By Carol McCracken  (Post # 1,454)

Due to the weather forecast, the launch party for the Portland Public Art Committee’s new website at the East End Beach on Munjoy Hill has been postponed indefinitely.  It would have given the public an opportunity to view slides of the new website from the beach on a screen along the retaining wall.  The new website includes desciptions of the city’s twenty-eight pieces as well as an interactive map feature that allows visitors to create their own walking tours.

Currently, the public art collection contains twenty-eight works of art that are permanently installed throughout the city, including works of historical significance dating from the nineteenth century, as well as contemporary pieces that reflect the diversity and the spirit of the city.

In April 2000, the City Council established the Portland Public Art Program to preserve, restore and enhance the City’s public art collecton.  The Portland Public Art Program commissions art that engages with the surrounding environment to create, enrich, or reveal a sense of place and to express the spirit, values visions and poetry of place that collectively define Portland.

The event was to have included a bonfire with “fire dancers.”  It may be rescheduled.