where creativity and community meet
Board of Directors
The Eastport Arts Center
The Eastport Art Center is guided by a Board of Directors that meets monthly to guide the organization and help it meet its mission. Terms are for two years, and must be approved by the majority of the Board. All Board Meetings are open to the public. If you are interested in joining our Board, please contact info@eastportartscenter.org
Jude Kempe – President
Jude Kempe is a muti-media artist, film/video maker, music dabbler and sometimes carpenter. She is currently the president of Eastport Gallery and has finally moved permanently to Maine after living part time in Colorado and part time in Pembroke for more than 20 years. She did her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, worked on her MFA in Film at Columbia College in Chicago and has worked in both photography and video editing, as well as teaching video.
Gregory Biss – Vice President
Composer and pianist Gregory Biss has lived in Eastport since 1975. His music has been featured by the Denver Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he performed the Schumann Piano Concerto with the PBSO in 2012. He had a 20-year career as a scuba diver in the aquaculture industry, has been a longtime member of the piano faculty at Summer Keys in Lubec, and operates a small business as a piano technician. He also serves on the Peavey Library Board and for many years was an Eastport City Councilor.
Damon Weston – Treasurer
Raised in Downeast Maine, Damon attended local schools. He received a B.A. in Politics from Oberlin College in 2001, where he was a leader in the student cooperatives and helped found the Oberlin College Dialogue Center, the meditation center at the college. He now teaches high school at Cobscook Institute.
Cynthia Morse – Secretary
Cynthia Morse is the co-owner with her husband Michael of the Eastport Breakwater Gallery on Water Street in Eastport. When she is not tending the gallery she is enjoying painting views of Eastport and surrounding areas with pastels.
Barbara Smith – Emerita Member
Barbara is a registered nurse who currently works per diem in Eastport’s dialysis center. She spent many years as a potter, and her latest creative outlet is creating hand beaded earrings in the Native American tradition. A founding member of the EAC, Quoddy Voices, and Stage East, she loves to sing and has been involved in numerous dramatic and musical productions. In her younger years, Barbara taught K-8 music and art, and later directed the Down East Hospice volunteers program.
Marged Higginson
Marged has served Eastport on the Boards of Eastport for Pride, G.E.E.C.A., Downeast Acadia Regional Tourism, Border Historical Society and Central Congregational Church in the 20 years since arriving here. In New Jersey she was a respiratory therapist, singer, and member of a 100-voice chorus, and raised two daughters. She and her husband then owned a full-service inn in Connecticut. She happily co-produces the Concert Series and the Sunday Afternoon series and founded The Festival of Trees at EAC.
Melinda Jaques
Melinda Munford Jaques lives in Dennysville. She holds a B.S. in Art Education from Southhampton College of Long Island University. Melinda was the Curatorial Assistant at the Parrish Art Museum in Southhampton, New York from 1979 to 1993. She is now the Curator of Art and Archives of the Robert Mumford estate, a member of the Outreach Committee at the Down East Coastal Conservancy, Curator at the Dennys River Historical Society and Trustee at the Dennysville Memorial Public Library.
Catherine J.S. Lee
Catherine J.S. Lee is a special educator at Shead High School, a fiction writer and haiku poet, a book reviewer for The Quoddy Tides, a devoted flower and rose gardener, and a volunteer DJ with a blues show, “Blues for Your Pocket,” and a folk-music show, “The Wildwood Flower Hour,”on local radio station WSHD. She is currently president of the Eastport Public Library Association and secretary of the City of Eastport Historic Review Board.
Stephanie Thomas
Stephanie Thomas is a ceramic artist who is new to Eastport and to the board of directors, but has already made an impact as a member of the Curatorial Committee and an artist of the Eastport Gallery.
Margie Whalen
Margie Whalen has deep Eastport roots; generations of her family were born and raised here, and she spent all her summers upta camp with her grandparents. She moved to Eastport as soon as she could after teaching English at community colleges in California for 40 years. When she’s not gardening, Margie serves on the Peavey Memorial Library board, sings with Quoddy Voices, and writes a regular column, Downeast Reveries, for The Quoddy Tides.