About Us
We are a group of local artists and community members who are working in collaboration with Acadia Partners for Science and Learning (APSL) and Schoodic Arts for All to create a biennial sculpture symposium. The Symposium will be held at the Schoodic Education and Research Center, which is located at the Schoodic Section of Acadia National Park, Maine, USA. The first Symposium will be held in the summer of 2007.

Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium
is a new biennial cultural event that will bring together artists, visitors, and communities for a common goal—sculpture for the public. This gathering of sculptors is a fun and educational way to see how large sculpture is made from one of Maine’s natural resources—granite. The Symposium will run 6-weeks with programs open to the public throughout the event. Up to eight artists from Maine, the United States, and four other countries will be featured. Their sculptures will go to communities in Hancock and Washington counties in Down East Maine.

Our Mission
is to hold biennial, international stone sculpture symposiums in downeast Maine that will engage individuals and communities in public art and result in a large public art collection in Hancock and Washington counties.

The Symposium is made possible through grants, in-kind contributions, and fundraising. Our goal is to
raise enough funds to compensate the artists and to offer the finished sculptures to participating
communities in Hancock and Washington county at a minimal cost.

Thank You
Thank you to the generous sponsors who are making the Sculpture Symposium happen. If you would like to
contribute and join the supporting organizations below, please Click Here.

Supporters / Grants:

Acadia Partners for Science and Learning
www.acadiapartners.org

Schoodic Arts for All
www.schoodicarts.org

National Park Service
www.nps.gov

Maine Humanities Council
www.mainehumanities.org

Maine Arts Commission
www.mainearts.maine.gov

Maine Coummunity Foundation
www.mainecf.org

Maine Stone Workers' Guild
www.mainestone.org

Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium
Planning Committee

Jesse Salisbury, Project Organizer
Jesse is a large-scale granite and basalt sculptor living in Steuben, Maine. He has participated in juried Sculpture Symposiums in Japan and New Zealand, and he initiated and helped organize a 2004 International Sculpture Symposium at the Round Top Center for the Arts in Damariscotta, Maine.

Jesse was born in Steuben, where he began to study sculpture in the 7th grade from a sculptor and friend of his parents who lived near the grammar school. Jesse and his parents eventually moved to Toyko, Japan. He attended high school in Japan and became fluent in Japanese. The year after his high school graduation, Jesse stayed in Japan and studied Bizen wood-fired pottery. He graduated from Colby College, Maine, in 1991, with a major in East Asian Studies and a double minor in Chinese and Art. In 1998, Jesse was accepted as an apprentice with a Sculpture Symposium in Yonago City, Japan. Translating the symposium catalog into English was one of his task.

Jim McKenna, Ph.D.
Jim is the Coordinator for Schoodic Education and Research Center (SERC), Acadia National Park. Jim holds a Ph.D. in oceanography and following six years as a professor of marine science with Williams College, he acted as a marine environmental consultant for the State of Rhode Island for three years.

The National Park Service hired Jim in 2005 to coordinate Acadia National Park's effort to convert the former US Naval Base in Winter Harbor, Maine, into SERC. Jim has been enthusiastic about the Schoodic Symposium project from the beginning and views it as a unique opportunity to add an artistic vibrancy to the developing community at SERC. He serves as the liaison to the Acadia National Park staff on Mt. Desert Island and has arranged for a variety of in-kind donations to the project.

Denny O'Brien
Denny is the Executive Director of Acadia Partners for Science and Learning, the non-profit branch of the National Park Service that brings activities to the SERC site. Denny has been an active member of the planning committee and helps with budget planning.

Mary Laury
Mary is the Executive Director of Schoodic Arts for All (SAFA), a local non-profit arts organization. Mary has brought its annual August Arts Festival to 17,000 people since its inception in 1999. Under her direction, SAFA operates a year-round arts program centered at Winter Harbor's Hammond Hall. In 2006, SAFA organized 15 art shows, 90 performances and 65 workshops. Among these are the Hammond Hall Concert Series, a film series with panel discussions, the Schoodic Summer Chorus, a Show Choir, Pandemonium: Schoodic Steel Pan Band, the Schoodic Arts Theater Lab and the Last Friday Coffee House.

Dan Farrenkopf
Dan is a partner at Lunaform, business in Sullivan, Maine, which creates large-scale urns and planters for gardens and interiors. Dan is a 1993 graduate of College of the Atlantic, an active promoter of the arts in the two-county area, and a member of the Hancock County Committee for the Maine Community Foundation.

Peter Weil
Peter is a retired wood, stone and metal sculptor, and a Selectman in the town of Steuben. Peter is an advocate for the arts, is interested in furthering the display of public art in rural Maine, and in providing his services to bring a Sculpture Symposium to our rural area. He was a first teacher and mentor for Jesse Salisbury.

Jane Weil
Jane is a retired director of a non-profit organization in Machias. She has a strong interest in community development, creative opportunities for children and their families, and in the concept of public art. She has helped to engage the interest of towns that might request public art in the future and proposal preparation.

Karin WIlkes
Karin owns KMW Design, a marketing and graphic design firm located in Ellsworth, Maine. Karin brings a wide range of graphic design, digital imaging, website development and other organizational and communication skills to the project. She is active with the arts and has worked with numerous non-profits in eastern Maine. Karin and her husband also own the Courthouse Gallery Fine Art, which is located in the historic courthouse (built in 1838) in Ellsworth.