ArtSake

Tracy Strauss, a poet, prose writer, educator, and past recipient of a Somerville Arts Council Artist Fellowship, recently attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, set in Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest. We asked Tracy about her thoughts on the conference, and she passed along this terrific description of her particular experiences, ranging from the view (stunning), to the road (harrowing), to the writing (refocused).

Diary of a Bread Loafer
by Tracy L. Strauss

I just returned from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Ripton, VT, where 200 writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry gathered for twelve days of literary exploration. As I reflect upon my first-time attendance, I can say that my experience atop “The Mountain” was challenging, exhilarating, and inspiring.

Each day was filled with a lineup of lectures and readings by great writers, panel discussions on acquiring an agent and approaching book and magazine editors, craft classes, and writing workshops. A familiar face, Chris Castellani, of Boston’s Grub Street, was also present on the mountain to talk about writing centers, colonies, and other professional development opportunities.

Evenings brought the chance for us Bread Loafers to read our work in the Blue Parlor, where we cheered each other on and shared our latest pieces of poetry and prose. (Each day’s itinerary was delivered to us via The Crumb, Bread Loaf’s daily dose).

Studying with Patricia Hampl, I had the opportunity to share a chapter of my memoir-in-progress with faculty and fellow writers for critical response. A discussion about metaphor and structure brought my project into rack focus within my inner eye, and sent me off with keener vision, motivation, and direction.

During breaks in the action, I would take some time for a little solitude, sitting in one of Bread Loaf’s many Appalachian chairs, looking out at the contemplative majesty of the Green Mountains. The sun glowed over parts of it, casting shadows over others. My journey to Bread Loaf, as in the writer’s life, seemed to be pictured in those mountains – in the darkness and light, in the peaks and valleys, standing tall, reaching for the heavens.

The stars were amazing at Bread Loaf. The sky was like a planetarium, with perfectly lit constellations and even the distinct appearance of the Milky Way. Many times I found myself standing in the middle of a field with fellow Bread Loafers, our heads craned back as we stared up at the stars, unable to tear ourselves away.

Before my trip to Bread Loaf Mountain, I had heard about a sense of elitism that some said pervades the Conference. What I did witness was easy to simply tune out. Many attendees, myself included, chose rather to tune in the camaraderie between newfound friends, and, in doing so, unnecessary competitiveness disappeared from the radar.

With no cell phone access and limited internet, many Bread Loafers went a little batty over the course of twelve days in literary seclusion, but the Conference scheduled two fun-filled barn dances to provide an outlet for such energy. Imagine a bunch of writers at a dance – the kind of social situation most of us dreaded in junior high. Then imagine us in our own skins, dancing to “Thriller” and “Crazy,” and having the time of our lives.

Meals were a time for us to share stories about ourselves, and, in many instances to make further connections with agents and editors and writing consultants who sat alongside us at the dining hall tables. Midway through the Conference, we took a 1.5 mile hike to the Robert Frost Farm, where we enjoyed a picnic lunch, toured Frost’s cabin, and listened to a lecture by Jay Parini, who spoke about Frost’s inspiration in nature. Bread Loaf also continued its tradition of the Poets and Prosers Pig Roast one evening, with vegetarian options available.

My trip to Bread Loaf began with some bumps in the road: literally, recent floods washed out the road to Ripton, forcing me to take a detour, which meant a steering-wheel gripping forty-five minute drive through an unpaved ditch-ridden “road” that wound through the woods. At one point the path split in two, and I did not know which one was the path to Bread Loaf. I wondered if I was re-living Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” (Frost, who shared his craft at Bread Loaf from 1939 until his death in 1963, is legacy at this Conference.) I chose right, however, as a half hour later I came upon a small sign that read “To Bread Loaf” and included an arrow outlined in yellow “Caution” tape.

My time away from Massachusetts seemed to isolate me from my life yet it simultaneously brought me back to it. The road I traveled home was smooth – repaired and open – and filled with a renewed sense of clarity, and the drive to write.

Images: Tracy Strauss reads in the Blue Parlor; view of the Green Mountains from Bread Loaf; on the porch at Bread Loaf; “To Bread Loaf” sign with caution tape.

Our September Fellows Notes page came into the world blank (as WordPress pages always do), badly needing some news to offset its colorlessness. And our fellows/finalists made good, offering up a month’s worth of vibrant updates.

