ArtSake

September 2010

We compile a monthly list of presentations, honors, publications, and events featuring past and present MCC Artist Fellows & Finalists. As you’ll see, the news is good - not just about these award-winning artists, but also about the breadth and vitality of contemporary arts throughout the Commonwealth.

Of the nine finalists for the 2010 James and Audrey Foster Prize from the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, six are past MCC Fellows! This month, all finalists will be included in the James and Audrey Foster Prize Exhibition, running Sept. 22, 2010 – Jan. 17, 2011. The exhibition includes work by Robert de Saint Phalle, Eirik Johnson (Photography Fellow ‘09), Fred H. C. Liang (Painting Fellow ‘04, ‘08), Rebecca Meyers (Film & Video Fellow ‘09), Matthew Rich (Painting Fellow ‘10), Daniela Rivera, Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ‘10), Amie Siegel and Steve Tourlentes (Photography Fellow ‘05). The winner of the prize, which recognizes and celebrates artists who live and work in Greater Boston, will be announced in early January 2011.

Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ‘06) is featured in the July/August 2010 Design New England. His art was selected as part of a model unit for the W Boston Hotel & Residences in Back Bay, designed by Meichi Peng and photographed by Michael J. Lee.

Congratulations to Patrick Ryan Frank (Poetry Fellow ‘06), a finalist for the Ruth Lily Prize.

James Haug (Poetry Fellow ‘98) has a new chapbook, called Scratch.

Liza Johnson’s (Film & Video Finalist ‘07) film South of Ten will be featured in Hurricane Season, an evening of experimental documentary shorts reflecting the recent history of the Gulf Coast of the U.S. The screenings take place at the Issue Project in Brooklyn on September 15, at 8pm.

Caroline Klocksiem (Poetry Fellow ‘08) has published two poems in Poets for Living Waters, an online poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rachel Mello (Painting Finalist ‘10) was recently featured in a Weekly Dig article on the Somerville Open Studios.

As mentioned above, Rebecca Meyers (Film & Video Fellow ‘09) will be among the artists in the Foster Prize Exhibition at the ICA. What’s more, Rebeca’s film blue mantle, an ode to the sea as a beautiful and terrible force, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs September 9-19, 2010. Read a fascinating Q&A with Rebecca from the Boston Globe.

Caleb Neelon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘07) recently returned from creating a new mural in China. He shares some images from the adventure on the arts blog My Love for You is a Stampede of Horses.

Laurel Sparks (Painting Fellow ‘04) is profiled on the New American Paintings blog.

Naoe Suzuki (Drawing Fellow ‘06) has a solo show, Mi Tigre, My Lover opening at the Brown University Sarah Doyle Gallery in Providence. The show runs September 6 - October 1, 2010.

Tracy Winn (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) will read from her story collection Mrs. Somebody Somebody at Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Mass., on September 16, at 7 PM.

Past Fellows Notes
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
Apr. 2010
Mar. 2010
Feb. 2010
Jan. 2010

Are you a past fellow or finalist with an event, honor, or other bit of news you’d like to share? Tell us about it.

Images and media: Rebecca Meyers, still from the film LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS (2006); Rachel Mello, WHITHER SHALL I WANDER (2009), Oil on hardboard cut to silhoutte, 21 1/2×31 1/2 in; Naoe Suzuki, COME, LITTLE GIRL, COME (2010), Mineral pigment and graphite on paper, 30×66 in.

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Call for Performers: Mobius seeks proposals for performances and durational pieces for Sept. 18 (8-10 pm) and Sept. 25 (4-6 pm), with possible extra slots for durational work starting at 11am, to be included in the show, The Prostitution of Art. Proposals are encouraged from both students and established artists working in the areas of contemporary theater, performance art, dance, music, interdisciplinary and hybrid forms. Of particular interest are new Ideas, concepts, approaches or the physical embodiment of their theme. Contact j.ellis@mobius.org.
Deadline: September 14, 2010

Artist Professional Development Training Program: The Artist’s Professional Toolbox is an artist skill-building/professional development workshop from the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston.
Deadline: September 24, 2010

Latino Artists: National Association of Latino Arts and Culture’s 2010 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant provides support for Latino artists in the creation of their work. Fellowships range from $1,000 to $5,000. Contactct victor@nalac.org or call 210-432-3982.
Deadline: September 24, 2010

