Five Rivers Arts Alliance is happy to present its 15th annual holiday art exhibit and sale with artists, studios and local performances. Arts Downtown and All Around will take place this year on Friday, November 30th from 5-8pm, Saturday, December 1 from 10-5, and Sunday, December 2, 11-4pm. Events will take place all around the Midcoast area from Arrowsic to Bath to Brunswick. Open studios, group shows and performances will provide holiday treats for all the senses. Use this opportunity to find those one of a kind gifts for your one of a kind holiday need.

This weekend the Opera House swings the doors open for the annual Gingerbread Spectacular - an exhibit of delicious proportions with prizes awarded for not only the Most Spectacular but also for The Largest, the Most Appetizing, the Most Hilarious and other coveted awards. Houses, camps, castles, farms, lighthouses, carnivals, waterfront scenes and more have been depicted in gingerbread during past Spectaculars. Come out and see what your friends and neighbors have designed and constructed this year. Youth, Adult and Chef categories.

In 1925, no one in New York City was more surprised than Murdock Pemberton—a newspaper reporter, Broadway publicist, playwright, and poet with no formal training in art or connoisseurship—when an upstart magazine, The New Yorker, named him its first art critic. Exposés of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, collector Andrew Mellon, and “plush-hung” commercial galleries—written for The New Yorker and other national publications—thrust Mr. Pemberton into the limelight as a David among the philistines, his favorite role.

The Bank of Maine proudly presents Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey opening on Friday, October 5, 2012, and continuing through December 29 on display at Portland Public Library’s Lewis Gallery. The exhibition is free of charge to the general public and features original illustrations, preparatory sketches, unpublished drawings and ephemera by the internationally celebrated artist and author Edward Gorey. This highly acclaimed exhibit is made possible by generous support from The Bank of Maine and a collaboration between Maine College of Art (MECA) and Portland Public Library.

This exhibition is part of a series showcasing the work of artists participating in CSA: Community Supporting Arts, a year long project that aims to promote both local art and local food by partnering 14 artists with 13 CSA farms in and around central Maine. The artists have been creating art inspired by their farmers’ lives, work, landscapes, challenges and ideals since the beginning of the growing season in early spring 2012. Learn more and follow the artists’ progress by visiting the project blog site at csaart.org.

Corrected Calendar listing:

School Around Us, for our 37th Annual Craft Fair season, is joining Kennebunkport Prelude for the first time! Saturday December 8th, from 9am- 4pm at the American Legion Hall, 102 Main St, across from the Kennebunkport police department. Featuring 30 juried artists and artisans, and delicious homemade food. Info: 967-3143, www.schoolaroundus.org, saucraftfairs@yahoo.com.

School Around Us for our 37th Annual Craft Fair season is joining Kennebunkport Prelude for the first time! Saturday December 8th, from 9am- 4pm at the American Legion Hall, 102 Main St, across the Kennebunkport the police station. Featuring 70 juried artists and artisans, live music, and delicious homemade food!

Daniel McKee, adjunct assistant professor and Japanese Bibliographer, Cornell University

Japanese prints from the Edo period (1600 - 1868) often feature haggard ghosts, vengeful demons, and mischievous beings. Collector McKee will discuss these prints in connection with literary, theatrical, and political discourses, reading them as a medium of socio-political critique.

William Wegman first established himself within the contexts of video and performance art in the 1970s. In conversation with Lori Zippay, director of Electronic Arts Intermix, a nonprofit resource for media art founded in 1971, he will comment on a selection of his early films and explain how they gave rise to and influenced his current artistic practice.

Designing Women celebrates their joyous return to Freeport for their annual juried show featuring beautiful, original pieces handmade by local, nationally recognized, lady artisans. Mediums include: glass, porcelain, polymer, silver and gold jewelry, hand-woven and stitched apparel, accessories, textile and leather handbags, stoneware pottery, pastels, batik and watercolor paintings, hand-loomed rugs, applique quilts, felted and applique wall decor, artisanal body care, and more.