ArtSake

In honor of this past Saturday’s Earth Hour, I thought I’d round up a handful of shows/calls for artists centered on the environment, green-ness, and/or where we’re headed as an Earth.

Salem Arts Association, in collaboration with the Marblehead Arts Association, has announced a call for art for The Green Show: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, deadline tomorrow, March 31. The Green Show theme creates an opportunity for artists to express different aspects of nature, and the environment, representing nature at its best, that which is detrimental to nature and the environment, and artwork using recycled materials and found objects. The exhibit will run from Saturday, April 4 through Sunday, April 26. More information.

The Somerville Arts Council is seeking craft vendor applications, talent applications, and community vendor applications for ArtBeat, held on July 17 & 18, 2009 throughout Davis Square in Somerville. This year’s theme is: What will Somerville look like in ten years? One hundred years? A million years? Among the possibilities, of course, is future-Somerville through an environmental lens, but the main thing is that all proposals “boldly should go where no one has gone before!” Deadlines and more info here.

Two past MCC Artist Fellows, Jane D. Marsching (Photography Fellow ’99) and Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03), have work in Near Everywhere, which opened last week at GASP (Gallery Artists Studio Projects) in Brookline. The show features the work of Jane and Deb alongside art by Ellen Driscoll, Marguerite Kahrl, Troy David Ouellete, Adriane Coburn, and Vivan Sundaram. The show runs through May 2.

As curator Ellen Driscoll puts it: “Near Everywhere encourages us to awaken to the daily details around us that remind us that ‘everything we need is already here.’”

To read what other past fellows/finalists are up to, check out the latest Fellows Notes.

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(Enthusiastic hoot)!

At a ceremony emceed by Ethan Hawke this past Monday March 16, Salvatore Scibona (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06) was announced as the winner of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. The award features a $10,000 prize and puts Salvatore in the company of such past winners as Jonathan Safran Foer, Monique Truong, and Colson Whitehead.

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The nationally acclaimed artist Paul Goodnight is having an exhibition of his drawings and paintings at Wheelock College and the Towne Art Gallery. We recently caught up with Paul to ask him a few questions.

What artists’ work do you admire most but paint nothing like?

My daughter. There are several others: John Biggers, Romare Beardon, John Wilson, Leonardo Da Vinci, Caravaggio, and William Tolliver.

If forced to choose, would you be a magic marker, a crayon, or a #2 pencil?

I always love my pencil.

What is the most surprising response to your art you have ever received?

Silence.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:

Rated PG. As in Paul Goodnight.

Do you live with any animals?

Myself.

How do you know when your work is done?

When all the numbers are filled in.

Like what does your work MEAN?

It means I have a job.

The exhibition runs from March 17April 17. Gallery Hours: noon-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday. Artist Reception: Saturday, April 11, 2-4pm.

Artwork Credits: All painting and drawings by Paul Goodnight. French Horn, 25×32, pastel on paper; Trumpet to the 2nd Power, 23×27, pastel on paper; Dancer, 45×54, oil on canvas.

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This weekend, I caught an NPR story about Daylight Savings, featuring insights from Michael Downing (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’08). Michael wrote a (dare I say “the”) book on Daylights Savings, and the NPR piece draws on his considerable (as well as wry and witty) expertise on the subject.

Spring forward to read/listen to it.

Image: Ilana Manolson (Painting Fellow ’08), TOP OF THE MORNING (2007), oil on board, 24 X 24 in. Ilana’s recent oil paintings, along with the pastels of Nicora Gangi, show in Looking Comes First at the Barrington Center for the Arts at Gordon College in Wenham, March 16-April 17.

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Remix, a solo exhibition of works by Reese Inman (Drawing Fellow ’08) opened yesterday at Gallery NAGA in Boston.

The show features paintings and drawings Reese created through a fascinating process: 1. Design computer software to produce patterns of dots, 2. Select the most intriguing patterns, 3. Then painstakingly render the patterns by hand. What with her emphasis on minute details, we thought Reese would be the perfect candidate for a similarly minute nano-interview.

MCC: What are you working on these days?

