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Celebrating 25 Years of Creativity and Community at Waterfall Arts
ARTS ENGAGEMENT
Photo credit: Waterfall Arts
As we’ve explored in previous articles, art is about more than bringing beauty into the world. It’s a way of cultivating individual well-being, communal belonging, and compassionate empathy for others. It can even be a vehicle for social change. Our Arts Program grantees know better than most the power that art has in bringing these benefits to individuals and communities.
In fact, Waterfall Arts has been doing so since 2000. Located in Belfast, Maine, the nonprofit has grown from a small collective of Waldo County artists to a thriving center for arts engagement and education. It’s been a steady presence in the midcoast, helping people of all ages express themselves creatively.
This year, the Waterfall Arts team celebrates the organization’s 25th anniversary, using the momentous occasion to reflect back on decades of programming and envision a bigger, broader future for the organization and the community it serves.
‘Your Community Arts Center’
At its core, Waterfall Arts seeks to nurture the creativity inherent in all humans, believing that art is transformational and expression is essential to both individuals and communities. To bring out such creativity, the team offers a variety of programs.
Workshops
The nonprofit offers regular classes on practices such as printmaking, photography, glassblowing, pottery, and drawing. It’s also home to Maine’s longest-running life-drawing program, and it hosts artist residencies and has flex spaces for specialized one-off classes.
According to Kim Fleming, Waterfall Arts’ Executive Director, the workshops are about both the participants and the instructors themselves: “We really hear the artist, we make sure we pay them, and we always respect their work. We’re an advocate for them on all levels.”
The care that Fleming and her team bring to each engagement with teaching artists and participants resonates throughout the work. “The idea for a workshop has to be something that lights the artist up,” says Amy Tingle, Program Director. “It has to bring them joy, or it won’t bring our students joy.”
Studio Art Space
New or experienced artists can rent studio space on a short- or long-term basis to practice arts like ceramics and darkroom photography. Folks can head to the Creative Cafe to decompress, or spend entire days working on pieces they’ll go on to sell at one of Waterfall’s many art markets.
When we say our tagline, ‘your community art center,’ we really mean it. It’s yours, his, hers, theirs,” says Tingle. “Whether you’re a total beginner who’s never picked up a brush or a professional artist with years of experience, there’s something here for you.”
Exhibitions and Events
“We’re thinking of ways not only to create engaging space inside the building, but bring it outside, too,” says Tingle. Public art exhibitions help Tingle and her team accomplish this goal, encouraging people to see, engage with, and appreciate art no matter where they are.
The “Here Is Magic” mural, for example, features 33 small hexagons arranged in a hive-like pattern on the Waterfall Arts brick building. Each hexagon displays a unique piece of art from a Maine artist: a red-winged black bird by Julie Crane, a bright coastal rendering by Libby Sipe, abstract guitars by Annadeene Fowler, and so many more.
Art All Around Us
In 2024, more than 1,800 community members participated in Waterfall Arts’ workshops and classes, and more than 4,000 visited its exhibitions. And the celebratory 2025 calendar of programming is on track to be even bigger.
The Waterfall team is focused on expanding their afterschool programs in Waldo County elementary schools, increasing studio participation, and launching new ideas to encourage more people in midcoast Maine to experience the joy of various artforms.
In May, for example, the team held the first-ever Petit Rex miniature parade, a New Orleanian tradition in which participants make small floats that they wheel down the street as a mini-Mardi Gras celebration. In Belfast, more than 30 participants created mini floats, and hundreds showed up to experience the parade. “It’s super whimsical and totally joyful, and we hope it brings more people into Waterfall,” says Tingle.
Activities like this not only foster people’s interest in the arts, but also connect communities around shared experiences — experiences Waterfall Arts is more than happy to provide.
What the Next 25 Years Hold
As she was teaching a recent arts class to a cohort of sixth graders, Bridget Matros, Waterfall’s Kids and Family Program Manager, thought she recognized one of the student’s parents. And she did: He was a former student of hers who participated in an afterschool program with Waterfall Arts back when he was a sixth grader.
That’s the power of 25 years of programming: “We’re growing older as an organization, and we’re seeing families grow with us,” says Fleming. Fleming, Tingle, and Matros are committed to ensuring the next generation of arts students has a space to explore themselves creatively and build connections with other art lovers.
In fact, expansion is top of mind for the team going forward. “We’re talking about building a fully accessible campus setting,” Fleming says. “We’re setting some concrete plans this year and hopefully expanding in 2026.”
In terms of programming, the team is committed to giving voice to more underrepresented artists in Maine. The organization’s summer exhibit, “Portals Into Our Future,” is a testament to that commitment. The exhibit brings together glass, print, clay, and photography art from 25 Maine-based artists from marginalized populations. The Waterfall team hopes that each “portal” or piece of art “can bypass preconceived ideas and open spaces for empathy and transformation where other types of encounters may fail.”
Co-curated with Ashley Page from Indigo Arts Alliance, the exhibit celebrates Waterfall’s milestone anniversary, encourages the community to witness the transformative power of art, and forges what the Waterfall team hopes will be long-lasting connections with historically marginalized artists.
“I’m excited about the work that will be part of the show, about the artists who are new to our audience,” says Tingle. “This is the beginning of our relationship with these artists. This is us cultivating a relationship. This is just the start.”