ArtSake

Here’s the latest installment of Fellows Notes, the current great news of past Fellows/Finalists from our Artist Fellowships Program.

November’s got some terrific stuff: Claire Beckett’s photos on DC buildings… TRIIIBE’s ongoing installation at Boston University… Eric Henry Sanders’s new play in New York. Read on.

On the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene blog, Steve Almond is entertainingly interviewed by Cam Terwilliger, in advance of Steve’s participation in the Somerville News Writers’ Festival, November 13, 2010, at the Center for the Arts at the Armory in Somerville. (Both Steve and Cam are 2008 Fellows in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction.) Here’s a sample of Steve discussing his recent, DIY self-publishing projects: “Of course, there’s a lot of schlepping involved. And some low-level humiliation. But that’s the life of a writer anyway these days.”

Diane Arvanites-Noya and Tommy Neblett (Choreography Fellows ’08, ’04), aka Prometheus Dance, are part of Dance and back again! A 19th Birthday Faculty Concert in the Julie Ince Thompson Theatre at The Dance Complex. New and renewed pieces by Prometheus Dance, The Prometheus Elders, and numerous other groups will be performed on Saturday, November 13, 8 PM and Sunday, November 14, 7 PM.

Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07) is one of the artists included in the 2010 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50. Also, her work will be on display during FotoWeek DC in the show 100 Portraits – 100 Photographers: Selections from the FlakPhoto.com Archive, curated by Andy Adams of FlakPhoto.com. This exhibition is part of the NightGallery series of projections on display from November 6-13, 2010, with a launch party at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on Friday, November 5. The images will be projected on exteriors of significant buildings across Washington, DC, including: Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design, Newseum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Red Cross, National Museum of the American Indian, Satellite Central (M Street – Georgetown) and the Human Rights Campaign buildings.

Liza Bingham (Painting Finalist ’10) is one of the over 80 artists exhibiting work in the 34th Annual Waltham Mills Open Studios, on Saturday, November 6 (12-6 PM) and Sunday, November 7 (12-5 PM).

Martha Jane Bradford (Drawing Fellow ’85) collaborated with Chantal Harvey to produce Acquarella: The Fable, digital/virtual art on view in the Air Tree Exhibit in the Madrid Pavilion of the World Expo in Shanghai, curated by Spanish curator and virtual arts leader Cristina García-Lasuén. Martha (Alizarin Goldflake in Second Life) produced, directed, and designed most of the virtual environment, while Chantal Harvey helmed the 3-D computer animation. Watch the clip with narration in English or Chinese. Also, Martha recently constructed Second Life sets for a real life play, The Winter Bear, which premiered in Anchorage October 29, 2010. Martha’s virtual, immersive art is integrated into the show’s the stage design (watch a video trailer). Find more information about the play The Winter Bear, a story of a troubled Athabascan teenager whose video game skills come in handy against a marauding Winter Bear. The play runs at Cyrano’s Off-Center Playhouse, Anchorage AK, Oct 29 – Nov 13. Read more about the project.

Sarah Braunstein (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04) was named as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 selections, recognizing five young fiction writers chosen by National Book Award Winners and Finalists. She’ll be formally honored at a celebration at powerHouse Arena in NYC on Monday, November 15, hosted by musician and author Rosanne Cash with music journalist Rob Sheffield as DJ. Sarah’s novel The Sweet Relief of Lost Children will be published by W.W. Norton in 2011.

Congratulations to Peter Brown (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06), whose short story collection A Bright Soothing Noise is published by University of North Texas Press this month. The book won the press’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction.

Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09), aka TRIIIBE, are turning Boston University’s massive 808 Gallery space into a site-specific installation. In Search of Eden will evolve as creators and observers participate in developing a present day version of the Garden of Eden. The installation will encompass photography, sculpture, painting and daily performances by the artists.

Lorraine Chapman (Choreography Fellow ’04) and her dance company join Contrapose Dance for an afternoon of dancing and dynamic work by Gianni Di Marco, Courtney Peix, and Lorraine Chapman. The event is on Sunday, November 14, 2:30 PM, Green Street Studios in Cambridge, MA. Among the works by Lorraine Chapman, The Company are “Pulp Tango,” the gold section from “Displaced Here Persons There,” and a new solo danced by Lorraine Chapman.

Regie Gibson (Poetry Fellow ’10) will emcee the literary feast A Taste of Grub, a November 5 fundraiser for Grub Street, a writers’ service organization based in Boston. Regie has plenty of experience behind a microphone; he’s a former Poetry Slam National Champion.

Jane Gillooly (Film & Video Fellow ’07) will be a guest at EventWorks SIM (Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design) on Thursday, November 4, 2010, at 7:30 PM when her documentary Today the Hawk Takes One Chick has a free screening.

Cathy Jacobowitz‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’10) short story “You Made Me Leave My Happy Home” (drawn from her novel Melly Mockingbird) will be published in the Santa Monica Review spring or fall of 2011.