Reese: I’m in the programming phase of developing a group of new drawing algorithms, and am also developing a new body of paintings mixing algorithmic output (represented as paint droplets) and digitally blurred photographic imagery. Some of the paintings and a selection of burn drawings are on view at Gallery NAGA, Boston through March 28.

MCC: What’s the most surprising response to your art you’ve ever received?

Reese: During an open studio event a couple of years ago, a scientist introduced himself and told me that one of my paintings looked very much like a DNA microarray image. At the time, I didn’t know what a DNA microarray was, and had never seen an image of one. The next day, he emailed me a couple of images, and he was right – that particular painting actually did resemble a DNA microarray image!

MCC: Like, what does your work MEAN?

Reese: My work explores and reflects on everyday human interaction with computers. There’s a dialogue between me and the computer in which I write an algorithm, the computer runs it with a good deal of freedom (via random number generation), and then I render the output by hand. Computer process typically has the effect of concealing the programmer, but the hand rendering reinserts visual evidence of human involvement, while staying true to the composition created by the computer.

The opening reception for Remix is tonight (Friday, March 6), 6-8 PM, at Gallery NAGA in Boston. Remix runs through March 28. Along with showing at Gallery NAGA, Reese is part of the group show Blogpix at Denise Bibro Fine Art in New York, March 5-28. Read more Fellows Notes.

Images: Reese Inman, DIVERGENCE II (2008), acrylic on panel 30 x 30 in; Reese Inman, REMIX IV (2009), acrylic on panel, 40 x 80 in. See more images at reeseinman.com.

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On Saturday, March 7th at 8pm, Lowell Telecommunications Corporation (LTC), the Revolving Museum, and Medfield.TV in Lowell, MA will present a screening of the 100 Second Film Festival. The festival is an ever-evolving project started by LTC and the Revolving Museum in 2005. The goal of the project is to create a festival that can be tailored to the specific needs of a venue or area. Ideally, each festival will represent local filmmakers in the area and give them an opportunity to share their work with the community.

There are no entry fees and the festival is non-competitive. Filmmakers can submit their films either through the mail or over the Internet. Utilizing the Internet, each screening draws upon this ever-growing pool of videos to create a unique presentation of films specific to the desires of the curator(s). Any and all genres are acceptable; the only stipulation is the submission must be 100 seconds. In 2007, Medfield.TV, the public access station, became another venue for the festival. Creative Commons fuels the festival, making the public sharing and viewing of these videos possible.

The 119 Gallery in Lowell hosted a screening in late January and there are more to come later this year. Anyone can host a screening; they only need to contact Jason Daniels, the executive director at Medfield.TV and the founder of the festival. The creators of the festival hope to bring people together through the creative process of making, sharing, and watching videos.

The tickets for the screening at the Revolving Museum are $4.

Visit http://100seconds.org to learn more about the festival.

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Did you catch the WBUR story about Video Game Orchestra? The orchestra is a collection of students/alumni from Boston’s music colleges who arrange and perform music composed for video games. The 90-piece orchestra, led by Berklee alum Shota Nakama, is performing Thurs. March 5 at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, at 8 PM.

Anyway, along with introducing the Video Game Orchestra, the story explores how writing music for video games is gaining appeal for composers (Berklee students actually convinced the school to create a course on it), how the Northeast is a stronghold of video game design, and how at least one of the industry’s leading composers, Lennie Moore, is a Berklee alum.

What struck me was the reminder that, with a little out-of-the-box thinking, new avenues to apply your art are there to be found, not only for composers but artists of all disciplines.

Have any of you found unusual applications for your work or unique opportunities in newer media?

Video: from Video Game Orchestra’s performance of Silent Hill 2: Theme of Laura.

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The above image is from the Eyes of God series by Michelle Samour, just one of the past MCC Fellows and Finalists featured in the most recent Fellows Notes, which we just carved, sanded, routered, varnished, and placed on the ol’ ArtSake trophy shelf.

Read the Fellows Notes.

Image: Michelle Samour, UNTITLED #3 FROM EYES OF GOD SERIES (2006), handmade paper, 20 in D. Michelle, a 2003 Crafts Fellow, joins Debra Weisberg (Drawing Fellow ’08), Audrey Goldstein, and Julia Shepley in Material Drawing at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, March 7-17, opening reception Sat. March 7, 6-8 PM.

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