Umbrella man by Jack Eastgate
Open Calls & Collaboration
Artists,
this is the call

We are booking musicians, poets, visual artists, and storytellers for November 18 — and building a standing directory of Maine artists open to collaboration across genres.

Booking Now
Roots & Routes
November 18

Live sets, spoken word, an open mic, and table and easel space for exhibited work. All genres welcome. Submissions close Friday, October 10.

Live at Madrid’s · Portland
Open Calls
Submit Your Work

Active calls for submissions, collaborations, and participation across Maine.

Nov 18 Event · Open Now
Roots & Routes — Perform, Exhibit, Read
We are booking musicians, poets, visual artists, and storytellers for the November 18 event at Live at Madrid’s: live sets, spoken word, an open mic, and table and easel space for exhibited work. Bring work that answers the theme. Roots are where you come from. Routes are how you got here and where you are still going. All genres welcome.
Showing your work: Madrid’s has no wall space, so exhibited work goes on tables and easels. Visual artists bring their own table and one to three easels; we provide the room, the crowd, and the night.
Selling your work: you may offer work for sale at the event. You keep 90 percent and 10 percent goes to the A to Z Fund, so one artist’s sale helps pay for the next artist’s grant. There is no fee to participate.
Deadline: Friday, October 10 · Greater Portland & Maine
Submit Here → See Featured Artists →
Open Now
Sound & Image — Cross-Discipline Pairs
Looking for musician + visual artist pairs to collaborate on a shared piece. ATW will help facilitate introductions and provide a platform for the work.
Deadline: Rolling · All of Maine
Submit Here →
Coming Soon
The Unsaid — Poetry & Visual Response
A themed call for poets and visual artists to respond to silence, erasure, and untold stories in Maine communities.
Opening 2027
Coming Soon
Community As Canvas — Public Art
Seeking artists interested in public-facing installations and community murals in the Greater Portland area.
Opening 2027
The Room
Work on the walls

A Thousand WordZ at the Noodle Factory in Oakland, 2010. A painter working live beside the music, and every wall full. November 18 is the same idea, here in Portland. At Madrid’s the work goes on tables and easels rather than walls, and the room is the same: many genres, one night.

A painter working on a canvas during an A Thousand WordZ show in Oakland, 2010
Painting live
Framed paintings hung close together on a yellow wall at an A Thousand WordZ show, 2010
Work on the walls

Photographs by Bethanie Hines and SooozhyQ

Artist Directory
List
Your
Work

Tell us who you are, what you make, and where to find you. We’ll add you to the ATW artist directory and match you with collaboration opportunities across Maine — including the November 18 Roots & Routes stage.

Collaboration Themes
Current Themes

Cross-discipline calls for collaboration. Artists of any genre are invited to respond.

01
Roots & Routes
Art exploring place, migration, and belonging in Maine. Where did you come from? Where have you landed?
Open Now
02
Sound & Image
Cross-discipline music and visual art collaborations. Two artists, two forms, one shared idea.
Open Now
03
The Unsaid
Poetry, prose, and visual response to silence and erasure. What has been left out of the story?
Coming Soon
04
Community As Canvas
Public-facing work — murals, installations, events. Art that belongs to the neighborhood.
Coming Soon
05
New Maine
Celebrating the diversity reshaping Greater Portland. New voices, new visions, new roots.
Coming Soon
Have a theme idea?
Propose a Theme →