ArtSake

We heard about an intriguing art show opening this weekend in Allston – Spin, which features art pieces made from cassette tapes and vinyl records. We got in touch with Kevin Hebb, the artist who came up with concept and one of the show’s contributors, and asked him to give us a peek into his studio, his work, and the origins of Spin.

The concept behind the show came from my interest or addiction to nostalgia. I am not alone in feeling that part of our childhood was taken away with the emergence of the Internet… or am I? The theme of this show is one of dedication to how things used to be and how far technology has come in such a short time. Cassettes and vinyl records were chosen as canvasses for their classic iconography and simplicity.

As an artist I am naturally inclined to question subject matter. It is in the dislike for modern culture that I am left with an unfortunate feeling of bitterness. When music turned into a platform to make a quick dollar off what was trendy, we saw the cassettes start to rot on the store racks. People began to glorify the Internet’s ability to put everything at your fingertips. Mixtapes became a thing of the past as music downloads and MP3 players started to emerge. This show will honor the simplicity of a looping bass line playing under a slowed down disco beat. A time when grunge was grunge, and no one did anything for the sake of fashion.

Growing up on the south shore of Massachusetts, I acquired an outsider’s point of view of the hustle and bustle of the city. My work embodies the grit of Dudley Station and the stillness of Borderland Park. Often my work shows distant views of a blank cityscape popping off of layered backgrounds inspired by far off vantage points and graffiti filled alleys.

Want to see Kevin’s completed work for SPIN? Rescue Apparel and Accessories (252 Brighton Avenue in Allston, MA) is hosting GLOVEBOX’s latest show SPIN, featuring the work of local emerging artists. The opening reception on March 1 from 6-9 PM; free and open to the public. SPIN is on view until March 29, 2009.

GLOVEBOX is a non-profit artist organization that enables artists to exhibit their work in non-traditional spaces around Boston. GLOVEBOX works side by side with local venues to create these alternative spaces, building relationships with these business and the public.

Images: Studio shot of Kevin Hebb’s work for SPIN; studio view; works in progress for SPIN; Kevin Hebb, HOME SWEET HOME (2008), acrylic and spray paint, 12 in X 20 in; Kevin Hebb, MAYBE NOTHINGS WRONG? (2008), acrylic and spray paint on wood, 30 in X 40 in; publicity postcard for SPIN.

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I recently met David Bookbinder (Photography Fellow ’07). The following is an account, in his own words, of how he became a photographer.

To the Edge, Back, and Beyond: A Wounded Healer’s Journey

I am a person with a big heart and a deep need to be connected who grew up insulated both from others and from myself. The arc of my life has been to reclaim my birthright of connection and compassion, which have manifested themselves mainly in my work as a psychotherapist and in my photography.

My entry onto the path both to psychotherapy and to the photography I do now began with a near-fatal medical error in Albany, New York, in 1993, where I was a graduate student in a PhD program in English Literature. That event, which included a near-death experience, divided my life into two parts: who I had been, and who I am becoming. To paraphrase the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, the way back from the brink has been “a long, strange trip.” On it, I have discovered what I was put on the planet to do.

During the long recovery from my brush with death, I took long walks on Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, MA, to distract myself from pain. In 2001, I bought a digital camera and began taking pictures of the light at the end of the day, and of the flowers I saw on my way to the beach. Eventually I began to manipulate these images on my computer, at first just trying to improve them, but soon realizing that once they were on my hard drive, I could do anything I wanted with them. From this process was born the first of my flower mandalas. Working with these images was as therapeutic and centering as the walks themselves, at once a meditation and a means of communing with forces larger and more powerful than myself. Listening to what the flower mandalas were telling me led me out of a dark place and indirectly, to my decision to become a psychotherapist.

The original flower moved me enough to photograph it. The mandala-making process distilled the initial feeling into something more precise and more deeply felt. Looking at the mandalas I’d made brought that enhanced feeling back into me, purified and amplified.

With each iteration of the creating/receiving cycle, a previously inaccessible facet of my divided self became more revealed, and little by little I became more whole. This strengthening of my soul has enabled me to open my heart to what I now realize is my greatest gift, to be a healer.

Two years after my brush with death, I was in a support group for people who had survived near-death. I was still finding my way back into this world, and although I knew I had returned from the brink with something of great potential value, I was also profoundly disoriented, split between the me I was and the me I was yet to be. One of the group members, addressing my confusion, made a wide half-circle gesture with his arm and said, “David, I think you’re one of those people who has to take the long way ’round.” He paused, his arm fully outstretched. “But when you get there,” he continued, closing his hand into a fist and pulling it to his chest, “it’ll be important.”

