Rainbow Arts Collective (RAC) aims to co-create liberatory, inclusive spaces and opportunities with and for Maine’s LGBTQIA+ arts community to foster, normalize, and celebrate queer joy. We connect local artist-leaders across arts disciplines and educational backgrounds (i.e.,self-taught to formal degree holders) to strengthen community among LGBTQIA+ artists, their patrons, and their artist-students/workshop attendees across the state. We currently support queer artists’ connection to the wider community by 1) organizing and administering maker markets, safe places where artists sell handmade wares and meet the public, who buy local for anti-capitalism and environmentalism, and 2) co-translating artist-generated ideas into accessible workshops and multi-session learning, coaching queer artist-leaders to cross into community arts education as we handle logistics. We’re an umbrella organization over subgroups. We host about two dozen one-off workshops as Queer Craft Maine (expanded from visual arts) yearly. Multi-session learning occurs at Lavender Choir (weekly music), Soft Materials (monthly fiber arts), and Rainbow Guild (storytelling/improv through TTRPGs). We dream of financial and administrative resources to expand relationships with, and offerings from, queer artist-educators to venues beyond Greater Portland, throughout all of Maine. RAC seeks to eventually reach communities with few LGBTQIA+ residents to spread the joy of creating with queer folks.