Congratulations to Liza Johnson (Film & Video Finalist ’07), who won the prestigious Rappaport Prize from the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. The prize is a $25,000 award to an individual artist, “an investment in both an individual and the broader community.”

Dawn Lane (Choreography Fellow ’10) was recently invited by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival to a Creative Development Residency to develop a new work, one potato, two potato. The work uses aspects of Irish culture and history as a metaphor for exploring excess, loss & insufficiency. Joined by dancers Lorimer Burns, Jane Goodrich, Susannah Millonzi and Leslie Nelson, Dawn spent a productive week in October in the Doris Duke Theatre that culminated in an informal showing of the work in progress on October 15.

Scott Listfield (Painting Finalist ’10) was selected as the creator of this year’s First Night Boston button. The design will be unveiled this month.

Tara L. Masih‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’96) story collection, Where the Dog Star Never Glows, was announced as a finalist in the USA Book News Best Books 2010 Awards, short story category. Read Tara discussing Three Stages in the book’s development on ArtSake.

Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) was selected for inclusion in the 2010 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50.

Rachel Mello (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo exhibition on paintings, prints, and collages at Club Passim in Cambridge. The exhibition runs November 15, 2010-January 3, 2011. Additionally, she has two pieces in the Nave Gallery’s Our Town exhibit, featuring works of and about Somerville, MA. Opening November 18, Rachel’s work will be included in Plenty at 13FOREST in Arlington. It’s the annual small works holiday show (gift ideas, anyone?).

Eric Henry Sanders’s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) play Reservoir will have its world premiere at The Drilling CompaNY Theatre in New York, running November 4 -24th, 2010. An earlier draft of the play helped Eric win an MCC fellowship, and you can read about its development (as well as hear an excerpt performed by Company One) on ArtSake.

Leslie Sills (Crafts Fellow ’95) created a sculptural teapot, called High Tea, that is among the works included in The Teapot Redefined. The exhibition of sculptural teapots ran at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge through Oct. 31. High Tea was inspired by Leslie’s artist residency this past summer at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, which borders a sheep farm in Newcastle, Maine.

Ron Spalletta (Poetry Finalist ’10) had a poem featured in Slate this summer, selected by poetry editor Robert Pinsky (hear Ron reading “Blank Villanelle”). Also, check out a great article about Ron in the Harvard Gazette, highlighting his dual careers as an award-winning poet and a Harvard Medical School manager.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) has a solo photographic exhibition, Lost in My Life, at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York. The work is a series of photographs in which the artist herself is immersed in an environment of flattened cereal boxes, bread tags, twist ties, and other miscellaneous leftovers of modern consumption. Lost in My Life runs November 4-December 23, 2010, with an opening reception November 4, 6-8 PM.

Leslie Williams‘s (Poetry Fellow ’10) new poetry collection Success of the Seed Plants has been published by Bellday Books. The book won the 2010 Bellday Books Prize.

Kevin Young (Poetry Fellow ’10) has poetry featured in the Best American Poetry 2010 anthology.

Jeff Zimbalist’s (Film & Video Fellow ’05) documentary The Two Escobars is being released in San Francisco this month, is currently running in New York, and will have an LA release next week. The film recently received a glowing review by The Onion’s AV Club (and those discerning hipsters are tough to impress!). The highly lauded documentary will be released on DVD Blu Ray this month.

Past Fellows Notes
Oct. 2010
Sept. 2010
Aug. 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: poster for RESERVOIR by Eric Henry Sanders, produced by The Drilling CompaNY; still from a trailer for THE WINTER BEAR, with virtual environments designed by Martha Jane Bradford; still from THE TRAVELERS CABARET by Lorraine Chapman; Scott Listfield, GRAND CANYON (2008), Oil on canvas, 24×48 in; Rachel Perry Welty, LOST IN MY LIFE (BOXES) (2010), Pigment Print, represented by Yancy Richardson Gallery.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

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.

The Boston Book Festival on Saturday, October 16, 2010 is a free literary celebration featuring readings, discussions, and events with an impressive list of world-renowned authors – including numerous past MCC Fellows. Events include Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08), who hosts the Book Revue, a rocked-out multimedia event with literature by and about rock stars; Henriette Lazaridis Power (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06), who hosts the event Fiction: Time and Place, exploring identity and the march of history in fiction; and Kevin Young (Poetry Fellow ’10), editor of the new anthology The Art of Losing, who joins other authors to read and discuss as part of Poetry of Love, Loss, and Healing (incidentally, Meg Kearney, one of our recent grants panelists in Poetry, will also take part).

Julie Levesque (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) and David Prifti (Photography Finalist ’09) are part of the Rice/Polak Gallery‘s contribution to Affordable Art Fair New York City, September 30-October 3.

Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) and Linda Price-Sneddon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’01) have created a collaborative installation, in two parts showing at two different art venues. Part one of the installation That Which Changes That Which Stays the Same shows at the Villa Victoria in Boston through November 3, 2010. The second part of the installation shows at the Essex Art Center in Lawrence through December 8, with an opening reception Friday, October 8, 5-7 PM, and an Artists’ Talk Wednesday, November 17, 7-8 PM. Both works are part of a joint exhibition by Villa Victoria and Essex Art Center called Exchange.

David Binder’s (Photography Fellow ’01) film Calling My Children received Best Short Documentary at the Woods Hole Film Fest in August where David also received an Emerging Filmmaker award. Furthermore, the film was named Best Short at the Newburyport Documentary Film Fest last weekend. The film will screen at the New Jersey Film Festival on October 1, the New Hampshire Film Festival October 14 – 17, and the Oaxaca International Film Festival in Oaxaca, Mexico November 5-13, 2010.

Steven Bogart (Playwriting Finalist ’09) has received great reviews for the production of Cabaret he directed – the Globe review in particular singles out his direction for praise. Read an ArtSake interview with Steven about the show.

Congratulations to Sarah Braunstein (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04), who was named as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35! The award recognizes five young fiction writers, selected by National Book Award Winners and Finalists. Sarah’s novel The Sweet Relief of Lost Children will be published by W.W. Norton in 2011.

Candice Smith Corby (Painting Fellow ’08) currently has work in two shows: Painting Now at the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol Community College (through October 21), and New Work 2010 (with Gwen Strahle) at the Lenore Gray Gallery in Providence, RI (through Oct. 25).

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ’08) is reading as part of the Greenfield Poetry and Spoken Word Festival on Saturday, October 9. He’ll be taking part in readings at the Greenfield Grille at 3 PM and again at 6:30 PM.

Michael Gandolfi’s (Music Composition Fellow ’03) composition Plain Song will be among the works on the Boston Symphony Chamber Players new CD, Plain Song, Fantastic Dances: Chamber Music By American Composers, on the BSO Classics label. Gandolfi’s composition both commissioned specifically for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. The new recording will be made available for download as a complete album and at the Symphony Shop in Boston, in November.

Ilana Manolson (Painting Fellow ’08) has a solo show, Stasis/Flux, at Clark Gallery in Lincoln, Mass. The show runs October 1-30, with a reception October 2, 4-6 PM.

Rebecca Meyers (Film & Video Fellow ’09), whose work is currently showing in the ICA/Boston 2010 Foster Prize Exhibition, has a Q&A with ICA curator Randi Hopkins on Thursday, October 28, 7 PM. In Words & Images: Rebecca Meyers, she’ll present a selection of short work including the New England premiere of her newest film, blue mantle, which explores the local history of the Massachusetts coast, shipwrecks, and the role of the sea as aesthetic inspiration.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) has a solo show, Weather Scores, at the Gordon Gallery of the Boston Arts Academy. The show features Nathalie’s work using weather data to create sculptural musical scores. Information from weather stations, off-shore buoys and satellite imagery, is translated into 2D and 3D musical scores that map meteorological conditions of a specific time and place, but also function as musical scores to be played by musicians (in fact, musician Elaine Rombola recently joined Nathalie to play the scores at a Nave Gallery reception). The Boston Arts Academy pieces focus on recent New England hurricanes, blizzards and storms. The show runs October 5-November 30, with an opening reception October 5, 5-7 PM. Read more about Nathalie’s weather scores in an ArtSake interview.

Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04, ’10) has a number of reading events for her new short story collection, Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories. She takes part in the Concord Festival of Authors on Sunday, October 24, reading at 3 PM. Then, on Tuesday, October 26, 7 PM, she reads at Porter Square Books in Cambridge. On Thursday, October 28, 7 PM, she reads at Andover Bookstore (for both the Porter Square Books and Andover Bookstore events, she’ll be joined by Tracy Winn). Finally, she takes part in the Blacksmith House Reading Series: Monday, November 1, 8 PM, at Blacksmith House in Cambridge.

A 25-year survey of the work of Daniel Ranalli (Drawing Fellow ’10) will be presented at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The exhibition, curated by Leslie K. Brown, focuses on Ranalli’s environmental works, embedded in the ecology and landscape of the Outer Cape. It includes over 30 works from several series. The show will be on view October 15, 2010 – January 16, 2011, with a free public reception occurring October 22, 2010, at 7-9 pm.

Monica Raymond (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) has a photograph of the Cambridge Carnival featured in the current online edition of qarrtsiluni on “Crowds.”

Cristi Rinklin‘s (Painting Fellow ’10) solo exhibition, Paracosmos, opens at Steven Zevitas Gallery in Boston and will run from September 30-October 30, with an opening reception on Oct. 1st from 5:30-8 PM. Furthermore, her work is currently included in two group exhibitions: Painting Now, at the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol Community College in Fall River, MA, on view through October 21, and Crazy Beautiful II, at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, NY, on view through November 4.

Work by Leslie Sills (Crafts Fellow ’95) is included in The Teapot Redefined, an exhibition of sculptural teapots at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge. The show runs through October 31.