A sampling of September’s good makes:

• Stephen Mishol makes Realism.
• Mary O’Malley makes Detail.
• Ken Beck makes ’scapes.

Read the MCC Fellows Notes.

Image: Stephen Mishol, TAMP (2008), Vinyl paint on paper, 27 1/2 in. x 19 3/4 in., photo credit: Clements/Howcroft Photography

Art critic Sebastian Smee had a warm review of Keepers of Tradition: Art and Folk Heritage in Massachusetts, in Friday’s Boston Globe. The show is curated by state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg and runs at the National Heritage Museum through February 8, 2009.

From the review:

The show begins… with a dazzling costume from Boston’s Caribbean Carnival made by Tamara Shillingford. The festival, held at the end of August, is rooted in Mardi Gras and, according to band leader Errol A. Phillip, the kind of celebrations that took place “when slavery was abolished. You’re giving praise for freedom.”
…
In a similar vein - but emerging from a completely different tradition - the show includes three tin men made by retired sheet-metal workers William Walsh, Glenn Walker, Daniel Hardy, and Richard Clarke. Tin men appear in another local festival with deep roots, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and they are traditionally a way for metal workers to advertise the products of their trade, recruit apprentices, and display union pride. The three here were made especially for this show. “We are the only trade that takes a flat metal stock from the mill and rolls it, forms it and fabricates it,” says Walsh.
…
(The exhibit is) one part of a much bigger project, which includes Holtzberg’s great catalog essay (it explains the stories behind the various objects in some depth) and, beyond both the show and the catalog, a great deal of valuable documentation, which can only help in the attempt to keep these traditions alive and the effects of too much TV at bay.

Read the full review.

Image: Tin Men, Metalwork, occupational tradition (2007), Sheet Metal Workers International Assn., Boston, Massachusetts, Copper, galvanized iron, stainless steel, 63 3/4 x 28 3/4 x 17 in. each. Courtesy of Sheet Metal Workers Local 17. Photography by Jason Dowdle.

It’s true. They have feelings. Often of the colorful and interesting variety. Here are a few that are circulating the computer tubes.

What can I, the individual artist, do to improve my discipline (and world, such as it is)? At Parabasis, Isaac Butler ardently argues that Personal Virtue (a concept usually discussed in reference to global warming) can and should apply to individual artists. Butler talks about theater artists, specifically, but I think his conclusions are universal to all disciplines: be a better artist and an engaged advocate.

At Extra Criticum, a blog of commentary on the performing arts by “those who do” (as they put it), Rolando Teco has some colorful feelings about “bottom-feeders” - groups that trick eager artists into dropping cash for supposed career advancements.

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker writes about fears that the boom in art fairs could threaten the future of art galleries as we know them.

Writer, professor, and arts enthusiast Jill Dolan passionately implores that university programs stoke, rather than dissipate, the excitement of being a “theater geek.”

Keepers of Tradition (blog of the state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg), shares one man’s heartfelt devotion to the traditional art of letterpress printing. Don’t miss the terrific video clip by builder, designer, and all-around maker-of-things Chuck Kraemer.

Feel like selling some art but don’t feel like making any? You could just stick some price tags to some things.

Image: Cynthia Consentino, SELF-PORTRAIT WITH GUN (2005), earthenware clay, oils, wax, 37 in. x 15 1/2 in. x 22 in.

Here’s a new blog to add to your feed: Keepers of Tradition.

It’s a blog about traditional arts in Massachusetts by state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg, and I vigorously and with lots of enthusiastic verbal flourishes recommend you make a habit of reading it. (And not only because Maggie sits catty-corner from me at the Massachusetts Cultural Council offices.)

It’s part celebration of traditional arts in Massachusetts and part web journal of Maggie’s truly fascinating work as state folklorist. Maggie travels throughout the state chronicling and archiving folk art traditions passed on and sustained by our individual artists and communities. (Some of you may already know about the current exhibition that work produced: Keepers of Tradition: Art and Folk Heritage in Massachusetts, at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington through February 8, 2009.) The blog shares more of that fieldwork, such as the post below, an exploration of Boston’s Caribbean Carnival – which starts today!

