An orange-and-purple duotone photograph of the UMF Art Gallery in Farmington, Maine. It’s a white building with glassed-in entryway and metal roof with a triangular window. A white box in the lower left says Saved UMF Art Gallery.

—Ann Tracy, UMVA Board Member/Communications

October 29, 2024

UMaine Farmington is threatening to close down the UMF Art gallery.

It’s such a wonderful space and brings the work of artists from all over Maine to a community that otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to this high level and diversity of work.

Farmington is lucky to have a large gallery space in the community Emery Arts Center that predominantly focuses on showing art from the UMF student body and local artists, along with a special show (retrospective, national open call etc.) once in a while.

Joe McDonnell (President of UMF) is saying that such a small university as UMF shouldn’t have two galleries.

The galleries serve very different purposes and bring together very different communities. The UMF gallery (because of its wider scope of work) encourages people from all over the state to travel to Farmington to see these wonderful exhibits by accomplished artists. Sarah does an amazing job curating thought provoking and varied exhibits.

This decision about whether or not to close the gallery is happening right now and McDonell will make his decision within the next couple of weeks.

I am urging each of you (even if you’ve never been to the UMF gallery!) in the name of supporting small university galleries to write a letter to McDonnell in support of keeping the UMF gallery open and send the email to Sarah (maline@maine.edu) who will forward it to McDonnell.

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