In this presentation for ages 18+, Jessica Boynton will discuss witches in literature and film, such as Harry Potter, fairy tales, "Young Goodman Brown," William Shakespeare's work, and The Wizard of Oz. She will also talk about the history of witches, more specifically, in New England (Salem, Massachusetts in particular), and discuss current places in Salem that played roles in the witch trials, including: The House of The Seven Gables, The Witch Dungeon Museum, The Salem Witch Trials Memorial, The Salem Witch Museum, The Rebecca Nurse Homestead, and The Witch House.

This event is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can attend by buying a Day Pass for $10/adult (also gives you access to studios and supplies for the day). 

Register for this workshop by clicking here.

Using MakeDo tools and with a mega-supply for cardboard, kids can build robots, armor, forts, furniture, whatever their brains dream up!

Makedo is a series of safe cardboard construction tools purposely designed for kids to imagine and build the world they want to see.

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $5 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). 

This is a drop-in program; registration not required. Children must be accompanied by an adult guardian.

Let's make a Japanese Leaf Scoop! Great class for beginners. All tools and supplies provided as well as dyed reed for that personal touch!

The class is free for Rivertown members or you can purchase a Day Pass for $10/adult (also gives you access to the studios and art supplies for the day).

To register, please visit: https://forms.gle/Wy2WPn25NXC9RK8k6

Space is limited to 12 participants.

With a few basic drawing skills in your “creative toolbox,” now it’s time to begin a drawing project! Johanna Fickett will guide you in how to start. Fickett has BA degrees in theater performance and literature concentrated in writing, but she also privately trained as a fine artist for 12 years, and graduated high school with a commercial arts major certificate.

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $10 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). All supplies are provided for no additional charge.

Register for this workshop by clicking here.

We have reached the registration cap for this program - Don’t worry, we will offer it again!

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Always wanted to paint with watercolors but didn’t know where to start? Learn some of the basics in this intro workshop with Jocelyn Saucier!

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $10 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). All supplies are provided for no additional charge.

Always wanted to learn how to sew but intimidated by a sewing machine? In this program for kids, Kellie Tardif of kellie j. designs and Lilli & Yve will show you the basics of how to set up a sewing machine and guide you as you practice with a sewing project!

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $5 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). All supplies are provided for no additional charge.

Feel free to bring your own sewing machine if you have one, however, there are sewing machines available at Rivertown if you need one.

Register for this workshop by clicking here.

Paint a pumpkin that you can display year after year! How? Because it’s made out of styrofoam! Jill Mango Day will lead this fun family-friendly pumpkin painting program.

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by purchasing a Day Pass for $10/adult or $5/child.

Walk-ins are welcome, but you can guarantee we have a pumpkin for you by clicking here.

Join us for a bulb swap! We’ll have garlic and tulip bulbs for you to take home. Bring along any bulbs you’d like to swap and trade with other participants. We’ll also share our bulb planting tips for growing in our area (Zone 3).

This event is free to attend.

Lots of things go viral, including seemingly harmless and also very cool charts involving woolly bear caterpillars! Some say it’s true - you can tell how harsh a winter will be by the width of a woolly bear’s bands - others say it isn’t. Let’s put it to the test!

Maine is known for its long and cold winters, so let’s see if woolly bears know all. Homeschoolers will collaborate on a research project by “hunting” woolly bear caterpillars and tracking their markings, and making hypotheses about the outcome. At the end of the year, once the weather reports are in, we will see if there is merit to the charts floating around, and discuss how tricky it can be to navigate everything that’s on the internet, plus ways you can, and should, dig around to find the truth.

This project will be lead by Jill Mango Day and is free to participate in. (To use art supplies in the studios while you’re visiting Rivertown that day, please buy a Day Pass for $5/child; studio access is free for Rivertown members.)

This is a drop-in program; registration not required. Children 10 and under must be accompanied by an adult guardian.

In this free workshop, Ruth Feldman, CEI Northeast Women’s Business Center Program Director and Business Advisor, will provide an overview of their no-cost, confidential resources for women, and focus in on some business planning essentials for “right brainers” to think about planning / sustaining their business.

There is no charge to attend. You’re welcome to drop in, but if you would like to guarantee your seat, please register here.

This workshop will kick off an Abstract Painting series with Scott Voisine; subsequent workshops are scheduled for November 5 and November 19 at 6pm.

This initial workshop will focus on “getting started,” and explore formalism versus expressionism.

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $10 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). All supplies are provided for no additional charge.

Register for this workshop by clicking here. This workshop is limited to 8 participants.

Always wanted to learn how to knit but didn’t know where to start? Learn some of the basics in this intro workshop with Lo Taggett!

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $10 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). All supplies are provided for no additional charge.

Register for this workshop by clicking here.

We are hosting a Costume Fashion Show for Kids! They’ll be able to check out other kids’ costumes before “the big day” and, after the fashion show, we will make a special Halloween craft that they can bring Trunk/Trick or Treating.

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $5 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). 

This is a drop-in program; registration not required. Children must be accompanied by an adult guardian.

Jill Nadeau of White Pine Botanicals will lead this program that focuses on which herbs help relieve stress and anxiety, and the ways they can be used to support health and wellbeing.

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $10 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). All supplies are provided for no additional charge.

Register for this workshop by clicking here.

This all-ages art class focuses on drawing trees - younger kids will learn the basic parts and shapes of a tree, and older kids will learn more complex skills.

This program is free for Rivertown members; non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $5 per child (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). 

This is a drop-in program; registration not required. Children 10 and under must be accompanied by an adult guardian.

This club meeting is free to attend! Get together with fellow book nerds, and discuss the in’s and out’s of Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng. There will also be an opportunity to vote on the next Book Club book.

There are two copies of Our Missing Hearts available to borrow from Fort Kent Public Library, and interlibrary loans are available through UMFK’s Blake Library. You can also support an independent bookstore by purchasing a copy on bookshop.org (you have the option to select which bookstore you’d like to support with your purchase).

You’re welcome to drop in to the gathering, but if you’d like to register, please do so by clicking here.

**INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

From the number one bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.
 
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
 
Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can pretend to ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.

Always wanted to learn how to sew but intimidated by a sewing machine? Kellie Tardif of kellie j. designs and Lilli & Yve will show you the basics of how to set up a sewing machine and guide you as you practice with a sewing project!

This workshop is free for Rivertown members. Non-members can participate in this program by buying a Day Pass for $10 (also gives them access to studios and supplies for the day). All supplies are provided for no additional charge.

Feel free to bring your own sewing machine if you have one, however, there are sewing machines available at Rivertown if you need one.

Register for this workshop by clicking here.