Playwrights: Apply to develop your new script with a director, dramaturg, designer, and Philadelphia-based professional actors at PlayPenn. PlayPenn runs July 7-24 at the Adrienne Theatre in Philadelphia and will provide travel, housing, per diem, and a stipend to selected artists to work intensely with other theatre artists to develop new work. A three day pre-conference retreat to start, followed by a 17-day working and rehearsal period, capped by public readings. See how to apply.
Deadline: September 30, 2010

Visual Artists: Donate a creative postcard to help an emerging artist study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Proof of Purchase is a unique sale to raise funds for student scholarships to SMFA. The event, hosted by the samsøn gallery, showcases hundreds of postcard-sized original works, all priced at $50. In a fun twist, the buyers don’t know the identity of the artist until purchase is made. The call is open to all artists, who can donate up to two original artworks on 4X6 postcards. All 2-D and 3-D media accepted, but it must fit on the card. Read the submission instructions.
Deadline: October 1, 2010

Call to Artists: Cambridge Arts Council Grant applications are now available. CAC’s grant program awards funding to high quality artistic projects directly benefiting the citizens of Cambridge. For more information or to schedule a one-on-one consultation, contact Julie Madden at 617-349-4381.
Deadline: October 15, 2010

Image credit: Shark Bites by Cory Clinton is on display in Art in the Park, an exhibition of sculptures by New England artists at Elm Park, Worcester courtesy of the Worcester Arts Council. Cory says the goal of creating large or life-sized animals is to create something in real space that is accessible no matter who looks at it. The link between naimals and human emotion is one of the strongest. By creating something beautiful with my hands from a common material often overlooked for its expressive properties, I seek to inspire emotion and ignite passion in the viewer. Art in the Park was founded to present public art to a broad community, to promote the works of artists, enhance outdoor spaces, and enrich llives and create visibility for the greater Worcester area.

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Take one look at the artwork of Naoe Suzuki (MCC Drawing Fellow ‘06) and you’ll see evidence of a person deeply committed to drawing. Her art brings to light the complex emotions humans have in relation to animals. Her latest series depicts the relationship between a woman and the tigers in her life. We asked her to briefly step away from the tigers that occupy her recent work and to share with us some thoughts about her art.

What is the allure to draw on white paper? “I’ve been thinking about this lately, actually about the negative space I leave on white paper. I used to create scenes with cut out figures when I was a child. I cut illustrated figures of Japanese people of Edo period, and I laid these characters and objects underneath a thick clear plastic sheet on my desk. Almost every night, I would change their placement. This memory keeps popping up in my head when I’m working in the studio. It’s similar to what I’m doing with my figures/objects on paper. I pay a lot of attention to space between them. I like to give them a lot of space around them, so that these figures and objects float in space. I also studied dance when I was at college, and dancing has been an important part of my life. Maybe subconsciously I’m giving them enough space to move around on white paper.”

Talk about Mi Tigre, My Lover. “This series is inspired by a life of Mabel Stark, a renowned female tiger trainer for circus in the early 1900s. Mabel survived many severe mauling by her tigers but kept going back to the tiger cage. I was thinking about “being captive” and their love/power relationship. Tigers were the ones kept in the cage and obvious captives, but I thought Mabel was also a captive by her tigers. Her life was consumed by her love and obsession for tigers.”

What do you hope people feel when looking at your work? “In Mi Tigre, My Lover, there’s a complex play of love and power between a woman and her tiger. I hope people feel some sort of tension in the space between a woman and her tiger—obsession, control, submission, passion, desire, whatever that is.”

Tell us a little bit about what’s next for you. “An idea for my next project just bubbled up in my head two days ago when I was driving back from Adirondack after spending four days at the Blue Mountain Center. It’s at the very early stage and I don’t have much to say, except it will be something to do with dead computers. And I’m also thinking about different way in approaching triptych.”

Naeo Suzuki
Mi Tigre, My Lover
September 6 - October 1, 2010
Opening Reception: September 16, 5-7pm
Sarah Doyle Gallery, Brown University, 26 Benevolent Street, Providence, RI
Tel: 401-863-2189
Limited edition prints from this exhibition will be available on Art+Culture Editions.

Image credit: All images by Naoe Suzuki. From top to bottom: Come Little Girl Come (detail); Come Little Girl Come; My Tigre, My Lover (detail); My Tigre, My Lover (detail); My Tigre, My Lover (detail); My Tigre, My Lover.

