Hudson Museum

Sugar Skull: A Dia de los Muertos Musical Adventure (School Shows)
2024-11-13 11:45 (America/New_York) | Collins Center for the Arts, 2 Flagstaff Road, Orono, ME, 04469, United States
SUGAR SKULL! A Día de Muertos Musical Adventure is a touring bilingual/bicultural musical for educators who want to bring students in grades 1-5 to the Collins Center for the Arts for a school show. The show uses traditional regional music and dance from Mexico to tell the story of twelve-year-old Vita Flores. Vita thinks her family has gone loco planning a celebration for deceased loved ones. Why throw a party for the dead? But when a spirited candy skeleton suddenly springs to life, Vita finds herself on a magical, musical journey to unravel the true meaning of Día de Muertos.
Meet Sugar Skull, a charismatic skeleton with a secret or two. With her skeletal new friend, Vita dances with ancient ancestors, sings with a sorrowful sorceress, escapes the trickster Chaneques, and even meets the famous Catrina Calavera. But can this clever youth gather the missing pieces needed for her family ofrenda before it’s too late?
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION ABOUT THE SHOW
The Hudson Museum is excited to be able to provide Minsky Field Trip Grants for 10 schools to attend Sugar Skull!
Public schools are eligible for a Minsky Field Trip Grant if they are busing 20 or more students from more than 50 miles from the Collins Center for the Arts. Grants will reimburse up to $150 for travel expenses and/or ticket fees.
CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR A MINSKY FIELD TRIP GRANT FOR SUGAR SKULL

Wabanaki Winter Market 2024 - 30th Anniversary Event!
2024-12-14 09:00 - 15:00 | ME
The Wabanaki Winter Market at the Collins Center for the Arts (Orono, Maine) is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year! New England’s largest holiday gathering of Wabanaki artists will take place on Saturday, December 14 this year. This annual event features artists who have received national awards, as well as new artists representing the next generation of weavers.
The event provides the public with an opportunity to purchase Wabanaki art directly from the artists and to learn about these ancient traditions.
Join the Hudson Museum from 9am to 3pm on December 14, 2024 for a day that will showcase one-of-a-kind art forms (basketry, beadwork, wood carving, birchbark items), and maple syrup as well as demonstrations, storytelling, traditional music, drumming and dancing. Something for everyone!
The Hudson Museum will be open during the event, and visitors are encouraged to explore the Wabanaki Gallery where they can view the work of the ancestors of the contemporary artists.
The Wabanaki Winter Market is FREE and open to the public. Explore the market at our dedicated market webpage here.
This event is supported in part by grants from Four Directions Development Corporation and the Onion Foundation.

Re-Indigenizing Sacred Landscapes: From the Wigwam at Cetawamkeag
2025-01-25 - 2026-01-04 | Farnsworth Art Museum, 16 Museum Street, Rockland, ME, 04841, United States
Re-Indigenizing Sacred Landscapes: From the Wigwam at Cetawamkeag is an upcoming exhibition at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, ME.
This collection reinstallation project revisits paintings by pioneering artists who ventured to and depicted Maine between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. While the painters captured the region’s stunning landscapes, they often overlooked the Native American communities living there. Guest curated by James Francis, Penobscot Nation’s Director of Cultural and Historic Preservation, Tribal Historian, and Chair of Penobscot Tribal Rights, Donald Soctomah, Tribal historic preservation officer for the Passamaquoddy Tribe, Gretchen Faulkner, Hudson Museum Executive Director, Curatorial Advisor, the exhibition reexamines works in the Farnsworth’s collection.
Image Credits:
Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865)
Pretty Marsh, Mt. Desert Island, ca. 1850
Oil on canvas
10 5/8 x 15 3⁄4 inches
Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. S. Morton Vose, 1960.1168

Yamato Drummers – Hito no Chikara: The Power of Human Strength
2025-01-29 19:00 | Collins Center for the Arts, 2 Flagstaff Road, Orono, ME, 04469, United States
This renowned Taiko ensemble returns to the Collins Center for a dazzling night of traditional music from Japan. The sound of 40 different drums combined with intricate ensemble movement and spectacular costumes guarantee an unforgettable experience.

Come to the Hudson Museum before the show (6 – 7pm) and try your hand at origami and other Lunar New Year crafts!

CLICK HERE for tickets and more information about this exciting performance.

Panel Discussion – The Tekαkαpimək Contact Station at Katahdin Woods & Waters
2025-03-24 15:00 - 16:00 | Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, 107 Norman Smith Hall, University of Maine Campus, Orono, ME, 04469, United States
Tekαkαpimək under construction. Credit: Wright-Ryan Construction
The talk will be held virtually via Zoom ONLY (due to inclement weather).

