The museum is housed within the restored Etz Chaim Synagogue, a turn-of-the-century house of worship. The museum is a venue for contemporary art exhibitions feature established, Jewish-connected, and Maine-connected artists and rotate every eight weeks.
Our current temporary exhibitions are listed below.
Masks optional.
Steven Branfman
Maine Jewish Museum – Jody Sataloff History and Art Pavilion
March 9 2023 – April 28 2023
On September 27, 2005, internationally acclaimed potter and raku master Steven Branfman lost his 23-year-old son, Jared, to brain cancer. A week after Jared’s death, Steven went into his studio, took some clay, and made a chawan, a Japanese-style tea bowl. Each day for one year, he made one chawan– they were the only pots he made. Steven’s daily chawan made at his wheel was his own personal kaddish (the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning).
Garry Mitchell
March 2- April 28, 2023
Maine Jewish Museum – Speigel Gallery
In these paintings, I’m creating a space, or a place, or an atmosphere that I can populate with a visual vocabulary of simple forms. I have these source-driven, shapes, colors, and compositional devices. And then when I’m working, I might think “You know what would be good? A red rectangle in the lower right corner.”
Andy Graham
March 2- April 28, 2023
Maine Jewish Museum –
Jody Sataloff History and Art Pavilion
These images document commercial buildings and storefronts in and around Portland, Maine that are unchanged since the photographer’s arrival as a university student in the mid-1970s. Recognizing the suddenly accelerating shifts in Portland’s business landscape, Graham sought to capture parts of the urban landscape likely to disappear.
Natasha Mayers
March 2- April 28, 2023
Maine Jewish Museum – Fineberg Family Community Room
Natasha Mayers has been called “the heart and soul of activist art in Maine.” She is widely known for her work supervising more than 600 school and community murals from Maine to Nicaragua. She supervised painting utility poles in her town which depict local history and were featured in Lucy Lippard’s book, The Lure of the Local. For the past 35 years she has been creating parade “floats” for the local Whitefield 4th of July parade. For Natasha, the painted poles and parade floats represent art by the community, about the community, and for the community, empowering a community to portray and know itself. This exhibit displays a broader extent of her work.
All images copyright of the artist, unless otherwise noted; reproduction not allowed without express permission
Photo Credits. Website by WEBFIX STUDIO.
