McGough

Blainor McGough, founding executive director of Mayo Street Arts in Portland, has been named executive director of the Rufus Porter Museum of Art and Ingenuity in Bridgton.

McGough, a resident of Gorham, has been a longtime contributor to the Maine arts scene as a musician, DJ, performing artist and curator, according to a press release from the museum. Most recently, she was the grants specialist at the Maine Historical Society in Portland.

At Mayo Street Arts from 2009 to 2021, she established Reading! Art! Dance!, an arts literacy program for immigrant youth; the Traditional Arts Network, a network for New Mainer artists awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts; and helped form activist marching band The Ideals and a philanthropic women’s arm wrestling league. In 2021, she and gallerist June Fitzpatrick launched the Mayo Street Arts Pop-up Gallery.

Under McGough’s leadership, Mayo Street Arts received the 2018 Metamorphosis Award for philanthropic success making changes for youth in arts, as well as the 2019 Stand for the Arts Award for community outreach and engagement, inclusive access and innovation to arts education.

“The Rufus Porter Museum of Art and Ingenuity is at a turning point in our history” Therese Johnson, president of the RPM Board of Trustees, said in the press releawse. “We are thrilled to welcome Blainor as our new director as we launch the next phase of art and community right in the heart of downtown Bridgton.”