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Today’s glimpse from our Gallery@MCC: captivating animation by Luke Jaeger (Film & Video Finalist ‘07) from the short film When Me Body Lay Down in the Grave.

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ArtSake’s extreme fondness for all things canine has lead us to share with you a most wonderful public art project created in partnership with the Cambridge Arts Council. Tired of looking for a trash barrel to deposit the daily waste created by Fido or Poochie? It is a waste of waste. So Matthew Mazzotta has created the Park Spark Project, a public methane digester in Pacific Street Park that uses dog waste and turns it into energy. It is the first dog park methane digester installed in the U.S. (yeah Cambridge)! We caught up with Matthew to have him to tell us more. 

What inspired you to create this project?
“Actually, I was walking down the street and I saw my friend Clay, who I don’t see that often, walking his dog. He said he was going to the dog park so I went with him to catch up with how he was doing. I had recently gone to India, with MIT’s D-lab program to study appropriate technologies. Having been interested in methane digesters for years, I was able to see them being used firsthand in India. There, women collect the cow dung with their hands and mix it up with water and then dump it into their digesters. Somewhat similar to what people do at dog parks, but the women in India don’t wear bags on their hands.

Sitting at Pacific Street Dog Park watching the dogs, I saw an almost overflowing garbage can full of dog waste and said to Clay ‘In other countries, people use that for fuel to cook with, that can is just a pile of energy.’

Even though we don’t see many small-scale digesters in the US, we are starting to see them on farms. As the issues around climate change are becoming more debated, methane is now being seen to be 30-70 times more potent as a green house gas than Carbon Dioxide. That means animal farms are being targeted as environmental polluters.

The Park Spark project is making visible how we as the city handle the waste from the animals of our communities and what the potential can be. Although, in India, the methane collected goes to a stove to cook with, I started imagining what a community of a city would use their energy for.”

What has been the most surprising thing to result from this project?
“Although, I wrote a grant to MIT to fund the project, I have been in conversation with the city about doing this for almost a year. There have been many discussions about this project, sometimes hopeful and sometimes not so much. The most surprising aspect, and the one I find amazing, is that I was able to work with the city and realize something so new and experimental. With many different parts of the city giving advice, I think the project was actually improved from what I had initially proposed. It was inspiring to see that someone can work with the city and achieve great results.”

What do you imagine dogs think about this?
“Well, I think that every dog that has entered the park has blessed the project (by peeing on it), so even if they don’t understand the implications of the Park Spark, it is nice to see that they are more than willing to live with it.”

The Park Spark Project Location: (Sidney St. between Pacific and Tudor), Cambridge, MA
Dates: August 25 - September 25, 2010

First Meeting: Wednesday, September 1st at 7:00 p.m.*
Livable Streets Alliance
100 Sidney Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
*Humans only
Learn more about the Park Spark Project
Image credits: All images courtesy of Matthew Mazzotta

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Art in the Park, Worcester features sixteen sculptures by New England artists placed around (and in) the ponds of historic Elm Park. The public exhibit, which is free and on display through October 1, 2010, is organized by the Worcester Arts Council.

Learn more about the sculptures, the artists, and the series of related events for Art in the Park.

Images: Ken Reker, WATER; Lu Heinz, LEAFBOMB; Fernando DeOliveira, JELLYFISH; Kathryn Lipke Vigesaa, MELT/WATER. All images from the 2010 Art in the Park, Worcester exhibition, on display in Elm Park through October 1, 2010.

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Call for Visual Artists: C3 seeks visual artists to make use of the Dynamite Space in Thornes Marketplace in Northampton. The Dynamite Space is a raw, open basement space with brick walls, wood floors and huge windows. Work that would visually enhance the space and involve the community is welcomed. C3 offers assistance with publicity and curation. All proposals must be approved by C3 and Thornes Marketplace. All shows must be installed along the wall of the space, as the farmer’s market and dance rehearsals also take place in the space. More information on how to apply. Contact Perry Huntoon at 413-585-0373.
Deadline: Ongoing

Call for Cell Phone Photography: The Southeastern Louisiana University Contemporary Art Gallery is devoted to the presentation of national and regional exhibitions of contemporary art, lectures and workshops.
Deadline: August 30, 2010

Call for Artists: Anderson Ranch Arts Center is calling for submissions for The Big Light Show, a juried exhibition of works that focus on light as a medium or inspiration. Open to artists of all media that takes light as its subject, inspiration or media in all its forms. Contact Paul Collins at 970-923-3181.
Deadline: September 1, 2010

