5-8pm, free, all ages

You've probably heard the news that the Polaroid Corporation has decided to cease production of our favorite film, so who knows what future lies ahead for devotees of the beauty created with our beloved instant film? Come support SPACE at the third annual Polaroid Auction, where one of Maine's finest photography shows offers a chance at purchasing affordable art and supporting a needy nonprofit arts organization all at the same time. Sales via our silent auction format, with bidding to finish at 8:00pm.

Preview images here:

Doors open at 8:30pm, music starts at 9pm, $5, 18+
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Some say the dark folk music of Chicago’s Blake/e/e/e sounds like Sonic Youth on opium or the Staple Singers on acid. “The Beach Boys going to church if the church was a mutant disco” seems the most appropriate. These two Italians and two Americans are visiting to support their new record, Border Radio, out now on Freefolk Records. Yeti is a new project featuring members of Portland’s own Tempera with a krautrock groove and motorik beats that would make Amon Duul and Neu! proud.
http://www.blakeeee.com/

Doors open at 7:00pm, event starts at 7:30pm, $5, all ages
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Dark green stripes of watermelon…the blood of someone lost…singing Egyptian music…a cranky soccer ball…living under water—these are some of the things that matter most to fifty of the over 400 young writers the Telling Room worked with this year in intensive workshops in schools and at their downtown writing center. Their writing is celebrated in the new anthology, I Carry It Everywhere. The book features a vivid collection of stories, poems, and startling photographs of fifty of these students holding statements about what really matters. For more information, go to:
http://www.tellingroom.org

Doors open at 9:00pm, music starts at 9:30pm, $8, 18+
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Damon & Naomi are going two decades strong taming melancholy with beautiful music. From their beginnings in the college-rock-band staple Galaxie 500 to their new album “Within These Walls”. Fans of Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen and Scott Walker take note. They bring with them distinguished guests Masaki Batoh from the seminal Japenese psych band, Ghost, and Helena Espvall from Espers.
http://www.damonandnaomi.com/
http://www.dragcity.com/bands/helenabatoh.html

7:00pm, free, all ages

Creative Conversations is a way to connect creative individuals: to each other, to organizations, to information, to opportunities. Sponsored by the Portland Arts & Cultural Alliance, this meeting, the second in a series focusing on writing and reporting on the arts, will provide an opportunity to meet the editors and publishers of the publications serving the Portland community. Karen Beaudoin (The Maine Switch), Rod Harmon (The Portland Press Herald), Laurie Hyndman (Port City Life), and Jeff Inglis (The Portland Phoenix) will join us for our discussion moderated by MECA's Jessica Tomlinson.

Doors open at 6:00pm, lecture starts at 6:30pm, free, all ages

Brian Conley is Chair of the Fine Arts Department at California College of the Arts. In work ranging from large-scale sculpture to live-radio broadcasts and interactive sound installations, his projects focus on the relationship between art installation and scientific display, mixing fact and fiction to explore the human experience within a continuum bounded by technology and nature.
http://www.cca.edu/gallery/artist/191
http://www.meca.edu/newsevents/VisitingArtists.aspx

Doors open at 9:00pm, music begins at 9:30pm, $10, 18+
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Formed in 1981 by brothers Richard and Alan Bishop and percussionist Charlie Gocher, Sun City Girls rendered an eclectic mix of every musical style one can think of -- demented surf, Indian and Asian improvisation, free-form noise, fractured folk, you name it -- with doses of kabuki theater, shadow puppetry, and maverick guerilla stagecraft thrown in. Sadly, Charles Gocher passed away on February 19th, 2007 from a long battle with cancer. Brothers Unconnected will feature Charles' video experiments followed by Alan and Richard performing Sun City Girls songs as an acoustic guitar duet. This tour will most likely be the only time this show will be presented as such and is a tribute both to Charles Gocher and selected music from the 27 year legacy of Sun City Girls. Opening are Sun City Girls compañeros, Portland's own beloved Fire On Fire.
http://www.suncitygirls.com
http://www.myspace.com/fireonfiremusic

Doors open at 9:00pm, music starts at 9:30pm, $8, 18+
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Join Portland’s own Grupo Esperanza for this Summer Solstice Dance Party! The band, if you don’t know, is dance-powered: the more you dance, the better the night. Winner of the Phoenix’s Best World Music act for 2006,07, and 08, the newest evolution of this local Salsa orchestra is excited to share it’s new rhythm with the people on this the longest and sweetest night of the year.
http://www.myspace.com/grupoesperanza