What I do now, more than a decade later, does seem important. As a psychotherapist, I see the light in people and help bring it into the world. I know I am saving lives, sometimes literally. As an artist and writer, I know I am positively affecting people I may never meet. Through these gifts, I hope to pass on the boons I have garnered from my journey, boons that, had I not taken that long, strange trip, I would never have been able to exercise.

Recently, a good friend and fellow traveler, Larry “Doc” Pruyne, completed a short film about my recovery from near-death and my work as artist and therapist. The film, “healing image,” is also the prototype for a series of films Larry is working on that that deal with art, artists, and the artistic process.

View “healing image.”

Photo Credit: All images by David Bookbinder

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This is one in a series of two-minute interviews with participants in the…

The last scheduled reading in the series is this Wednesday, February 25, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton. So it’s with a sigh and a fond click of the “Publish” button that I post this last reading series-related nano-interview.

We bound across the finish line with D M Gordon, a versatile and inventive writer who, prior to receiving a Fiction/Creative Nonfiction fellowship, has been a finalist for the Artist Fellowships in both poetry and prose.

MCC: How many revisions does your work typically go through?

DM: Recently, I’ve been measuring my growth as a writer by a willingness to write new drafts. My last two stories have run to more than fifteen saved drafts; some were simple slicings and dicings, some involved changes in point of view, but at least three versions, maybe four, were shifts in plot or structure. Maybe this is laying too bare how much I struggle, maybe some of the drafts go backwards rather than forwards, but I learn something every time I have the courage to make a major change.

MCC: Computer, longhand, or typewriter?

DM: Adherents of longhand talk about the act of words coming through the body, the arm, into the hand, and the pace slowing them to wiser choices. But I love the computer. The delete key is my best friend, and what a gift, this facility to move the order of ideas around the page. A great dictionary is a click away. My computer, when I can stand it, will read back to me what I’ve just written in its nerdy voice, which never spares the flaws– always illuminating. I wonder too, about the connection to the brain–if longhand comes through the writer’s dominant hand, and the typewriter or computer requires both, does this enhance use of the elusive other side of the mind?

MCC: Do you ever revise your work on the spot during live readings?

DM: My husband wishes for me that they made edible shoes– I have a well practiced habit of putting both feet in my mouth at the same time. The anticipation of extemporizing in front of a live audience would keep me awake nights.

MCC: What writer do you most admire but write nothing like?

DM: MOST admire and write nothing like (alas)? That would be Shakespeare. After that, it’s too difficult a question, and the list gets long quickly. Right this moment, on the spot, someone I’m least like, and admire? Kurt Vonnegut comes to mind, his early work, for his humor, world building, imagination, and pressing significance. But to say this, I’d have to leave out Mark Twain, Ursula le Guin, Evelyn Waugh, John Donne, Tobias Wolf, Sherman Alexie, Isak Dinesen…I’m forcing myself to stop, and when I come back in an hour, I’ll be horrified at who I left out and want to change everything. (Rereading this an hour later.) Wait. Most admire and write nothing like? Gabriel Garcia Marquez, T.S. Eliot, Michael Ondaatje, Chaucer, Toni Morrison, Henry James. See? I can’t do this.

D M Gordon joins Elizabeth Hughey, Bill Peters, and Michael Teig for an event on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton. Event co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

D M Gordon’s prizewinning poems and short stories have appeared widely in literary journals, including Nimrod, Northwest Review and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Diana’s been the founder of a number of literary programs for Forbes Library, and is the senior poetry editor of The Patchwork Journal. Phi Beta Kappa, Master in Music from Boston University, she owes her literary education to the auditor’s program, and generosity of professors, at Smith College. She’s had two Pushcart nominations, and recently the Massachusetts Review has accepted her MCC submission story, Escape Velocity (read an excerpt). She is currently at work on a novel.

Read all of the nano-interviews.

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This is one in a series of thumbnail interviews with participants in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Elizabeth Hughey (left) reads on Wednesday, February 25, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton.

Liz is an Alabama native, a maker of vital, luminous poems, and, if this blog post is any indication, a very witty answerer of questions, nano- or otherwise.

MCC: What are you working on these days?

Liz: I am working on two chapbooks, “Oaxaca” and “Etiquettes.” “Oaxaca” grew out of some confusion with how to find a place I had no idea how to spell. The poems in “Etiquettes” sort of reside and float around in the landscapes of the different editions of Emily Post’s “Etiquette.”

MCC: What’s the most embarrassing sentence/line of poetry you’ve ever written?

