Executive director hopes to expand after summer fundraising campaign

By Molly Lovell
Editor
    For nearly two years Mary Jo Marquis has been giving Scarborough residents a taste of the arts. Marquis is co-founder and executive director of the Fiddlehead Center for the Arts and said the number of students has doubled since the center’s arrival in town.
     Marquis said she and co-founder Jacinda Cotton-Castro started the non-profit center in Scarborough because of the number of young families in town and the need for alternative education in the arts.
     Fiddlehead offers programs for kids beginning at age 3 as well as classes for pre-teens, teens and adults. “Kids are offered a taste of the arts in school–we give them the opportunity to develop and accelerate those interests,” Marquis said.
     The center offers unique programs such as Lego robotics, an improv comedy program, musical theater programs and a course where students make animated movies among others. Students will also take a trip to Black Point this summer and learn about Winslow Homer and create art inspired by nature.
     Later this month the center is presenting an event called Picture This! A Historical Portrait of Portland. It’s a citywide celebration of Portland’s history through the arts and will feature historical tours, music performances and hands on architectural and art activities. The event is a major fundraising campaign for the center. For more information on the event or to volunteer visit www.picturethisportland.org.
     The event has generated interest from Scarborough’s 350th anniversary committee and now Marquis is on board to create a similar event indigenous to Scarborough for their celebration next summer.
     Marquis and Cotton-Castro started a Fiddlehead Center for the Arts in Gray five years ago and now offer an 8,000 square foot facility in the town.
     “In Gray there was a real need for after school programs. There was a huge deficit. I’m starting to see that trend in Scarborough,” Marquis said.
      The Gray center includes a ceramics studio, a theater and music performance recital studio, private music rooms, fine art and technology studios as well as space for their Reggio Emilia based preschool.
     The Reggio Emilia educational approach is for 3 to 5-year-olds and emphasizes the arts and communication and features music, movement, work with clay and an introduction to Spanish. Reggio Emilia is a city in northern Italy comparable to the size of Portland. As the town recovered from World War II its people decided to build infant-toddler centers the focused on art and group projects. There are 27 Reggio Emilia inspired schools in the United States, including the Fiddlehead centers in Gray and Scarborough.
     After being in Scarborough for two years, Marquis is beginning to see a need for an expansion of the center, which she envisions will mirror Gray’s center. The Scarborough center is currently housed at the St. Nicolas Episcopal Church on Rte. One.
     When she was looking for a venue in Scarborough she sought help from Harvey Rosenfeld, president of the Scarborough Economic Development Corporation.
     Two years later, Marquis, with Rosenfeld’s help, wants to seek funding and possible locations for a new community arts center in town. A campaign hasn’t yet gotten underway, as Marquis wants to focus on the Picture This! Fundraising event this month, however, the idea is not far from her mind.
     Marquis said an arts center would be a great way to bring the community together and “get everyone under one roof.” She would like to work it out so busses could drop kids off at the center after school so working parents would not have to worry about transportation. Marquis added that statistics show that kids are more likely to engage in risky behavior between the hours of 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.
     “Scarborough doesn’t have a heart–there’s no community center. I think it would be appealing on so many levels to have a community arts center,” she said.
     Rosenfeld said the idea of a community arts center is very appealing. He said having some sort of a community center has been on the minds of a lot of people in Scarborough for a while. With the Scarborough Public Library expansion not going forward for the time being and the town’s failure to follow through with plans for a YMCA, Rosenfeld said he thinks an arts center would be welcomed and a benefit to the town.
     Marquis said she’s trying to make bridges into the community. The center is sponsoring Scarborough’s summer concert series. She said it’s always a challenge to be the “new kids on the block,” recognizing that it takes time to create awareness.
     “Our most effective way to distribute our program brochure is through the backpacks of kids in the school districts. As a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, most school districts support that . . . it is our hope to do that in Scarborough at some point as well,” Marquis said.
     Fiddlehead currently distributes brochures in backpacks in the towns of South Portland, Yarmouth, Cumberland, North Yarmouth, Windham, Gray/New Gloucester, Raymond Powell and Durham.
     When asked if there’s an active interest in the arts in Scarborough, Rosenfeld said, “On the surface there doesn’t seem like there’s an active interest, but I think it’s one of those things that as soon as the opportunity comes up, you’ll see a lot of interest.”
     Rosenfeld said because most of Scarborough’s buildings are new, it’s difficult to attract artists because it’s more expensive to buy or rent space for studios. He said once the center’s major fundraisers are completed this summer he wants to visit Gray’s Fiddlehead Center as well as work on generating interest among Scarborough business leaders about an expanded Scarborough location.
     For more information about Fiddlehead Center for the Arts visit www.fiddleheadcenter.org.