A priority for the Foothills Art Center is to find a new home.
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Citing a responsibility to continue stimulating imaginations and delighting audiences throughout the area, Foothills Arts Center has gone back to the drawing board to decide which programs from the past to carry over and what new ideas to pursue.

The result is a fresh, yet familiar direction.

After separating from the University of Maine at Farmington late this summer, many in the local arts community wondered the direction Foothills would take. But the group’s director Anne Geller is confident in its direction.

The arts center brings together children and adults, artists and audiences of Western Maine to share the arts in an atmosphere that encourages learning, exploration and collaboration, according to its mission statement.

The nonprofit’s goals include stimulating artists and aspiring artists to learn, share, and grow; creating wider audiences to appreciate this art; and encouraging collaboration among all community groups.

Funding comes from program tuitions, local fund-raising, performance admissions and grants.

Since forming in 1989, Foothills has had a variety of community projects, including the 100-plus member Continental Harmony Chorus, which puts on yearly shows featuring community members and the Theater for Peace, which gives high school students the lead in improv scenes dealing with teen issues. Those scenes are then performed for middle school students.

Original musicals have been written and performed over the years, actor/playwright Jeri Pitcher is in SAD 9 schools now doing a theater residency thanks to support from Foothills and each year, dozens of youngsters from throughout western Maine attend Foothills Summer Arts Program.

Last week, at a community brainstorming session about Foothills’ future attended by around 30 people, it was decided that these programs needed to continue and more needed to be developed, said Geller.

Countless ideas were tossed around, and now Geller and others will begin paring down the list to start planning programming for the upcoming late winter/spring season.

The major priority, said Geller, is to find a home. After the separation from the college, the organization’s main offices moved back into Geller’s home and current performance space is local school gymnasiums around Franklin County and Livermore Falls.

But there is a need for a more permanent place that would include office, meeting, storage and performance space. Geller’s eyes and ears are open.

“It’s all about building community,” she says proudly of Foothills. “It’s all about neighbors and being like a family.”

Despite the setbacks, there is a core of committed community members, said Geller, and the show will go on both for the aspiring artists and patrons of the art.

Being involved in community arts builds imagination and helps stimulate respect, she said. “It changes lives. It gets people away from the television set and involved. And when people are engaged and involved, they feel good about themselves and that energy carries over to the other things.”

For more information about Foothills Arts Center, contact Anne Geller at 778-0448.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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