Liz: “Utter the word sandwich a couple of times: sandwich, sandwich becomes which sand, which sand.”

MCC: Please revise the following sentence:
Though every muscle in his body urged him not to, Sanderson crept toward the tinted windows of the gray-green Caprice.

Liz:
Through Sanderson
crept the muscle
(tinted, gray-green)
of Caprice. Windows
urged his body
toward the every
“not to” in him.

MCC: Whats the best/worst day job youve ever had?

Liz: Best: Traveling to International Book Fairs (Frankfurt, London) to sell the rights to translate books into different languages. Worst: Administrative assistant to a team of four young, male investment bankers during the dot com boom in San Francisco. I just wasn’t very good at it. I flew one guy to the wrong city in Texas for a meeting.

MCC: The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:

Liz: Pure Sugar.

Liz joins DM Gordon, Bill Peters, and Michael Teig for an event on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton. Event co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Elizabeth Hughey is the author of Sunday Houses the Sunday House, which won the 2006 Iowa Poetry Prize. Her new work is published or forthcoming in Zoland Poetry, Lungfull, Left Facing Bird and Caffeine Destiny. Born and raised in Alabama, she now lives in Montague, Massachusetts with her husband, Chip Brantley, and their son, Angus.

Read all of the nano-interviews.

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Mira Cantor’s solo exhibition UNIFORM, 22 life-size portraits of the Boston police, is currently on exhibit at the Moakley Courthouse in Boston. We asked Mira if she would share how the project – and the exhibition – came about.

UNIFORM: New Work by Mira Cantor at the Moakley Courthouse

I grew up in the sixties when the police were mostly white. The uniforms haven’t changed but the people in them have. They are an integrated force in many cities where there is still a high degree of segregation. I was interested in reaching out to the community to commemorate the people who serve. I was not only interested in the police as a collaborative but also as individuals; people who have hopes and dreams and families to go home to.

I am professor at Northeastern University in the Department of Art and Design where I teach drawing and painting. I started drawing the Northeastern Police about a year and a half ago. One day soon after, I was standing on a check out line in a grocery store behind a policewoman. We started up a conversation and I invited her to come to my studio to see my work. Soon after we had arranged for some of her fellow officers to become participants in my project. I met officers Bill Jones and Fred Allen who came to the studio together. They are one of the longest partnerships on the force. Officer Belinda Barrett has a long family history on the police force. Then there is Angel, a motorcycle cop and Christa, a policewoman who drives alone. Joe travels with his dog, Tiburion, a large German Shepherd. Each one has a story to tell and different reasons for becoming a cop.

Officers Bill Jones and Fred Allen, one of the longest partnerships in the Boston Police Force.

Christa Milton in front of her portrait, with Belinda Barrett (right) and Antionette Rafael (left) all from E-13 in Jamaica Plain.

My drawings are 93″ high by 43″ wide and are drawn in charcoal on Arches paper. I have looked at the costumed portraits of Manet who presented these singular works in triptychs during the mid 1800s and the large scale singular portraits of Eakins and Sargent. It is the scale that creates the dynamic relationship between the viewer and the image on the wall as both are the same size. One begins to feel a familiarity with the image (individual). You begin to know these people as if you have already met them. The character of each individual comes through the uniform.

Northeastern Police Officer Mike Blue standing in front of his portrait.

I met the events planner at the Moakley Courthouse during an art auction and I immediately thought my work would fit the architecture and context of the building. I made a proposal to her and she like the idea. I received a grant from Northeastern to mount the work and produce and invitation.

Artist Mira Cantor talking to one of the Boston police officers about the work.

Antionette Rafeal in front of her portrait.

The reception was attended by some of the policemen and women in the drawings. It was quite clear by their expressions that they were indeed honored to be represented in this exhibition. Many brought their children, extended family and friends.

The drawings are on the first and second levels of the Moakley Courthouse. The show will be up until March 27th 2009.

- Mira Cantor

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This is one in a series of demurely brief interviews with participants in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Lisa Olstein read in the series two years ago, after receiving a 2006 Poetry Fellowship. But along with being a past fellow (and current wonderful poet), she’s also the associate director of Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts & Action, one of the co-sponsors of this year’s series.

She took time from her duties at Juniper Initiative, the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the wild and infinitely variant universe of poem-making, to nano-interview with us.

MCC: What’s new and exciting at Juniper Initiative these days?