Sarah Slifer (Choreography Fellow ’10) is interpreting and performing Charles Olson’s dance-play Apollonius if Tyana for two festivals celebrating the centenary of Olson’s birth. The first festival, Black Mountain North Symposium in Rochester, NY, is on October 3, 11:45 AM. The second festival is Olson 100 in Gloucester on October 10, 1 PM.

Identity Crisis, a new full-length comedy by Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ’09) which received its first staged reading at Provincetown Theatre, in Provincetown, MA in May, is slated for two more staged readings. Centre Stage-South Carolina has selected Identity Crisis as a finalist in its annual new play contest and will present a reading of the play in Greenville, SC on October 21. (Peter won the theater’s 2006 contest with Guided Tour, pictured above.) Next February, HRC Showcase Theater in Hudson, NY will also give Identity Crisis a staged reading as part of its reading series. Peter’s popular short play, My Name is Art, was staged in September at the Short and Sweet Festival in Canberra, Australia after being produced twice in London over the summer – including a slot at the London Fringe Festival – and at Short and Sweet in Singapore.

Congratulations to Tracy Winn (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08), who received the 2010 Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award! The award is a yearly monetary prize (2009 award was $15,000) to a promising writer to celebrate the memory and literary work of Sherwood Anderson. Also, Tracy reads from her novel Mrs. Somebody Somebody (now in paperback) at Newtonville Books on October 14, 7 pm. Then, she’ll read at Porter Square Books on October 26 at 7 PM, and at Andover Bookstore on October 28, 7 PM.

Past Fellows Notes
Sept. 2010
Aug. 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: David Prifti, EMRYS AND MR. FRENCH (2007), Tintype, 8×10 in; director Steven Bogart and performer Amanda Palmer during a rehearsal for CABARET, photo by Kati Mitchell; score for HURRICANE NOEL by Nathalie Miebach; Poster for GUIDED TOUR, a play by Peter Snoad, performed by Centre Stage-South Carolina, 2007.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Today’s glimpse from our gallery of past MCC fellows/finalists is a sampling of the idiosyncratic, at times comic, and flat out exhilarating dance of Christian Burns (Choreography Fellow ’08).

Powered by Bookmarkify™

THE ROYAL FROG BALLET is an amoeba of collaborators, a producing body, a shouting household of households, and an aspiring dance team in search of parade.

- from the troupe’s website (do you, too, get the feeling its audience is in for an interesting time?)

The Royal Frog Ballet is a cross-disciplinary group that blends performance, visual art, music, movement, and a sensibility that’s equal parts Vaudeville and avant-garde. And that encapsulation undoubtedly leaves out important facets of the RFB, because it’s just one hard-to-encapsulate group.

So we asked Sophie Wood, co-director of the troupe (which is based in Northampton but includes members from elsewhere on the East Coast), to elaborate, in advance of an appearance in the upcoming HONK! Festival in Somerville (October 8-10) and a Surrealist Cabaret and Pumpkin Walk in Amherst (October 22-24).

ArtSake: I’m interested in a recent collaboration by The Royal Frog Ballet, The Leaving Nest at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton. Can you talk about the interdisciplinary nature of that project – it was billed as “an installation, performance series, and window garden” – and how it relates to the identity of your troupe?

Sophie Wood: Our original idea for using the gallery was to expose our art making process, as well as a product or performance, as part of the showing. The A.P.E. Gallery (as a space) is aesthetically very different from the spaces that we were used to performing in and creating installations for: usually we’re in a barn or a field or a community center or someone’s living room. I think that we were all a little unsettled by the idea of being in a very classy, clean, professional gallery space, and have spent lots of time intentionally creating art that isn’t meant for galleries. But we also wanted to try something different, and were really intrigued by the giant window that is the front of the gallery space which is right on Main Street in Northampton, and generally the down town location as a way of reaching new audiences.

The desire to present our process is part of our aesthetic and identity, I suppose, in that we want to create art that is accessible, that feels down home, that feels like you could make it too, without compromising the quality or the vision. We try to use materials that are cheap or reused, to use spaces that aren’t traditional performance venues, singers that have never sung before. I think part of that is a desire to create art that inspires other people to make art, and part of that is a desire to inspire ourselves to try anything that we want to, regardless of whether or not it’s the ‘art’ that we study or practice. We want to make encouraging art, not untouchable art.

The Leaving Nest was a three week installation. The week before the gallery opened, two muralists started painting on the big walls opposite each other, a team of builders started building a giant boat/house like structure (on wheels) in the center of the room, some gardeners put 30 amaryllis bulbs that had been started a month before in pots in front of the window on Main Street, a pin hole camera was set up with props, and the dancers and writers and costume makers wandered around making little messes in the corners.

The first week we had a gallery opening, and at that point the murals and sculpture were all in a state that could be called finished, the bulbs were poking up in various stages, headed towards blooming, and there were about 8 costumed living human statues amongst the plants and on the boat, and the visitors were being photographed by the camera.