Virtual attendance: Complete the registration form for Zoom connection information

Co-sponsors:

Native American Programs/Wabanaki Center, UMaine
Ecology & Environmental Sciences, UMaine

Moderator: Darren Ranco, Chair of Native American Programs; Professor, Anthropology and Mitchell Center, UMaine
Panelists:

Jennifer Neptune, Penobscot Nation
James Francis, Director of Cultural and Historic Preservation, Penobscot Nation
Gabe Frey, Passamaquoddy
Erin Hutton, Erin Hutton Projects

Tekαkαpimək Contact Station is a stunning 7,900 square-foot building and 23-acre site atop Lookout Mountain created to welcome the global public to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. The monument is located within the present and traditional homeland of the Penobscot Nation. The land and waters hold special significance to the Penobscot Nation and is inextricably linked with Penobscot culture, ceremonies, oral traditions, language, history, and Indigenous stewardship which continues the respectful relationship with the land and waterways that has gone back more than 11,000 years. Katahdin is a culturally significant place to the Wabanaki people where connecting watersheds provide important travel routes for Wabanaki people of Maine, comprised of Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Nations.
Tekαkαpimək is a Penobscot language word for “as far as one can see”, pronounced deh gah-gah bee mook. Architectural, landscape and exhibition designs for Tekαkαpimək resulted from a process between Elliotsville Foundation, representatives of the Wabanaki Nations, Saunders Architecture, Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architecture, WeShouldDoItAll, Tuhura Communications, Erin Hutton Projects, and the National Park Service. The design process began in 2019 and construction was completed in 2024, with regular public hours to be announced after National Park Service assumes ownership and operations for the 2025 visitation season.
Tekαkαpimək’s waysides and exhibits orient visitors to the monument, inspiring them to experience Katahdin Woods and Waters from its peaks, trails, and rivers to its ever-changing foliage, brilliant night sky, and abundant wildlife. Interpretation is through a Wabanaki lens in a contemporary context, honoring the past and showing vibrant communities moving sustainably into the future. All Wabanaki Cultural Knowledge and Intellectual Property shared within this project is owned by the Wabanaki Nations – the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Penobscot Nation.
Information on the Tekαkαpimək Contact Station provided by Friends of Katahdin Woods & Waters
All Wabanaki Cultural Knowledge and Intellectual Property shared within this project is owned by the Wabanaki Nations.

Digital Media Gallery Exhibit Opening: Visions
2025-04-07 15:00 - 16:00 | Collins Center for the Arts, 2 Flagstaff Road, Orono, ME, 04469, United States
Join us Monday, April 7th for the opening of the Digital Media Gallery’s inaugural exhibit: Visions. The Gallery is located on the landing outside the Hudson Museum in the Collins Center for the Arts. Opening ceremony will take place at 3 p.m. Refreshments will be served in the Hudson Museum.

Journey Through the Dawnland - 2nd Annual Wabanaki Homelands Scavenger Hunt
2025-05-23 - 2025-09-01 | ME
The Hudson Museum is excited to participate in the second annual Wabanaki Homelands scavenger hunt, Journey Through the Dawnland!
You can get a travel log at any participating location (Including the Hudson Museum!), or print your own! Stamp your travel log at participating destinations throughout what is now called Maine, and learn more about the Wabanaki and their homelands! As you collect stamps and answer questions in your travel log, you can enter to win prizes including stickers, jewelry, and signed books by Wabanaki authors!
To print your own Journey travel log and find the most up-to-date information, visit the Wabanaki Studies Education Facebook page.
Want to share the news? Click here to download a flyer!

Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas
2025-07-12 - 2025-07-13 | College of the Atlantic (COA), Bar Harbor, ME, 105 Eden Street, Bar Harbor, ME, 04609, United States
The Abbe Museum’s Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas will return on July 12 & 13, 2025, at the College of the Atlantic (COA) in Bar Harbor, Maine. This unique multi-day event is an evolution of our popular Abbe Museum Indian Market (AMIM) and Native American Festival that featured invitation-only Native arts markets and performances. The Dawnland Festival of Arts & Ideas includes those elements but also spotlights conversations by Wabanaki and other Indigenous leaders on some of the biggest questions of our time, including climate, democracy, and food systems.

“Native arts and cultures cannot be separated from Native ways of knowing. The Dawnland Festival of Arts & Ideas continues to celebrate the Native creative economy on Wabanaki homelands while lifting up Indigenous thought leadership vital to the conversation on a healthy planet and society for us all.”
Betsy Richards (Cherokee), Executive Director & Senior Partner with Wabanaki Nations

Shaker Village's Wabanaki Summer Market
2025-08-23 | Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, 707 Shaker Rd, New Gloucester, ME, 04260, United States
The annual festival of Wabanaki’s finest, award-winning artists is BACK! The Wabanaki Marketplace at Shaker Village provides a rare opportunity to purchase museum-quality crafts directly from Maine’s finest Wabanaki artists, nationally recognized and honored for their role in the preservation of important traditions. A wide selection of crafts are offered for a range of prices from a few dollars to several hundred dollars (cash/personal check accepted by all artists).

2025 Common Ground Country Fair
2025-09-19 - 2025-09-21 | MOFGA Fairgrounds, 294 Crosby Brook Road, Unity, Maine
This 2025 Common Ground Country Fair will be held at the Common Ground Education Center in Unity, Maine on September 19, 20 and 21, 2025. The fairgrounds are open Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s (MOFGA) annual celebration of rural living features 1000-plus exhibitors and speakers, and emphasizes vibrant communities, sustainable living and local economies, while highlighting organic agriculture.

2025 Wabanaki Winter Market
2025-12-13 09:00 - 15:00 | Collins Center for the Arts, 2 Flagstaff Road, Orono, ME, 04469, United States
The Wabanaki Winter Market is New England’s largest holiday gathering of Wabanaki artists. This annual event features artists who have received national awards, as well as new artists representing the next generation of weavers.
The event provides the public with an opportunity to purchase Wabanaki art directly from the artists and to learn about these ancient traditions.
Join the Hudson Museum for a day that will showcase one-of-a-kind art forms (basketry, beadwork, wood carving, birchbark items), and maple syrup as well as demonstrations, storytelling, traditional music, drumming and dancing. Something for everyone!
