Join a creative community.
Teeming with art galleries, music venues, coffee shops, restaurants, independently owned boutiques, museums, theaters, and street performances, Portland’s Downtown Arts District offers top-notch people-watching and plenty of opportunities to engage. Situated in the center of the burgeoning city of Portland, MECA&D is at the epicenter of Maine’s creative arts scene.
During the First Friday Art Walk each month, local galleries, museums, alternative art venues, and many local businesses open their doors to the public for a glimpse of everything that is going on in the arts community. MECA&D and its students are an integral part of the Art Walk. Opportunities are offered for students to share their craft and sell their work. Thousands of patrons enjoy exhibits at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at MECA&D and the June Fitzpatrick Gallery.
The Art Walk serves to connect a wider audience with the local arts, promoting Portland’s unique vitality as a center for the arts while demonstrating the importance of arts and community through diversity and celebration. In Portland, artists don’t “do” art—they live, breathe and practice it, supported by an open, engaged community. Today the Downtown Arts District, with more than 65 participating gallery exhibition and performance spaces, effortlessly reflects this legacy and presents the work of artists from across Maine and beyond.