After the opening, we were in the gallery each night after hours, changing the installation, adding to the sculpture, watering the plants painting more on the murals, adding more props, but each day when the gallery opened, all of the art was “finished” and ready for gallery viewing. At night people were always peering in the windows, watching us work or rehearse; we did a lot of singing and dancing in the space at night also.

The second week we performed a costumed and performative singing show from on top of the boat/house, that had been rehearsed and created that week in the space, and the third week we presented a performative choreographic spoken word show that had also been created in the space. The changes made to the murals and the sculpture reflected and added to the performances. Characters from the first show appeared in the murals by the second show, writing from both shows inspired additions to the sculpture and murals, images from the gallery appeared in the writing.

It was an incredibly exhausting, challenging, intensive experience for us as a collective and as individuals. It was extremely educational and thought-provoking and opened up a lot of discussion in the collective about how we present work, how we advertise it, how we structure our decision making. We’re just figuring it out as we go along, following what excites us.

ArtSake: Artists in the Royal Frog Ballet have been creatively collaborating for a long time (you call it an “ever-extending collection of housemates, friends, loves, siblings, classmates, co-workers, neighbors, and networkers”). What are the benefits of a deep and sustained creative partnership?

Sophie: We’ve all been developing our individual art heavily influenced by our surroundings, which, for many of us, for a long time, has included each other. We read lots of the same books, see lots of the same shows, hear lots of the same music; Our thought patterns have become similar, but our brains and how we process ideas, images, organization, are still very much individual. We introduce each other to new concepts, images, sounds, and pick them apart or build off of them together. The benefit is never having to explain yourself and who you are before you explain your idea. The benefits are similar to the benefits of family; Sometimes they drive you bonkers, but their confidence in you is irrationally solid, their support is unending, and their understanding of who you are is inexplicable.

We know what each other’s abilities are and what our weaknesses are and where we struggle and where we excel and when and how to push and when to encourage and make tea, and when to stop. We know how we tick. We can usually read each other, for better or worse, as whole humans, not just as artists. If someone is struggling with an idea or at a rehearsal, we can often read or feel comfortable asking if it has to do with the art or with something unrelated. We know what to expect, and also we know what wonderful, creative, irrational, unexpectable beings we all are. We have a lot of minds to help us create that know us well, that live in our same world of place and of image and idea, but don’t see or process the world in the same way.

ArtSake: I love the premise behind the Surrealist Cabaret: an open studio for performance artists. Can you offer a few snapshots of what an audience visiting your “studios” might experience?

Sophie: That’s top secret. Or, maybe the studio hasn’t even been opened yet.

Could be that they see moving sculptures, a dance number or two, unexpected instruments, extravagant pumpkin art made by lots of ‘pumpkin artists’, magical landscape occurrences, unusual tree fruit, beasts of all shapes and varieties, and masked story tellers of questionable quality.

Couldn’t rightly say.

ArtSake: The Royal Frog Ballet is participating in the HONK! festival for the second time. Can you talk about how your troupe’s aesthetic jells with the spirit of HONK?

Sophie: I think our ‘aesthetic’ as a group is based whether or not it’s going to be a good time, satisfying, joyous, magical, or cathartic. HONK! is an unbelievable event. To me the most radical part of HONK! is how much pure fun it is, how inclusive that fun is, and that the inclusivity doesn’t make the fun lose any of its grittiness or edge. So, when we had the opportunity to bring our clowns (who follow no rules or choreography) to the streets with our ‘instruments’ (sculptures), it was too much of a good time to pass up.

ArtSake: Sophie, do you create your own solo work? And if so, how does it differ and/or crossover with the work of the troupe?

Sophie: I do, I have, I will, it’s complicated. I write poems and little books for bad days, I make exotic pinatas for weddings, paintings and collages for birthdays, papier mache sculptures, I dance, I perform, I make puppets and masks and costumes, I write plays, I dream of mastering the spoons. I co-direct a Shakespeare and physical comedy program for young people in Vermont. I make and do whatever strikes my fancy. Since a fair amount of my time goes towards the organizational and secretarial aspects of the Ballet, and setting up events in which to share work (which I then share work in), the difference between my work and Ballet work sometimes feels murky. I think the bulk of work that I make that seems most clearly my own is work that never gets shown, (or isn’t meant to be). One of the main reasons that working together was so appealing from the beginning is that it’s intimidating and exhausting to show work by yourself. It can lead to a lot of lonely artistic doubt. Support and encouragement to show and put art out in the world, regardless of how ‘ready’ it is, is one of my favorite aspects of working with the RFB.

ArtSake: What’s up next for The Royal Frog Ballet?

Sophie: A nap. A meeting. A bowl of french fries. A winter full of of individual touring and art making. A street performance event in Northampton in April, featuring members of our collective and other companies and artists from New England.

The Royal Frog Ballet will participate in the HONK! Parade in Somerville, Sunday, October 10, 2010. They present the Third Annual Surrealist Cabaret and Pumpkin Walk at 5:30 PM (rain or shine) on October 22, 23, and 24, at Old Friends Farm on Bramble Hill in Amherst, MA.

