Comments (0) We’ll be at the PICNIC Holiday Sale today with a table, where we’ll have the pin machine, as well as our own photo and illustration prints and pins for sale. Come say hi!
We were excited to open up a few local papers and see our lovely pin machine featured front and center in the new ad for Find! The machine has been doing great there, only now that means we need to make a lot more pins. Keep them coming!
Have you been looking for the Portland Pins machine that’s been moving around town? It started out at Coast City Comics before moving on to SPACE Gallery (and a few other special events, including PICNIC and MECA events), and now it’s on to its 3rd official location! Stop in at Find at 16 Free Street to get your own Portland Pins for just 25 cents for the next month!
Find is a great vintage store (we’re not just saying that, we got the idea to bring the machine there because we kept going in to shop!) and not only can you find some great deals on clothes, but there’s a cozy lounge area with Ms. Pac-Man, magazines to read, and now our Portland Pins machine!
This weekend I came across some interesting vintage 1″ pins. At the Big Chicken Barn I found a huge selection of pins (both 1″ and otherwise) including those pictured below (oddly placed on a hat covering a Phrenology bust) as well as the cool Charles “Plucky” Lindbergh pin. These FDR pins were on display on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada.
If you come across any cool vintage pins, take a photo and send them to us at pinme [at] portlandpins.com!
The debut issue of The Maine Magazine includes a nice mention of Portland Pins on page 34. Check it out in the online version (archived here) or pick it up and admire the shiny new publication in person (we like the nice large photos and the layout!) Thanks!
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As you may have noticed, there’s been a stream of posts on here with scanned templates of pins that we’ve received through this project. The titles of the posts are the artists’ names, and when available, the image links to their website. We’ll be continuing to add these scans to the site over the next few weeks, so you can look for the pins you’ve gotten at random from the Portland Pins machines and identify the artists who made them. If you like their work, we recommend letting them know (you could comment on the post if you’d like) and checking out their other work. A big part of this project is supporting local artists and encouraging people to discover work that they may not otherwise see in a store or gallery. If you find something great, tell us about it! Of course, you don’t have to be an artist to join the project and make your own pins – everybody is welcome and in the end, all of the pins are mixed up and distributed at random.
Also, come say hi to us in person (and of course buys some pins and create some too!) on September 12 at the PICNIC Music and Arts Festival in Lincoln Park! We’ll have a table near the stage/Franklin Arterial side of the park.
We decided to change plans a bit. Please keep those location suggestions coming, as we’ll need to pick a new location eventually, but for now we’ve removed the Portland Pins machine from Coast City Comics / The Fun Box Monster Emporium (thanks for letting us put it there!). So where is it? Well, you can still find the original machine (which works all the time now, by the way) at Eli-Phant, but the second machine will be refilled with pins and brought out each Wednesday in August for the HillyTown OFFStage at SPACE Gallery concert series! The shows are free, all ages, and begin at 7pm every Wednesday (the first one is today!) Get the full schedule for this concert series here.
As we’re heading into the third month of this art experiment, we figured it was time to let the Portland community be even more involved. After all, it is a collaborative project. It’s also random. That said, we’re offering the opportunity to be the next local business to host the Portland Pins dispenser (ok, gumball machine) to someone out there that wants it. Why would you want to have this in your store/gallery/coffee shop? Well, it’s a fun way to be involved in sharing great local art, people love getting pins, and it’s likely that customers who haven’t been to your business before will stop in to check it out. We started at Eli-Phant in June, added a machine at Coast City Comics/The Fun Box Monster Emporium in July, and for August we will move one of the machines to a new location. Email us and tell us a bit about your local business. On July 29 we will randomly (there it is again) pick one of the submitted businesses to host the machine for the month of August, starting on First Friday, August 7th.
The only requirements we have for eligible businesses are that they are located on the peninsula (don’t worry Outer Forest Ave, we’ve got plans for you too) and that they are open to the public during the First Friday Art Walk. So, you want in? Let us know!
It’s First Friday! That means it’s time for a new location where you can get Portland Pins! We purchased a new machine for the occasion (this one works every time, no more wrestling to get your pin out) and will have it out and ready to go tonight in time for the Art Walk, beginning at 5pm. The new location is perfect – Coast City Comics and The Fun Box Monster Emporium at 656 Congress Street. Stop in tonight to check out the new machine, get some pins, and maybe pick up a couple comics or perhaps a scary monster toy! The original Portland Pins machine will also be returning to its location at Eli-Phant (253 Congress).
Maybe you’ve figured out where the second location for the Portland Pins machine will be (or maybe we told you, because we’re terrible at keeping secrets when we’re excited about something), but we’ll announce it officially tomorrow morning. Assuming the rain holds off for at least a couple hours during the First Friday Art Walk, you’ll be able to check out our brand new machine (which works every single time, yay!) and a whole crop of new pins. Check back tomorrow to see!
Welcome to the new Portland Pins website! This little project felt like it was outgrowing its former home on HillyTown.com, so we decided to give it a little more room to breathe! We’ll have the pin samples online soon, so you can look up your pin and find out more about the artist who made it! The machine is still at Eli-Phant (253 Congress St., Portland, Maine), so go get your own local art pin at random, and check out all the great stuff they have in the store!
Today marks the debut of our new drop boxes around town, where you can leave you completed design templates so we can turn them into 1″ pins and include them in our pin-dispensing machines! You can find the boxes at SPACE Gallery, Eli-Phant, and Coast City Comics/the Fun Box Monster Emporium. Thanks to these businesses for humoring helping us out!
Get your designs submitted in time for the unveiling of our second Portland Pins location during the July 3rd First Friday Art Walk! If you can, leave them at one of the aforementioned locations by Wednesday, July 1st! Thanks!
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