Lisa: We’re gearing up for this year’s annual literary festival (April 24 & 25) which will celebrate the Massachusetts Review’s 50th anniversary with two days of readings, performances, and a journal and book fair. Readers will include Yusef Komunyakaa, Marilyn Hacker, Christian Hawkey, Lucy Corin, Thomas Glave, and others. And, we’re happily processing applications for this June’s Juniper Summer Writing Institute, a weeklong program (one for adults, one for high school aged writers) of poetry, fiction, and memoir workshops, along with readings and craft sessions. Faculty and writers in residence include Mark Doty, James Tate, Lydia Davis, Dara Wier, Charles D’Ambrosio, Paul Lisicky, and other amazing writers.

MCC: How do you balance your duties at Juniper and the MFA Program with your writing career?

Lisa: Ideally: carefully, and with joy. Realistically: like an amateur circus performer juggling flaming hoops in a tiny car. . .

MCC: What are you working on these days, writing-wise?

Lisa: Poems that, hopefully, will make up my third collection. My second book of poems, Lost Alphabet, will be out this June.

MCC: What writer do you most admire but write nothing like?

Lisa: Li Po (she says with conviction).

MCC: Computer, longhand, or typewriter?

Lisa: Longhand on random slips and scraps to jot down passing phrases, then computer for the real deal, such as it is.

MCC: Do you secretly dream of being a) a pop icon, b) an algebra teacher, and/or c) a crime-solver/writer a la Jessica Fletcher?

Lisa: d) dolphin trainer, of happy, cage-free, entirely fulfilled human- and trick-loving dolphins.

MCC: How many revisions does your work typically go through?

Lisa: Anywhere from none (a rare and delightful occurrence) to dozens.

MCC: Do you ever revise your work on the spot during live readings?

Lisa: I really try not to, but occasionally a word here or there.

MCC: Please revise the following sentence:
Though every muscle in his body urged him not to, Sanderson crept toward the tinted windows of the gray-green Caprice.

Lisa:
Sanderson crept.
Every muscle, urge him
toward caprice. Urge him
forward toward windows
tinted grey-green in the body.
Urge him not to.

The next event in the series takes place Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 7 PM at Forbes Library in Northampton, featuring DM Gordon, Liz Hughey, Bill Peters, and Michael Teig. Event co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Lisa Olstein is the author of Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon Press, 2006), which won the Hayden Carruth Award, and of Lost Alphabet (2009). A recipient of a Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships from both the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Centrum Foundation, Olstein has been widely published. She presently serves as associate director of the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts and is a cofounder of the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts & Action.

Read all of the nano-interviews.

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If the Red Sox can begin to stretch those underutilized muscles in spring training down in Florida, we here in the throes of a frosty winter can too. There’s some interesting dance performances coming down the pike from past MCC fellows and finalists that we thought you might be interested in knowing about.

First stop, for school vacation week, is Opposites, an interactive performance designed for ages K-4 to teach kids about modern dance using the concepts of opposites, presented by Prometheus Dance. It’s this coming Thursday at 2:00 at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. There will be live percussion by Francisco Molina, as well as six members of Prometheus Dance and narration by Tommy Neblett (choreography fellow ’08).

In March, get ready for the world of Sultans. With more than 15 dancers, Mavi Dance (Hale Pinar Zengingonul & Giorgi Shandize, choreography finalists ’08) along with the flamenco dancer Clara Ramona, aerial dancer Gina DeFreitas, and the Brookline Academy of Dance, will perform works from Turkey, Georgia, Caucasia, India, Spain and Middle East. Mavi Dance will present the new folk ballet piece Harem set to original music by Dr. Mehmet Ali Sanlikol. Be sure to check it out at the Boston University Dance Theater on March 14-15. Here’s a link to a past Mavi Dance performance.

And in April, Neena Gulati (choreography finalist ’08) and the Triveni Ensemble will present A Garland of Rhythms blending the complexity of ancient Indian classical dance rhythms with modern choreography and African drums. It’ going to be on April 5th at 3:00 pm at Hellenic College, Maliotis Cultural Center. Here’s a clip from a past performance by Neena.

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This is one in a series of “less is more”-style interviews with participants in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

The fourth Commonwealth Reading Series event takes place on Tuesday, February 17, 8 PM, at Amherst Books. The reading is co-sponsored with the Juniper Initiative and the literary journal jubilat – whose managing editor, Jessica Fjeld, generously agreed to hit pause on her editing and writing work just long enough to nano-answer a few questions.

MCC: What’s new and exciting at jubilat these days?

Jessica: Our fifteenth issue came out last month, and we’re hard at work on sixteen, which will feature a forum on experimental African-American poetry that everyone here is really excited about. Since issue 14, we’ve been working with guest editors Cathy Park Hong and Evie Shockley, both of whom I admire as poets, and I appreciate what they’ve brought to the magazine’s editorial vision. jubilat is in many ways a collaborative project–that’s the way Rob Casper, the publisher, wants it to be, the product of a conversation rather than an autocrat–and it’s fascinating to watch the magazine quietly shape-shift, issue to issue.

