

D&D created a sand sculpture on Fore Street a few weeks ago.

Outside the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Earlier this month Sally and I were in Cincinnati for a wedding. One of our tours included lunch at the original Rookwood Pottery factory in the Mount Adams neighborhood. A wonderful building which once employeed 200 people producing fine collectable ceramics and architectural ceramics. Rookwood produced work from 1880 to 1941.

In 2004, 124 years after its founding, a piece of Rookwood pottery sold for $375,000 at auction, setting another world record for pottery.

Via: Wooster Collective  

Meet Justin Alfond
Democratic Candidate for State Senate District 8

May 15th from 7-8:30 pm
253 Congress Street
(home of Port City Studios and Eli Phant)

Peter Eiermann, Sally Struever & Nolan Thompson invite you to join us for a meet and greet with Justin Alfond- former Director of the League of Young Voters, and currently a candidate for State Senate in District 8 here in Portland.

Justin is an inspiring candidate- we have watched him transform the political landscape here in Portland through his work with the League. It is exciting to imagine the positive impact he will have in Augusta.

The event will be very casual, with some yummy drinkables and edibles. This is not a fundraising event- Justin is a clean elections candidate.

MAY 22nd at SPACE Gallery
6:30-10pm

This event has been one of my recent obsessions- I hope folks in town can make it out! The Indie Biz Awards is Portland Buy Local’s first fundraiser, and it looks like it might even raise some funds! Amazing!

Anyway- the voting is going on as we speak, and this is your chance to help decide who walks home on the 22nd with a soon-to-be very prestigious Portland Indie Biz Award.

Vote at indiebizawards.com and buy your tickets online here.