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“We started imagining a studio space that was modeled on the diversity in both art mediums and artists that you have in art school,” Scott said. “We didn’t want to leave the variety behind us when we left school.”

In 2003, the trio founded Running With Scissors Art Studios in Portland, a shared workspace for artists across disciplines. Twenty years later, the studios have moved and grown, but the mission is the same. The 16,000-square-foot building is now home to more than 80 woodworkers, painters, ceramicists, printmakers, jewelry makers and other creatives.

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To celebrate this anniversary, Running With Scissors organized the first juried show in its history and curated pieces from current and former members at nearby Cove Street Arts.

Happy May Day! This is a day to celebrate workers and the emergent spring with parades, dancing, flowers and May baskets. As a child I would make paper cones and fill them with homemade cookies and flowers I picked from my neighbor’s garden. I hung them on friends and neighbors doors, rang their doorbell and ran.

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When artists talk about artwork they say things like "textural information", "decisive mark making", "intention vs. invention", and ask questions like "what's too even, what's too equal?" and "what is the work trying to communicate?". Reading about the ideas and concepts within our two artist spotlights this month, I ponder the way in which artists talk about their process, their work, and their business. How is the language they use important? Revealing? What are the intentions behind their choices, of descriptors and of actions?

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March has come in like a lion and it’s not just the weather. Often a quiet month, this March is bursting with incredible work from our members and greater creative community in galleries and art venues across Greater Portland. Make sure you look in our section on artists announcements below for more details.

Check out the interviews with Katie Bonadies to find out more about the exciting work happening in film from two of our newer members. We are often thought of as a space for 2D and 3D work, but we have a strong digital representation as well. Their unique perspectives and approaches are not to be missed.

Every day is different in the studio. It changes with every person who walks through the doors with the intention to create, to try out an idea, work out a theory, improve upon a mark, cut, color, or texture. The studio is not static but in motion, changing and evolving. It is what makes working in community so powerful. We affect each other. We spark an idea, share a new tool, listen to a neighbor's heartbreak or exciting new discovery. We are witness to each other, the art that is created daily, the creation process. This is the work; the showing up, the trying when all seems to go wrong, the tiny moments that shift and take us to the next moment. The outcomes, the stops along the way, are the images, products and tangibles, but the process is the thing. We are all a part of it and intertwined, even if only for a moment. This is what we seek, the process, the balance and the people to be a part of it. This is art, alive.

I start 2023 with gratitude for our collective resilience and hope, both personally and for the studios. I am so grateful to all of you for your continued support of the arts and our RWS community. You give us the strength and the courage to keep going. Thank you for coming out this holiday season and supporting our artists. Wishing you all a creative, peaceful and hopeful New Year!

- Kate Anker, Director

How we find ourselves at the end of 2022 is a mystery, but I am happy to have you all with us as we shift into 2023.



This year we brought so much back to life, including Print Jam, our favorite summer community art event, as well as our Maine Craft Weekend 6x6 member show hosted by our friends at Belleflower, and our upcoming Holiday Market.

It is the month for public declarations of thankfulness and we are happy to oblige! This thanks starts with our beloved Scissors Community. To our studio members, I am thankful everyday for getting to be a small part of your creative paths and your lives. To our staff who graciously share their knowledge, technical skills, and creative energy, keep the large amount of equipment, varied interests and work (and the wild ideas of a deviant director) going strong and steady. I couldn’t imagine doing any of this without our department managers, Christine Caswell and Carter Shappy whose passion for their fields and for our community keep us strong and steadfast. Katie Bonadies, who quickly moved into our lives with grace and a clear voice and a fluidity to run with my creative movement. Emily Armstrong, who lights up our studios with their joy.

Drawing on community is what we do. We lean on and learn from each other. We celebrate, cry with and get messy together. We are a studio of makers, innovators, creative problem solvers and friends. We work in community with each other in shared spaces, each on our own paths but with a mission to lift each other up and create something that is uniquely our voice.

As the season shifts toward cooler days of long pants and light sweaters, backpacks, bird migrations, and excitement at the first turning leaves, the season also shifts into preparations and celebrations for fall events like the statewide Maine Craft Weekend and state and country fairs. Artists busy themselves, preparing for these events with a whir of heightened studio activity. They are also busy ensuring a solid studio space and practice is ready for the coming winter.

The Running With Scissors STEAMY SUMMER PRINT JAM steamroller printing block party was a great success and it lived up to its name. The day was hot and the art was so hot we had to spray it with a fine mist!



A special thank you to all of the artists, vendors, neighborhood businesses, and everyone who came out to support them. And thank you to the RWS staff and volunteers who helped transform our parking lot into extended studio space. Take a look below at some of the moments we were able to capture.



Next month we'll be back with our regularly scheduled newsletter. Contact us if you'd like to schedule a time to tour our studios. Until then, stay cool!



- Kate Anker, Director

This month I am working on being positive and cherishing the freedoms I have, celebrating the beauty in my community, and the hard work that people do every day to make something more, something better in this world. Although I am not always successful in my efforts at this, learning more about our fellow artists and their work, making large-scale community art, collaborating with our neighboring craft brewers, welcoming the sun on our giant orange parking lot tent, supporting member art activism, and finally starting a new artist in residency program for emerging artists all help me keep my mind on the what is good in our life. I know I am not alone in this struggle. I hope you find some salve for your July in this letter and in the work and life of our beloved community here in East Bayside. See you soon.

In this month’s newsletter, you will find what some of our 80+ artists are putting into their long hours this season–art fairs, new grant awards, and exhibitions are just a start. There is so much happening it is like a hive has been awakened from a deep humming slumber, although, we know artists never really stop moving, creating, and working. Then we invite you to dive even deeper into our artist spotlights to learn about the practices of three of our current members.

Every spring brings with it a restlessness; an itch for change. People tend to make moves, shift focus, and open up to new opportunities this time of year. I see new practices starting, collaborations budding, and the will to start new ventures taking shape. For the studio, this also means seeing old friends move on to new adventures and welcoming new artists to our space. Recently, this has included a large number of people moving to Maine for the first time or returning home sooner than expected. We welcome everyone to our studios–whoever they are, whatever they believe, wherever they come from--with pride and the promise to care for them as best we can.

Springtime for me is all about emerging; the green haze, hovering like a winter night's dream above the brown, clotted yard; arms and legs flashing out from shorter clothing after months covered in wool; the determined crocus, blue and yellow pushing through the snow; the soggy detritus revealed from beneath the melted parking lot glacier–a lost mitten, a pottery shard, discarded needles, candy wrappers, the October issue of a magazine. Each spring seems an absolute miracle when I roll down my truck windows and soak in the beautiful sounds of peepers. Then people start to emerge onto patios and the beach, lifting their faces like sunflowers to the sun, letting Spring fill them with hope and resilience.

- Kate Anker, Director

Bomb Cyclone. Snowmaggedon. Blizzaster. Snowpocalypse.


I hope you have all dug yourselves out of your snowplow berms or blanket forts. I hope you have surfaced unscathed of freezing pipes or anxiety from fearful news cycles. I hope you have found the sun and the Mainers who play in the snow. I hope you have found some calm after the storm.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I am so grateful to be in community with you all.



- Kate Anker, Director

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