Caribbean Kings and Queens in Dorchester

This Thursday, August 21, marks the opening of Boston’s Caribbean Carnival - a Trinidadian style extravaganza now in its 35th year. I attended this annual festival for the first time in 2003. Four years later I was offered a prime seat in the judges’ viewing station, where I shot this photo of Shirley Shillingford. She is a member of the Trinidad and Tobago Social Club, which is one of 9 area mas (masquerading) bands that compete each year.

A succession of bands march their way down a 21-block parade route, ending up at Franklin Park. The King and Queen costumes are spectacular and they are followed by sections of exuberant dancing masqueraders. Be prepared for loud calypso music, the smell of jerk chicken, and vendors selling trinkets from Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, and a number of other West Indies islands. Many in the Caribbean cultural community live for carnival. More than 600,00 people attend carnival, though most Bostonians have no idea this event takes place each year. Art critic Greg Cook previewed the event in the Boston Phoenix last week. It would be nice to have additional press coverage for a change.

Images: Shirley Shillingford wearing Fruit Cocktail, 2007, photo by Maggie Holtzberg; Soca and Associates band members, 2007, photo by Maggie Holtzberg.

This is a continuation of the Alternative Deliveries post, where I introduced some ideas but discussed them with about as much depth as a racquetball bouncing off a gym teacher. (Cut me some slack - it’s a big topic for one post/brain.) One word you’ll sometimes hear when talking about art and digital technologies is democratization. The idea is that the power is shifting from being centralized in museums, publishers, film studios, and other presenters to being shared with savvy individual artists who get the stuff out there themselves.

Panacea! Or wait. Are there potentially major drawbacks and even a measure of stigma attached to the whole self-presented model? Short answer: well, yeah. Except when there isn’t.

There’s self-presentation as a promotional tool, and then there’s self-presentation as the “best and most appropriate way to get this awesomeness out into the cosmos.” By promotional tool, I mean teasing material on a website to promote sales, or those stories you hear about artists who present their work in nontraditional ways (self-published books, music on Myspace, streamed films) that have then segued into traditional presentations like a commercial publisher or music label. All well and good - why not nudge things forward a bit? But then there are those artists who’ve decided that the best way to get their work out into the great wide world is to present it themselves. And the kicker is that sometimes, some rare, sublime times, they’re right. DIY is in fact the best way for them to D.

Presenters are gatekeepers, and one good thing about gatekeepers is they force tough scrutiny of one’s work. One way that artists can present their own work without forgoing the peer scrutiny is by forming artist-run organizations. In Massachusetts, we have groups like Boston Sculptors Gallery or Mobius who provide space and support structures for presenting their members. Nationally, there are groups like 13P, a consortium of 13 cutting-edge playwrights whose mission is to present its members’ work. When not the produced playwright, members pitch in on the current show. The group is widely praised in the theater community, but as much as everyone loves the concept, if the playwrights (including MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Sarah Ruhl) weren’t as intriguing as 13P’s are, the concept wouldn’t work.

Digital technologies offer some new avenues for presenting one’s work, with ready-made communities to scrutinize, respond, and even collaborate. I recently read an article about singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton, who’s done quite well for himself offering his geek-themed songs on his website. He chose to share some material through a Creative Commons license, encouraging fans to actually create and post music videos featuring his songs. Again, the concept is great, but it works mainly because the art does, the ideal delivery of the ideal work to the ideal community.

When you present your own work, some potential risks are avoided, like rejection by a presenter or having your work compromised or botched by others. But there are new layers of risk, not the least of which being the stigma I mentioned above. (What’s the matter, no presenter would take you?) Another, even greater risk: that you’ll miss out on the benefits that an engaged, collaborative presenter will bring to your project.

New technologies aside, I’d hazard to say most artists would still prefer their work to see the benefits of collaborative, supportive presenters. But the good news is that those intriguing projects whose content is best shared DIY may be just a bit easier to accomplish, as the digital march continues.

Image: Deb Todd Wheeler, detail from LUDICRUM: NATURALIA, ARTIFICIALIA, SCIENTIFICA – V.5 (2002), brass, steel, LCD screen, video, 78 in. x 28 in. x 60 in.

Art moves
Massachusetts art and artists are criss-crossing the proverbial map.

