Spindleworks Art Center Gardiner
Opens August 2023!

Spindleworks envisions a community where artists of all abilities are valued and inspired to do their best work.

Spindleworks Art Center Gardiner is a shared community space that offers workshops, exhibits, events and creative activities to artists of all abilities. Our studio and gallery space is located in historic downtown at 221 Water Street Gardiner, Maine, has a mission to assist artists with intellectual disabilities in obtaining full and inclusive lives in their chosen community. Our 221 Water St Gardiner, Maine location is OPEN!

Values:
Artistic Growth: Supported individuals receive mentorship from professional artists to develop skills to find their artistic voice and share their work with the community. 
Education and Exhibition:  We see art making as a form of communication. We seek to connect our artists with the community through hosting art exhibitions and collaboratively working on public programming. Our inclusion at the Harlow provides moments for artistic professional development, social engagement, and self-representation in the community. Furthermore, being immersed in the operations of an art gallery increases confidence and independence in the individual we serve. 
Studio: We offer a safe and supportive work environment with access to plenty of space, materials, and artistic mentorship.  Our mediums include painting and drawing, textiles and weaving, writing and poetry.

History:

In February of 2011 Spindleworks held an exhibit “MOSAIC” at the Harlow Gallery in Hallowell. The warm welcome this exhibit received from the community solidified the need for a program within the Kennebec Valley to support the creative growth of individuals within the region. Spinoff Studios, a community support program of Independence Association, was started in December 2011 as a sister program to Spindleworks in order to support artists with intellectual disabilities to develop expressive skills and be fully included in their community.  Spinoff provided studio space, supplies and mentorship to support personal growth. The studio and gallery supported over 30 artists from the greater Kennebec Valley region. This well-loved program closed its space in Downtown Gardiner in August of 2020 in order to protect the health and safety of the program artists during the COVID pandemic. Independence Association remains dedicated to continuing to support the former artists of Spinoff in a new way,  removing barriers to full inclusion in the community. Spindleworks continued to offer programming through a partnership with The Harlow Gallery until its closure in September of 2022. Through the generous support of the community we were able to reopen our programming and return to beautiful downtown Gardiner in August of 2023. Our vision with this new space is to expand our ability to offer programming to meet the needs of artists of all abilities.

Find us at: 221 Water street, Gardiner, Maine