Call to Artists: CoolClimate Art Contest. Art may originate in any medium, but must be static image for online submission. Learn more about submission. Judges include Agnes Gund, David Ross, Mel Chin, Philippe Cousteau, Van Jones, Jackson Browne, Chevy Chase, and Carrie Mae Weems. Contact Sarah Ingersoll at 310-486-5448.
Deadline: September 6, 2010

Call for Choreographers: If you need feedback on your work, some free rehearsal time and/or have your dance produced, the October 15-16, 2010 Shared Choreographers’ Concert may be for you. Interested choreographers need to submit a brief summary of your piece, including style, number of dancers and whatever you know about music, title, and props. Send your proposal to sccoctober2010@gmail.com, or leave it in the SCC mail box in the lobby of The Dance Complex. You and your dancers must be at the showings on September 12 and October 3, and the dress rehearsal on October 14. Learn more.
Deadline September 7, 2010

100,000 reasons why you should pass this along to nonprofit arts organizations looking to expand. Non-profit arts organizations with strong track records of artistic excellence, who are intending to buy, build, renovate, partner in the development of, or become anchor tenants in a vibrant artist space can apply for up to $100,000 in support of a facility project through the the Ford Foundation Space for Change Planning and Pre-Development Grant program.
Deadline: Letters of inquiry due September 17, 2010

Call for Public Art Entries: Powahouse %4ART Competition in Roxbury, MA is open to all artists, designers, architects and teams from Massachusetts. Go here to download the RFQ. Both new and established artists are encouraged to enter the competition. A project of Roxbury’s design/build company Placetailor, the Powahouse is a small apartment building designed to meet the stringent Passivhaus sustainability standards and produce more energy than it consumes. The Urban Arts Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design is facilitating the artist selection process. Budget: $4,000. Contact Christina Lanzl at 617-879-7973.
Deadline: September 20, 2010

Image credit: Department of Energy photograph, Image I.D. Number 2020754, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, November 3, 2009. These images show the simulation monthly averaged distribution of the total column water vapor from a high-resolution configuration of the Community Climate System Model Community Atmospheric Model.

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If you’re a performing artist, you can get yourself listed (for free) as a New England States Touring (NEST) artist. Why bother? Because New England presenters can apply for funds through the NEST Program to offset the cost of your performing fees.  Learn more on becoming a NEST artist.

The next deadline for presenters to apply for NEST grants is September 1. These grants are given to nonprofit organizations in New England to support performances by select NEST artists (this could be you). NEST artists must meet the NEST artist requirements on MatchBook.org. So if you’re thing is chamber music, or contemporary dance, or opera, spoken word, puppet theater, storytelling, well you get the picture, go ahead and get yourself listed on MatchBook.org.

View presenter’s application information to apply for a NEST grant.

Image credit: Photograph from the National Archives. WPA Federal Theater Project in New York:Dance Theater:”Young Tramps”, ca. 1935. ARC Identifier 195733. Item from Collection FDR-PHOCO: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882 - 1962.

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Tips to guide you safely through the MCC Artist Fellowship application process. (2011 MCC Artist Fellowships guidelines are now available.)

In the MCC Artist Fellowship Program, we instruct our panelists to make their grants decisions based on two criteria:

• Artistic quality
• Creative ability

“But wait!” exclaims an imaginary ArtSake reader. “If all decisions are based on artistic excellence, what advice could you possibly give other than ‘make great art?’”

And here, our imagined, exclamatory reader has a point. Do make great art. But we thought we’d share some ideas on optimizing your application, which really means avoiding choices that might distract panelists from the excellence in your work.

(We’re not even going to mention that you should carefully read - and follow! - the guidelines, and that you should familiarize yourself with the guidelines and instructions ahead of time, so you’re not rushing on the evening of the deadline. You know that already. So. No reason to even bring it up.)

Which work samples should I submit?
Since the work sample(s) you submit are the only evidence the panelists will have to understand you as an artist, what you decide to include is an important choice. That said, don’t overthink it. Rather than strategizing about what style or genre you imagine will click with what you assume to be the judges’ tastes, just send your strongest work. Truly. Individual panelists have stylistic preferences, but most arts professionals of a high level are able to recognize excellence in a style not their own. And besides, the work that does well in panels, that emerges from the group, is quite simply the work that excites a juror, makes a strong enough connection that he or she will advocate for it when the panel’s final recommendations are made.

