Welcome to the online Arts Guide 2023…

Providing visitors to mid-coast and Downeast Maine with web and print coverage of visual and performing arts, dining, events, and so much more for TWENTY-FOUR years…

Arts Guide continues to bring you the best…

We are happy to be providing our advertisers and visitors alike with one of the best guides to the Arts – in continuous publication for twenty-two years.
 
From early June through Columbus Day, the print version of Arts Guide is distributed free in hundreds of locations from Deer Isle and Stonington throughout the Blue Hill Peninsula, Castine, and Ellsworth.
     Over the years, many visitors have told us they take their copy of Arts Guide home to keep as a reminder of their trip and as a reference for their next trip.

Click here to View & Download the 2022 Arts Guide! 

Want to advertise?

On the Advertise page, you’ll find advertising rates for both the print and online Arts Guides, as well as a link to download a PDF of the rate sheet. Although there is a specific deadline for advertising in the annual print Arts Guide, you can place an ad on the website at any time.
     Our readers – and our advertisers – are important to us. Please let us know what you think!

editor’s note. . .

Way back in the last century (does that mean Arts Guide has been around for two centuries?!), I was working as a designer for a monthly newspaper. When the publisher informed me that my full time job was being cut to half time with no benefits, I reluctantly said, “Here’s my two week notice.” 
    I decided to start my own design business – mind you, I had no clients, but I was much younger and willing to go out on a limb. After about two weeks of basking in “working for myself,” I realized that I still had no clients (!!!) – and I needed some income soon or I was going to be in trouble! 

My previous job (before the monthly) had been with a weekly arts paper called “Preview!” That was the best job I ever held (before I became my own boss, that is!).
It was early January, 1999, when I made a list of all the galleries and other businesses I had worked with at Preview! and began cold calling. 
Some of you who advertise today, were those trusting souls who signed up for the first annual Arts Guide, based on nothing more than a color mockup with ad rates and sample ads – plus our shared history through Preview!  
The first issue came out in June, 1999 at a modest 16 pages. Over the past 24 years, the page count has grown to as high as 64 pages, and has settled in at 40 pages for several years.  
Also, over those years, we’ve seen galleries come and go. We’ve mourned the passing of old friends like Mary Nyburg (Blue Heron Gallery), Judith Leighton (Leighton Gallery), and my dear friend, Bunzy Sherman (the Potter) among others.  
Additionally, we have seen lots of new faces on the scene – from artists to gallery owners. 
Through it all, I have loved bringing the Arts Guide to readers and advertisers every year. Your enthusiasm and love of this area, its artists, gallerists, restaurants, farmers’ markets, and so much more inspire me to keep at it.  
Next year marks Twenty-Five years of continuous publication (we published even through the first year of the Covid pandemic!) 
I thank you all from the very bottom of my heart – for that initial faith that I could pull it off, and for your continuing support as we approach a quarter century together.  
Whaddya say? Let’s do it all again!