James Hull, of Green Street Gallery and Laconia Gallery, makes the move to the New England School of Art and Design, where he’ll take over as gallery director. Matthew Nash shared the story on Our Daily Red, blog of the funky online art concern Big RED & Shiny. Speaking of Mr. Nash, he has an interesting take on LEF Foundation’s shift to focusing on independent film and the impending end Contemporary Works Fund.

Surely the loss of this reliable source of funding will have broad impact, but any arts community that cannot survive the loss of a single funding source should be asking some tough questions of itself. We need to seek other avenues for generating revenue, create interest and support for the contemporary art throughout New England, and bring in outside investment. The end of the CWF will usher in a new era for arts funding in New England, that is certain. Are we up to the task?

Full article.

Salvatore Scibona (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘06) is on the move to share his new novel, The End. If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll remember his fascinating discussion of the book here, and he’s been touring to continue that discussion in such far-flung places as Ohio, New Mexico, and Washington. Martha’s Vineyard residents will have the chance to hear him read as he joins poet Justen Ahrens for an event at West Tisbury Free Public Library on Saturday, August 30, 5:30 PM.

Over in Boston-town, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy is closing in on its October 4 Inaugural Celebration. The Greenway and UrbanArts Institute currently have a call for entries to all Massachusetts artists for existing sculptures and installations to be exhibited in the Greenway October 1-November 2. Three to four works will be chosen based on quality, durability, and suitability. Selected artists will receive a $1000 stipend. Deadline is Friday, August 22. Official notice here.

Plays with New England or local themes are encouraged in the call for entries for Culture*Park’s 7th Annual Short Plays Marathon. The deadline isn’t until October 15, so you have plenty of time to cook up your 10-20 minute masterwork. Full details here. The Marathon (which will take place Saturday, November 22 in downtown New Bedford, MA, is sponsored in part by the New Bedford Cultural Council.

Fiction for President
Elsewhere on the map: a California bookstore asked young readers to weigh in on what fictional characters they’d like to run for president. Made me wonder what characters from Massachusetts-based authors might make good leaders of the free world. Commander-in-Chief Joey Pigza (from author Jack Gantos)? President Anastasia Krupnik (Lois Lowry)? Hail to the Chief… Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation (MT Anderson)?

And then, there’s this: could a closer reading of Jay McInerney’s 20-yr-old Story of My Life have forecast the John Edwards affair?

See, it’s all in the art, people. Keys to the secrets of the presidency, the country, and the heart.

Image: Mary O’Malley, Imagined Landscape #2 (2004), ink on paper, 9 in. x 12 in. Mary is among the artists exhibiting in Drawn to Detail at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, August 30, 2008–January 4, 2009.

First, the warning… my six-month-old has his first cold and I, like the mad scientist who tests his serum on himself, went and caught it to see how bad it is. (Actually, I caught it by accident. But now I see that it is kind of bad. Poor kid!) All this to warn you that this post is being written under a viral fog and coherence is an unlikelihood (and besides, isn’t excessive coherence in a blog post kind of too too? Like wearing a ball gown to a paint ball war?)

And so begins this ramble. It’s about digital deliveries for art forms, an egg that shows no sign of uncracking.

Music comes by computers and pods, now, and other forms, in particular film and literature, are toeing these waters. But the question remains: how much do digital forms of delivery (downloads, streams, etc.) empower and, um, bring more money to individual artists?

It’s the money that’s always the big question mark, isn’t it. No doubt the web and its varied heads, shoulders, knees, and toes offers more opportunities for artists in all disciplines to get their stuff out there. Sometimes, more exposure is all that’s needed to spawn other opportunities. There must be something to this web presence business; even George Orwell and Samuel Pepys have blogs.

But using digital methods to deliver the art itself, and doing so in a, how shall we put it, cash-attractive way… that vista is still forming in the mist.

The challenges of chiseling out opportunities for indie filmmakers with digital distribution models has been explored by Filmmaker Magazine and CinemaTech (a blog about digital film and its ramifications; they recently covered interesting developments in downloadable art house films and the difficult but alluring notion of getting independent films onto iTunes). Safe to say the whole scene is still figuring itself out - but if we learn anything interesting in the months ahead, we’ll surely share it here.

