If you’re planning a trip to Maine and love culture, the Abbe Museum Indian Market should be on your list. There’s no shortage of festivals and events they have each year as there is magic in this wonderful state beyond the hottest summer months. I learned about the Abbe Museum Indian Market during the New York Times Travel Show — see our round-up — when I stopped by the Visit Maine booth, that I wanted to share a little information about for planning purposes.
Attending artists who have their artisan work at the Market with their tribal affiliation – from left to right: Geo Neptune (Passamaquoddy), Peter Buome (Upper Skagit) & Sharon Trudeau (Odawa)
Unique to Maine, the Abbe Museum Indian Market is held every May. More than 75 Native American artists and performers from 35 Nations across the U.S. and Canada will attend the inaugural Abbe Museum Indian Market (AMIM) on May 18-20, 2018, in downtown Bar Harbor, which is one of my favorite spots in Maine.
The event will also include a fashion show, film festival, storytelling, dancing, music, and other internationally acclaimed performers.
Small festivals are found throughout the year in Maine, but a juried Indian art show is relatively unknown in the Northeast. Award-winning Wabanaki artists like Jeremy Frey, Theresa Secord, Emma Soctomah, Geo Neptune and Sarah Sockbeson travel out West each year to participate in the Indian Arts marketplace, and they’ve repeatedly taken top prizes.
By creating the Abbe Museum Indian Market, the Museum will shine a bright light on Wabanaki artists and deepen the economic impact of art making for tribal communities.
Curator emeritus Elizabeth Weatherford from the National Museum of the American Indian is working with the Abbe Museum and Film Festival host Reel Pizza Cinerama to screen and select Indigenous films, which will be shown all three days of the event. The highly anticipated fashion show will showcase Native American fashion and accessories representing both couture and contemporary looks.
The Museum will communicate more details about the market on their website including information about lodging, travel, and additional special events.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