Sophie Wood co-directs the Royal Frog Ballet and the Get Thee To The Funnery! Shakespeare Program and several other theater workshops for young people in Central Vermont.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Amid concrete and clay
And general decay
Nature must still find a way…
- The Smiths, Stretch Out and Wait

Site-Specific Dance: White Wave of Brooklyn, NY is proposing a series of site-specific dance works during the 2010 Dumbo Dance Festival. The seven sites are situated within two designated areas; the Brooklyn Bridge Park (near the entrance at Washington and Plymouth Streets), and along the Pier 1 waterfront (entrance at Old Fulton and Water Streets). There is no application fee to apply. Ideally they would like work to be collaborations between dancers, movement artists and multimedia artists of all kinds: musicians, composers, fashion/costume designers, video artists, photographers etc. You may apply as collaborators or as individual artists and they will will match you together. They are primarily a dance festival but are open to creative applications from artists in different media who can make a strong case for the way their work would fit in a dance context. The sites are presented raw.  Before submitting an application, they strongly suggest you visit the site–specific designated areas. Learn More
Deadline: Postmarked August 15, 2010

Call for Digital Art: Digital’2010: PLANET EARTH, an international digital print competition and exhibition organized by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI) is looking for artists and scientists to submit digital prints that reflect their perceptions of our planet. Jurors are Maddy Rosenberg, owner/director of Central Booking in DUMBO, Brooklyn; and Patrick Hamilton of the Science Museum of Minnesota. Selected works will be exhibited at the New York Hall of Science from October 3, 2010 through January 31, 2011. For more information, visit ASCI’s Web site.
Deadline: August 16, 2010

Funding for Media Artists: The National Endowment for the Humanities is offering Media Development & Media Production Grants.
Deadline: August 18, 2010

Call to Artists: Turners Falls RiverCulture is looking for artists to make art in downtown Turners Falls. Submit a proposal for the participatory/public art you want to make/do and if you’re selected, they will give you money to make that art happen. The criteria are inventiveness/beauty/aha-ness, use of location in a new/reimagined/creative way, likelihood you can pull it off, participatory nature/reach, use of the money, submitted by deadline. Questions, contact Lisa Davol.
Deadline: August 30, 2010

Call to Dorchester Area Artists: The Dorchester Arts Collaborative (DAC) is looking for artists to participate in their 2010 Open Studios October 23-24. For more, see DAC Web site or the DAC blog.

Business Development for Visual Artists: The Artist’s Professional Toolbox Program is a business development program specifically designed for visual artists. The Toolbox is an eight-month intensive course in which artists will learn marketing, networking and business skills with the additional benefits of peer group interaction, mentorship, and feedback. Apply to the program.
Deadline: September 24, 2010

Call for Public Art: Pittsfield’s Artscape invites artists to submit proposals for new work in the 2010-2011 exhibition season. Artists will receive a $1000 honorarium. For more information, call 413-499-9348.
Deadline: October, 31, 2010

Image Credit: Photograph of squirrel by ArtSake.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

What discoveries await you in this fan blog about Williamstown writer Jim Shepard? A. the above video. B. news of a new collection coming out March 2011, and that The Millions thinks You Think That’s Bad‘ll be rad. And C. that a Project X movie may be on the way. (I guess I just spoiled all your discoveries. Sorry. But still go check out the blog.)

Boston novelist Michelle Hoover guest-writes in the highly entertaining 1st Books Blog (authors writing about publishing their first books). The takeaway: persist, writers! Some 15 years spanned between the author starting her novel to the final days of editing, when she read chapters aloud to Other Press publisher Judith Gurewich.

Local playwright, actor, and theatre artist John Kuntz has launched a blog, and he recently wrote about how the audience at Company One’s Grimm was engaged and interested in the new play process: “It was a packed house, out for the night, they wanted to be there, and they were having a great time.” Dig it. May many more new works find many more enthusiastic audiences.

Jen Mergel, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, was featured in the New American Paintings blog discussing the role of contemporary art in an institution with a strong art history tradition: “I see [emerging artists] as hugely important in terms of keeping the conversation going and the discourse alive.”

And while we’re in the hallowed halls of the MFA: the Boston Globe recently profiled Andrew Haines who, as the museum’s conservator of frames, matches frames with paintings from MFA’s collection (that is, when he’s not creating his own astutely observed paintings).

In promoting their books and advancing their work, writers should definitely do these three things and then also these five things. Then POW: instant fame! Or at least, eight things done.

Sign of the times: Porter Square Books in Cambridge has added an e-Books buying section to its website.

Neato idea: a theatre company in NY enlists donations to cover the cost of giving away seats to audiences who otherwise may not have the opportunity to go.

In the blog of ArtCorps, an organization that sends artists to strengthen and mobilize Central American communities, Massachusetts native Laura Smith talks about using art to foster empowerment with women in El Salvador.