Then there’s books. We all love ‘em. (Well, 60% of us do. Steve Jobs says the other 40% don’t read, in a January NYT interview.) Whether Kindles, iPhones, or other portable electro-doodads that allow you to suck books into them is a bonafide threat to page-turning as we know it is yet to be seen. But some literary types are hoping that digital delivery methods can shore up interest in the books themselves. Small Beer Press out of Easthampton, Mass. just announced that they’re making some of their titles available via a Creative Commons license as free downloads, co-released with the paper, still-have-to-be-paid-for versions. Lunacy? Publishers Gavin Grant and Kelly Link explain their thinking, on their website:

We are curious about the future. If everyone downloads books straight to the Kindlenub in their head, we might be in trouble. But if there are still people who like to read books on paper, maybe some of them will read some of these downloads and then decide they would like the actual books.

Hey, the pay (or not!) method worked for Radiohead.

More questions raised than answered here, and I haven’t even talked about art galleries and Shakespeare plays in Second Life yet. My hunch is that there’ll be more to write about this topic in the months ahead. It’s all still developing, an elaborate wiki being written by artists, presenters, you, me, ArtsyDude554, and everyone else. Let’s keep each other posted.

Image: Reese Inman, eScape III (2007), electric burn marks on paper, 18 in. x 36 in.

This Sunday’s Boston Globe had an intriguing article about Barrington Stage Company’s Musical Theatre Lab and its development of the new musical See Rock City & Other Destinations, now showing in Pittsfield.

That’s the same group that brought The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee to light (specifically, the light of a cafeteria in Sheffield, where it was first performed; the show would later bask in the refracted glow of two shimmery Tonys). From the sounds of it, Western Mass. is gaining traction as a place to incubate new works of musical theatre.

We recently heard from L.A.’s Academy for New Musical Theatre, hoping to attract a Bay State musical or two for their Interstate Musical Theatre Project. The ANMT is reaching out to musical theatre artists in Massachusetts (and the other 49 states) in an effort to create an interstate network of musicals - like what Eisenhower did with highways, only with showtunes and dance numbers.

The Interstate Musical Theatre Project aims to spark and foster new musicals throughout the country by sponsoring a contest (winner receives $10,000 and a concert reading), beginning October 15. Given that the project costs $6000 to participate, the real draws are the three workshops in L.A. (recorded and privately streamed on ANMT’s site so participants can return to them as well as see the workshops of other new works) and ongoing dramaturgical support from the ANMT.

From the ANMT website:

Interstate Musicals are not pre-existing musicals. The idea is that new musicals will be created from scratch, specifically for the Interstate Musical Theatre Project. Interstate Musicals can be any genre and any size, although ANMT recommends a cast of 4 to 8. This recommendation is merely to increase the commercial viability of the resulting musicals, but is not a requirement.

Each musical should explore American themes or culture, specifically “interstate” — which might mean anything from state-to-state relations/politics/controversy, interstate highway transportation, inter-state commuting, long distance relationships, historical events, or anything in between.

The staff of the Academy for New Musical Theatre will guide each state’s musical from idea to outline to first draft, providing workshops and support at every step along the way.

Complete information about the Interstate Musical Theatre Project at the ANMT website.

* American musical theatre

Jeanne Williamson is a mixed media artist whose work combines printmaking, painting, collage, and sewing. We asked her what she was working on now, and she passed along these intriguing “studio views”:

I really like the plastic orange fences that are used as a barrier to keep people out of danger, by blocking off a construction site. The fences come in many shapes and sizes, and I have been collecting different shapes of them for many years.

To create my work, I monoprint the textures of fences on one large piece of fabric. Then I paint over the printed fabric, to add color or more detail. Often I’ll also add hand stamped shapes, using hand cut rubber erasers. When I am satisfied with the design, I stitch lines using my sewing machine, following the horizontal and vertical grid of the fence.

I’ve been very interested in the grids of buildings under construction, and I have been working to translate different projects in my work. The piece in process in the photo is of a condo project in Natick, MA. Also shown is the actual fence I used to print, which happens to be a green fence, not orange. After I monoprint the fence on the fabric, I hang it to dry in my bathroom shower, before I start painting or hand stamping.

Recently, I’ve taken some larger older work, and cut it up, added more paint, and reassembled it to create new, smaller pieces. The photo with my sewing machine shows a few piles of work, as well as some felted pieces I’ve been creating, one per week.

For more information on Jeanne Williamson, check out her website, blog, and book.

Photo Credits: All images courtesy of Jeanne Williamson