Spend your best hours and your best energy on the work itself rather than on estimating what an imagined juror might like.

How do you know what’s your “strongest” work? If you have any question, enlist the opinion of a trusted peer. They are not you, after all (not that you’re not awesome), and that non-you-ness can offer some helpful distance and objectivity.

We ask for recent work (past four years), but it doesn’t necessarily have to be your newer-than-new, “Have I revised it? Heck, I’ve hardly spell-checked it!”-type work. “Be aware of how highly competitive it is,” said one panelist. “What separates the strong applications is revision.”

One question we often get is whether it’s better to send a group of excerpts from different work (to show range) or a longer section of just one. (This is particularly key in categories requiring CDs/DVDs or printed pages, where one work or one excerpt could easily constitute your entire work sample allotment. In visual arts, the equivalent might be five images from different series vs. five from the same series.)

Showing range can be helpful. But simply put, the best way to win a panelist’s support is by giving them a great artistic experience. Ideally, your sample will compel the panelists as it would any audience, while conveying your unique voice as an artist.

If you’re sending an excerpt of a longer work, send a meaty part. If the portion you send is all set-up, the panelists might say, “Well, it’s good craft, but how do I know this artist can effectively develop this?”

If you’re sending a group of images, keep in mind we project all five at once. Successful applicants tend to excel at demonstrating a cohesive vision - with room for variety.

Preparing Your Work
In disciplines that include jpg images, MAKE SURE to optimize your images by setting the longest dimension (length or width) at 768 pixels. The lesser the dimensions are from 768 pixels, the worse the projection quality. If it’s too small, your image will look pixelated when projected.

In disciplines that ask for pages: readability is your friend. Avoid diminishing margins and fonts just to fit more in. More is not better.

In disciplines that include CD or DVD submissions, tracks/chapter marks are highly encouraged.

If your work is interactive, performance-based, or conceptual, think hard about how to best convey to the panel in a compressed time period what your intended art experience is. A couple of past applicants who have done this really well are TRIIIBE, with a video of their Art on Art/People on Plywood, a spontaneous art event that took place at the ICA Boston (see below), or Nick Rodrigues with Automotive Armor, which does a terrific job portraying the experience of the piece, while also editing the video in a way that’s consistent with the work’s humor.

Work Sample Description
In all categories, applicants have the opportunity to include a brief work sample description to give, if necessary, context to the submitted sample(s). We believe the Work Sample Descriptions can be useful. But at least once a panel season, a panelist complains that certain choices in descriptions can be distracting.

“Judges are insulted when you try to tell them what you are doing thematically,” one panelist told us. Other times, panelists are irked by descriptions that read like marketing copy. “No tag-lines. No self-promotion.”

Well then what is the MCC looking for with this Work Sample Description? you might ask. We just want the panelists to understand your work sample; “invite us into the world of the (work),” as one panelist put it. Put yourself in the panelists’ shoes: sitting in a meeting room, reading a sample or experiencing your work projected or played. Things that would be obvious in a book or a gallery or a performance venue may not be obvious in that context. Any time panelists spend wondering how they’re “supposed” to be experiencing your work is time they’re not discussing its good qualities. Even details that seem self-evident to you – for instance, whether your work is a full piece or an excerpt from something longer – may not be clear to someone approaching your work without context.

Beyond that? Be brief, including only enough information to allow reviewers to understand the piece. And if your work needs no explanation, don’t feel you need to fill in the box. No description is fine, if none is needed!

The X factor
There’s always a touch of mystery to what makes a particular work click with a particular audience. It’s a given that the level of artistic quality should be high, but what makes a juror (or any audience) love love LOVE it? To some extent, it’s an X factor, out of your control. So we’d suggest you control what you can, avoid distracting application choices, and continue to do your great work.

And email us or add a comment below if you have a question not covered here.

Image and video: Christopher Frost, TRAP (2008) granite boulder and cast bronze, 32×50x72 in; a still from the performance piece Art on Art/People on Plywood by TRIIIBE (2008).

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It’s Friday, late afternoon, and creatures everywhere are feeling snacky.

In short, it’s the perfect time to experience David Lachman’s (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ‘07) essen/fressen, an installation that asks: what divides the human from the feline, or the hors d’oevres from the kibble?

Gallery Glimpse is a weekly sampling of our Gallery@MCC.

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