Always wanted to weld/wire/sew/woodwork but don’t have the tools, space, and/or know-how? Artisan’s Asylum, a non-profit community workshop in Somerville, wants to make an array of tools and classes available to current or aspiring makers of things. In preparing their upcoming class schedule, they’re asking for artist/artisans to take an interest survey.

Attend the London Biennale – in Boston. No inter-dimensional wormhole required! TransCultural Exchange, a Mass. org specializing in connecting international cultural communities, is holding a local satellite event – a Curated Salon – as Boston’s contribution to the London Biennale’s three month calendar of cultural events. If you’re interested, bring yourself and a non-artist guest for an evening of brilliant conversation. All participants will be listed on TransCultural Exchange’s website as official participants in the London Biennale. The salon takes place on August 19, 6-8 PM, at the Hampshire House. Download the press release, which includes ticket information, here.

Finally, two “Notes” we missed in our recent Artist Fellows Notes: Wendy Jehlen’s (Choreography Finalist ’04) Anikai Dance Company is producing a free site-specific outdoor performance at Georges Island on the Boston Harbor Islands on Saturday, August 7, 1:30 PM. And 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 by interior designer Meichi Peng (see art overlooking pillow, below).

Media: clip of Jim Shepard reading the story “Boys Town” at Skidmore College; detail of model unit at the W Boston Hotel & Residences in Back Bay, Meichi Peng, designer and Michael J. Lee, photographer, from Design New England Magazine.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

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.

The Rice/Polak Gallery in Provincetown exhibits dozens of intriguing contemporary artists, including numerous from Massachusetts. MCC fellows/finalists upcoming at Rice/Polak include Joshua Meyer (Painting Fellow ’10), whose Intermingle: New paintings by Joshua Meyer is on exhibit August 13-August 26, with an opening reception Friday, August 13, 7 PM. Following that exhibition, Julie Levesque (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) and Jane D. Marsching (Photography Finalist ’03) will both have solo shows, August 27-September 10, 2010, with a reception on Friday August 27, 7 PM.

Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) visited Here and Now on WBUR radio to discuss his summer music picks, and those of callers-in.

David Binder’s (Photography Fellow ’01) documentary Calling My Children is screening at the Woods Hole Film Festival August 3rd at 1:00 PM.

Liza Bingham (Painting Finalist ’10) is among the artists in Free Association, a summer group exhibition for Associate Members of Kingston Gallery in Boston. The show runs August 4-29, 2010, with an opening reception Friday August 6th, 5:30-8 PM.

Steven Bogart (Playwriting Finalist ’09) directs a new production of Cabaret, opening at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge on August 31. The production features local performing artist Amanda Palmer (of Dresden Dolls fame) as the Master of Ceremonies.

Jessica Bozek’s (Poetry Finalist ’10) new poetry chapbook Squint into the Sun has been released by Dancing Girl Press.

Lorraine Chapman’s (Choreography Fellow ’04) dance company is among those performing and participating in the Massachusetts Dance Festival, which seeks to successfully establish dance artistically, financially and operationally, throughout the state. Lorrain Chapman The Company will perform at the Boston Ballet on Saturday, August 21, 2010, at 8 PM, and at the UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center on Saturday, August 28th, 2010 at 8 PM.

This July, Janet Echelman’s (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) Biennial of the Americas was unveiled in Denver. The work is suspended between the Greek Theater and the Denver Art Museum in Denver’s Civic Center Park.

Christopher Faust (Painting Fellow ’10) is among the artists in On the Road, an exhibit of artwork inspired by the road, running through August 27, 2010, at the Suffolk University Art Gallery at NESAD. The show was curated by Gallery Director James Hull.

Jane Gillooly (Film & Video Fellow ’07) will screen Today the Hawk Takes One Chick on August 16, 7 PM at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, as part of the DocYard series of contemporary documentary films. Also, Jane received a pre-production grant from the LEF Foundation for her film-in-progress The Suitcase of Love and Shame.

Dawn Lane (Choreography Fellow ’10) has a new website, at dawn-lane.com. Read an ArtSake article about Dawn’s recent honor in Washington D.C.

Rebecca Meyers (Film & Video Fellow ’09) has been hired as film coordinator for ArtsEmerson. Rebecca will program films related to ArtsEmerson’s live performing arts series, as well as “other independent, repertory and foreign films, a student-curated series, classics, and regular screenings of films for children.” (News via the HubArts blog.)

Caleb Neelon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07) is among the artists in The Boat Show, an exhibition in the Drive-by Gallery in Watertown. Drive-by is the new gallery of Beth Kantrowitz (formerly of Allston Skirt Gallery) and Kathleen O’Hara (formerly of OH+T Gallery).

Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) created a site-specific installation at an abandoned bar called The Artery. The installation treats the inside of a bar as the inside of a body in an immersive multimedia environment. The installation is in the old Artery Lounge space on 26 Holden Street in North Adams, MA, through October 17, 2010. See Downstreet Art for more information, including gallery hours.

