where creativity and community meet
Board of Directors
The Eastport Arts Center
The Eastport Art Center is guided by a Board of Directors that meets monthly to guide the organization and help it meet its mission. Terms are for two years, and must be approved by the majority of the Board. All Board Meetings are open to the public. If you are interested in joining our Board, please contact info@eastportartscenter.org
Cathy Adelman – President
Cathy now lives in Pembroke, after four decades on a rural homestead in southwestern Maine. She is a visual artist working with paint and a variety of media and natural materials. In addition to raising four children, Cathy was a dedicated art educator for twenty-five years. She and her husband Tom are enthusiastic participants in the Northern Lights Film Society’s weekly screenings and discussion
Gregory Biss – Vice President
Composer and pianist Gregory Biss has lived in Eastport since 1975. His music has been featured by the Denver Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he performed the Schumann Piano Concerto with the PBSO in 2012. He had a 20-year career as a scuba diver in the aquaculture industry, has been a longtime member of the piano faculty at Summer Keys in Lubec, and operates a small business as a piano technician. He also serves on the Peavey Library Board and for many years was an Eastport City Councilor.
Polly Kipp – Treasurer
Polly Kipp has more than 30 years of experience in organization and leadership development in the financial services industry. She previously worked at the 92nd Street Y, a cultural and community center in New York, and received a BFA in Voice from Carnegie Mellon University. She is a member of Quoddy Voices.
Cynthia Morse – Secretary
Cynthia Morse is the co-owner with her husband Michael of the Eastport Breakwater Gallery on Water Street in Eastport. When she is not tending the gallery she is enjoying painting views of Eastport and surrounding areas with pastels.
Marged Higginson
Marged has served Eastport on the Boards of Eastport for Pride, G.E.E.C.A., Downeast Acadia Regional Tourism, Border Historical Society and Central Congregational Church in the 20 years since arriving here. In New Jersey she was a respiratory therapist, singer, and member of a 100-voice chorus, and raised two daughters. She and her husband then owned a full-service inn in Connecticut. She happily co-produces the Concert Series and the Sunday Afternoon series and founded The Festival of Trees at EAC.
Paula Horvath
Paula Horvath is an award-winning journalist who also taught communication for nearly 30 years at the University of North Florida as a full-time faculty member. In Jacksonville, she founded and ran the Hope Fund, a philanthropic project that raised over $3 million for the community. She is currently writing an historical novel based on the experiences of her grandfather, a union activist in the early 1900s. She helps run the Writers Group at EAC, along with fellow Board member Catherine J.S. Lee.
Melinda Jaques
Melinda Munford Jaques lives in Dennysville. She holds a B.S. in Art Education from Southhampton College of Long Island University. Melinda was the Curatorial Assistant at the Parrish Art Museum in Southhampton, New York from 1979 to 1993. She is now the Curator of Art and Archives of the Robert Mumford estate, a member of the Outreach Committee at the Down East Coastal Conservancy, Curator at the Dennys River Historical Society and Trustee at the Dennysville Memorial Public Library.
Jude Kempe
Jude Kempe is a muti-media artist, film/video maker, music dabbler and sometimes carpenter. She is currently the president of Eastport Gallery and has finally moved permanently to Maine after living part time in Colorado and part time in Pembroke for more than 20 years. She did her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, worked on her MFA in Film at Columbia College in Chicago and has worked in both photography and video editing, as well as teaching video.
Catherine J.S. Lee
Catherine J.S. Lee is a special educator at Shead High School, a fiction writer and haiku poet, a book reviewer for The Quoddy Tides, a devoted flower and rose gardener, and a volunteer DJ with a blues show, “Blues for Your Pocket,” and a folk-music show, “The Wildwood Flower Hour,”on local radio station WSHD. She is currently president of the Eastport Public Library Association and secretary of the City of Eastport Historic Review Board.
Éric Messin
Éric Messin grew up in the French alps, and as a son of an artist painter he was exposed early on to the art scene. When he came to the U.S. in 1983, his calling for jewelry allowed him to best express his sense of esthétique. After several years of working for the most prestigious jewelry houses in NYC, including Van Cleef and Arpels, he opened his own shop in Southampton, NY, catering to an exclusive private clientèle. He was a staff member of the Southampton Historical Museum for 14 years, and taught his craft to hundreds of students in the Pelletreau silver shop. He has been featured in many magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, as well as local television networks. Éric moved with his wife and 10-year-old son to Pembroke so he can spend more time painting traditional icons, skiing down the local slopes, and sailing and kiteboarding in the beautiful coves of the Bold Coast.
Charles "Chick" Moore
Charles R. Moore is a retired trial attorney. In his retirement he has enjoyed the opportunity to explore public service projects and to work on issues which he believes are important to our country, such as a free, independent and ethical press. He also has a special interest in supporting Eastport, Maine, where his mother was born—a small, unique community on the Downeast coast of Maine.
Brian Schuth
Brian Schuth is an actor, director, software developer and musician and has been involved in the cultural life of Washington County for over a decade. He is a founding member of the Magnificent Liars and the Passamaquoddy Bay Symphony Orchestra, and has served as Artistic Director of the Maine Youth Summer Theater Institute at the University of Maine at Machias. He lives in Eastport with his wife, Alice with whom he raised three boys.
Barbara Smith
Barbara is a registered nurse who currently works per diem in Eastport’s dialysis center. She spent many years as a potter, and her latest creative outlet is creating hand beaded earrings in the Native American tradition. A founding member of the EAC, Quoddy Voices, and Stage East, she loves to sing and has been involved in numerous dramatic and musical productions. In her younger years, Barbara taught K-8 music and art, and later directed the Down East Hospice volunteers program.