The other thing we’re working on is planning our tenth anniversary year, which will be 2010. There will be a bunch of great events and other exciting (if top-secret at present) stuff.

MCC: What’s the main thing a writer submitting to jubilat needs to keep in mind?

Jessica: It gets said over and over, but please read our magazine before you submit. A sample copy costs less than most sandwiches. You can order it online and I will mail it to your house for free. If you’re engaged by what you find, and feel some commonality with the work we’ve published before, then odds are your work is a good fit for us.

MCC: Who wins the poets vs. prose writers paintball war?
Follow-up: and how would editors fair*?

Jessica: [* as an editor, I have to say: you mean "fare"!] This is a tough one. Prose writers are definitely capable of the long slog, really putting in the hours, but then the poets by contrast would be light on their feet, maybe more adaptive. But the organizational skills that make someone a good editor–following up on all the little details while keeping a bigger picture in mind–probably bode well for paintball too. I think a tight guerilla team of editors could take everyone out.

MCC: How do you balance your duties at jubilat with your writing?

Jessica: Maybe it’s because I read O’Hara’s Lunch Poems at too young an age (if such a thing is possible) but to my mind, the ideal time to write a poem is a lunch break. I like the defined window of time, and also the opportunity to take my brain out of operating at one gear and let it shift thoroughly into another. I also get to read a lot at work, both poems for our magazine, and books and magazines that are sent to the office–it’s part of my job to keep up with independent publishing. So in many ways, being in the office and attending to the magazine’s well-being complements my writing life well. Other days, though, I’m glad I work half-time and that I have long hours to myself at home, at my own desk.

Jessica and jubilat, along with the Juniper Initiative, are co-sponsors of a reading at Amherst Books in Amherst, MA on Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 8 PM, featuring Noy Holland, Caroline Klocksiem, Elizabeth Porto, and Susie Patlove. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Jessica Fjeld is the managing editor of jubilat. Her chapbook, On Animate Life, was selected by Lyn Hejinian to be published by the Poetry Society of America in 2006. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Read all of the nano-interviews.

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The above image was dispersed by artist Nick Rodrigues (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07), announcing the latest interactive project in his Hi (Human Interaction) series.

Nick is seeking participants for his “social love experiment” at the BEEHIVE’s next art show Sting 4, February 18th from 6:30 pm-9:30 pm. Artists are encouraged to send personal ads of 60 words or less by 2/14 (click the image and read the cocktail napkin to find out how). The ads will be displayed on beer glasses, and at the art show, as Nick puts it, “Every drink you buy is a chance for love.”

Nick has a gift for illustrating intriguing ideas through hilarious, interactive art. Recently, he drew the attention of WBZ news in Boston when he donned a portable, one-person tollbooth to drive home (as it were) the personal impact of toll hikes.

In November, Nick led a group of teen artists (he’s the resident sculptor at the youth art organization Artist for Humanity) as they lit the way to the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo at Boston Children’s Museum. Teens dressed in colonial garb carried LED-lamp “torches” and rode stationary bikes that used pedal power to light up signs reading “The GREEN Revolution is Coming” and “Proclaim Sustainability Throughout the Land.”

All images care of Nick Rodrigues.

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She exhibits all over this tiny blue planet that rotates around the sun. Her work is collected by museums who have fancy shmancy cafe’s and bookstores. She writes and illustrates children’s books, wins awards, (75 and counting) and has seventeen honorary doctorates. And yes, she’s coming to Framingham. Faith Ringgold is in the house! She’s got a book signing on Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 3 pm at the Danforth Museum of Art and she’s also scheduled to give a lecture on Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 7 pm in the Dwight Performing Arts Center, Framingham State College. The Story Quilts are on view at the Danforth through March 1st as well as her original illustrations for her childrens book Aunt Harriets Underground Railway in the Sky.

Image Credit: from Danforth Museum’s Web site. Faith Ringgold’s Le Cafe des Artistes, (The French Collection, Part II: #11), 1994, acrylic on canvas with fabric boarders, 79 1/2 x 90 inches, Private Collection.
Front row, left to right: William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, Willia Marie Simone, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Edmonia Lewis, Faith Ringgold. Middle row, left to right: Sargent Johnson, Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, Henry O. Tanner, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Vang Gogh, Augusta Savage, Back row, left to right: Ed Clark, Raymond Saunders, Jacob Lawrence, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Maurice Urtillo.

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