Doors open at 6:00pm, lecture starts at 6:30pm, free, all ages

Jason Lewis is a digital artist and technology researcher whose work revolves around experiments in visual language, text and typography. His other interests include computation as a creative material, emergent media theory and history, and methodologies for conducting art-led technology research. Lewis was trained in philosophy and computer science at Stanford University and in art and design at the Royal College of Art and is currently an Assistant Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, where he founded and directs Obx Laboratory for Experimental Media.
http://www.thethoughtshop.com/

Doors open at 5:00pm, panel discussion at 6:00pm, free for MFVA members, $5 for nonmembers

Featuring a dynamic panel discussion on Fundraising, Marketing and Grant Strategies to help get your film off the ground. For more information, visit:
http://www.mainefilm.com/news.html

5:00 - 8:00pm, free, all ages

Artist Patrick Corrigan is a local renaissance man, working out of his Bayside studio Fort Awesome on a variety of music projects, paintings, mixed media pieces, silk-screened prints, illustrations and hand-painted custom guitar pedals. Much of his work stems from collaborations with other artists, and this show involves Jenny Gardiner and Garry Bowcott (as the collective Doghaus), Crank Sturgeon, Chris Barry and Dave Noyes. In July we’ll host some related music projects, including the long-awaited release of Corrigan’s band Seekonk’s third album.

Doors open at 6pm, music starts at 6:30pm, $10, all ages
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Harry and the Potters are pioneers of wizard rock, a form of indie rock with themes inspired by the J.K. Rowling book series and lyrics usually from the point of view of the fictional protagonist, Harry Potter. Last time this band rolled through town they played to a packed Portland Public Library so buy your tickets now! Joining the fun are friends-of-Hogwarts, Uncle Monsterface and MATH the band.
http://www.myspace.com/harryandthepotters

Doors open at 7:00pm for the 7:30 screening and at 9:30pm for the10:00 screening. $8, $5 for members, all ages (see note below)
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Curated by Mike Judge (creator of “Beavis & Butthead,” and “King of the Hill”), The Animation Show visits Maine for the first time with an all new collection of the world’s greatest animated short films. It’s a ground breaking program of over two dozen hilarious adult animation from tomorrow’s generation of great animators, (and some seasoned vets like Bill Plympton, PES and Joel Trussell). This isn’t a dirty “adults only” animation show but the program does skew towards a mature audience with some explicit language and adult subject matter. Be warned. (80m)

Registration begins at 9am
Workshops begin at 10:30am and run through 5pm,
$10 includes lunch for pre-registrants. Scolarships available.

Program
Get Noticed: When to pursue grad school, grants, residencies, galleries, art fairs and museums
Working It: Building relationships in person and online
Getting Some: Lunch and speed networking on what's next for you
Get it Together: How to balance your studio work, day job, checkbook and calendar.

Pre-Register = Lunch on us! Lunch is included only for participants that pre-register. To register, contact Tina Mann at 207/287-2724 or tina.p.mann@maine.gov. Cost of the event will be paid at check-in.

Questions? Call Melissa Potter at 201/239-4521.

Application First Aid available. Bring your application for grad school, residency or grant to be reviewed.

A collaboration of the College Art Association, Maine Arts Commission, Maine College of Art, Portland Arts and Cultural Alliance and SPACE Gallery.

College Art Association's National Career Development Worksops are supported by a generous grant from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.

Doors open at 4:00pm, event starts at 5:00pm. $6, All ages
Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

The Entertainment Experiment presents: Portland punk-rock veterans Covered in Bees will be teaming up with theatrical-thrash titans Man-Witch and robot prog-monsters Confusatron for the first in a series of long overdue all-ages rock shows here at SPACE.
http://www.myspace.com/coveredinbees
http://www.myspace.com/confusatron
http://www.myspace.com/rimeoftheancientmanwitch

Doors open at 6:00pm, event starts at 6:30pm. free, All ages

Martha Buskirk is associate professor of art history and criticism at Montserrat College of Art. She is author of The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art (MIT Press, 2003), and she is currently pursuing work on a new book that examines intersections between museum history and contemporary artistic practices that evoke conventions associated with the collection, souvenir, relic, and archive. Buskirk earned her Ph.D. in art history from the City University of New York Graduate Center, and has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Clark Art Institute and the Henry Moore Institute.