h h S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 7 5 9 Arts images courtesy of the artists Art Agitators Stir it up: Social activism thrives in Maine’s fine art world. bold label “MAINER” under images of real Mainers–black, Latino, female, gritty, gay, and otherwise. The arresting images were seen by tens of thousands on the Congress Street columns of Maine Historical Society, among other places. Jay York’s photo series “Jay’s Morning Walk” chronicles the pho- tographer’s daily observations of city life on film. His lens casts an unflinching eye on discarded syringes and uncomfortable scenes of the previous night’s hedonism on Portland streets in the stark light of day. These images appear on hundreds of lo- cal Facebook feeds day-after-day (including mine), like a calendar drumbeat. Everywhere, it seems, we are seeing Maine artists dedicated to stirring social engagement. In fact, well before Trump, art in Maine passed an invisible threshold. While the W hen Governor LePage seized Judy Taylor’s largely federally funded “History of Maine La- bor” mural from its spot in the Department of Labor in 2011, artist and activist Rob- ert Shetterly and his Union of Maine Visu- al Artists colleagues mustered more than 400 concerned persons to a press confer- ence at the art-denuded office. The great African American artist David Driskell was this year’s honoree at the Colby Col- lege Museum of Art’s annual Summer Lun- cheon. A crowd of hundreds gave him a standing ovation for his speech about art of the African diaspora, the work he makes in his Falmouth studio, and his own sto- ry of growing up poor and black in the South. Meanwhile, current artists like Pi- geon have grabbed attention with a series of wheatpaste-posted prints featuring the Natasha Mayers is a painter and activ- ist whose 2016 solo exhibition “suits” at the Maine Jewish Museum took an old-school liberal approach to economic justice, por- traying Wall Street’s members, or “suits,” as N a t a s h a M a y e r s Live Wires BUSTED: Natasha Mayers is arrested for an act of non-violent civil disobedience at the launch of a Bath IronWorks destroyer onApril 1,2017. Fog or Lost Souls (2012) by Natasha Mayers By Daniel Kany