By Stowell P. Watters
Staff Writer
    Talks of a possible merger between the River Tree Center for the Arts in Lower Village and the Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk have yielded lots of enthusiasm but little action, according to Jim Fitzgerald, chairperson of the Heartwood board of directors.
    “Nothing is definite until the papers are signed. Right now we are in the beginning process, nothing is for sure,” said Fitzgerald. “We are going to take this as slow as necessary, no one likes change. Developing our approach to change will make sense for both organizations and the community.”
    The talks, which are carried out by an eight-member committee consisting of board members from each institution, have been taking place since summer 2006. Fitzgerald said the joint committee has met only a few times in the last several months. Their idea is to combine the two institutions under one umbrella and offer all of their services through the same name. The name, Fitzgerald said, has not been decided upon.
    “I want to stress, this is not an emergency, it is an opportunity,” said Fitzgerald.
    Originally, Fitzgerald said, River Tree approached Heartwood and asked if they would be willing to sit down and talk about both of their situations. At the first meeting it was immediately established, said President of the River Tree board of directors Carol Olson, both organizations were on the same page.
    Financially, Olson said, River Tree has been having difficulty meeting their annual budget mark. In their fundraising efforts, which include kitchen tours and gallery shows, they have had less success than previous years.
    “We are not in any risk of closing down, I want people to know that, we are a little lower than we would like to be financially,” Olson said.
    River Tree is a non-profit, community arts organization. Established in 1982, the building serves as a place for vacation art camps for children, musical instruction classes, concerts, exhibitions and performances, according to their Web site www.rivertreearts.org. River Tree also has art classes for people of all ages, but Interim Director Doug Dickey said the organization’s strong suit is their musical program.
    “We have galleries here and art classes, but our music is definitely our strong suit, the merger takes root from the logic of collaborating rather than competing,” Dickey said.
    Dickey illustrated the fact that both institutions draw from the same community of art-oriented people, one of the key driving forces behind the merger talks with Heartwood. Lower enrollment rates, he said, may have stemmed from this activity.
    “We are both essentially fishing in the same pool, and I think the local population would benefit greatly from being able to go to one single institution,” Dickey said. He added he cannot attribute the lower enrollment rates to anything in particular and they are “hopefully” a passing trend.
    Heartwood too has been feeling the pinch of financial trouble but like River Tree, they are in no risk of closing their doors.
    “I think any non-profit arts organization is tough to keep running in the black at the end of the year,” Fitzgerald said. He also attributes some of their financial trouble to lower enrollment rates. “There is obviously a greater strength in having a single organization providing the arts for this community.”
    Heartwood was founded in 1993 as a non-profit art school. They offer two-year associates degrees, classes in visual and performing arts and a bachelor of fine arts degree, according to their Web site www.heartwoodcollegeofart.org. They offer a range of classes on different mediums from glass beads to water coloring. The college currently has 25 students.
    There are few details on the merger thus far; all the committee has done is initiated talks, according to Olson. All of the committee members agree there should be a new name and that the new institution would provide the same services, including the college accreditation classes currently offered at Heartwood. The next step, she said, is just more of the talks that have already taken place.
    “We are going to the community and doing a survey – we want to find out as much as possible about what the people want and work with that,” Olson said.
    Berri Kramer, director of Heartwood, said although very little is known about the merger, including whether or not it will even happen, neither of the institutions are “in trouble.”
    “We are really not in trouble, this is just an opportunity and we are in the process of looking into it,” Kramer said.