The Association responded to the need for an active regional infrastructure in the arts; representing groups from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
The MAA’s constitution was ratified at the Association’s first annual meeting held in Saint John, New Brunswick at the end of March 1935, and Abell was elected its President.
The MAA attracted a membership of seventeen groups in fourteen centres within two years, and would continue to maintain these numbers for the coming decade.
Its lecture circuit of speakers from both within and outside the Maritimes was highly promoted by the MAA, and radio talks and later a slide collection would also be part of its cultural mandate.
Nevertheless the MAA created an infrastructure for the promotion and dissemination of art in the Maritimes – despite or perhaps in recognition of the difficulties imposed first by the Depression and then by the Second World War.