Congratulations to Nancy K. Pearson (Poetry Finalist ’10), who won the 2010 Spoon Review Poetry Review’s Editors’ Prize.

Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04, ’10) has two August reading events featuring her recently published short story collection Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories. She reads at the BigTown Gallery in Rochester, VT, on Sunday, August 15, 5:30 PM. Then, she visits The Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Provincetown on Monday, August 23, 7 PM.

Work by Daniel Ranalli (Drawing Fellow ’10) will be on exhibit at DNA Gallery in Provincetown, August 13 – September 1. The show, which also includes work by Tabitha Vevers and Peter Hutchinson, was curated by Russell LaMontagne & Richard Baiano.

Monica Raymond’s (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) poem “The Miraculous” is part of the exhibit “Sinners, Saints, and Censorship: A Quills Art & Poetry Exhibition” at the Central Square YMCA (Durrell Hall), Cambridge, running through August 8th, 2010. The free art show will be up for 45 minutes before, and about 30 min. after, each performance of Bad Habit Productions‘ Quills (attendance of the play is not required to see the exhibit).

Anna Ross (Poetry Finalist ’10) interviews poet Marie Ponsot in Guernica Magazine.

Sunanda Sahay (Traditional Arts Finalist ’10) has an exhibition of traditional Indian Madhubani paintings at the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, running through September 6, 2010.

Jo Sandman (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’84) will lead a talk and conversation on her work selected for inclusion in the exhibit Out of the Box: Photography Portfolios from the Permanent Collection of the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln. The exhibition, which runs through October 30, 2010 and was organized by independent curator Leslie K. Brown, is a fascinating selection of photographs from the DeCordova’s collection. Bring your cell phone for an audio tour of the exhibition by Leslie Brown and Gus Kayafas of Palm Press. Jo’s talk is on Saturday, August 7, at 3 PM.

Sarah Slifer (Choreography Fellow ’10) will perform a new duet with dancer Jimena Bermejo Black in an evening of pieces called Body of Eyes: a dance party/performance, at Club Oberon in Harvard Square, Cambridge. Sarah’s new duet, “5 light-years 3 seconds now,” looks into grand-unified theories and human perception. New scientific theories are postulating many spatial dimensions and sometimes two time dimensions; Sarah is attempting to find these dimensions and play around in there. The performance takes place on August 11th, at 8 PM.

Lewis Spratlan’s (Music Composition Fellow ’88) opera Life Is a Dream has its world premiere in July and August, at the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico.

Leslie Williams (Poetry Fellow ’10) has won the 2010 Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America, and her book, Success of the Seed Plants, won the 2010 Bellday Books Prize and will come out in October. Congratulations!

Helena Wurzel (Painting Finalist ’10) is in the group show Missive at the Russell Projects in Richmond, VA. The show runs through September 4th.

Past Fellows Notes
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: Joshua Meyer, SMILING AT THE CEILING (2010), oil on canvas, 38×42 in; Janet Echelman, BIENNIAL OF THE AMERICAS (2010), public art installation, Civic Center Park, Denver, CO; Jo Sandman, toned gelatin silver photograph using medical x-ray as source material; Helena Wurzel, TEA FOR ONE WITH LUCINDA WILLIAMS (2009), Acrylic Paint and Paper Collage, 22×30 in.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Above, Moving Company artists perform “common ground” at the International VSA Festival in Washington, D.C.

The piece, performed this past June, was choreographed by Dawn Lane (Choreography Fellow ’10), who runs the Moving Company as Artistic Director of Community Access to the Arts (CATA). CATA, based in Great Barrington, nurtures and celebrates the creativity of people with disabilities through shared experiences in the arts.

It’s a prestigious honor for the Moving Company, the only Massachusetts performing arts organization invited to participate in the international festival. Below, you can see Dawn and Sandy Newsman from CATA with VSA founder Jean Kennedy Smith.

For more news on MCC Artist Fellows and Finalists, read Fellows Notes.

Images: (l to r) Moving Company dancers Jane Goodrich, JoAnne King, Hope Garner; CATA Founder & Executive Director Sandy Newman, VSA Founder Jean Kennedy Smith, Choreographer Dawn Lane.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Sometimes the light comes in tiny points,

shark-toothed and smaller than stars;
sometimes, it sprays over everything.

- from Nancy K. Pearson‘s To the High School Prom Queen

The above is from one of the many poems, prose excerpts, and dance clips recently added to our Gallery@MCC. You see, every time we award new Artist Fellows and Finalists, we feed a sampling of their art into the adorable, irascible robot that doubles as our Artist Fellowships computer. Several futuristic sound effects later, you have an updated Gallery@MCC: a historical record, if you will, of the awesomeness of Massachusetts artists.

Among the other recent additions:

• In Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, Preston Gralla‘s olfactory entrepreneur has a can’t-lose scheme and Jung H. Yun‘s teenaged, Vietnamese protagonist tracks her unwanted suitors by the American states they come from
• In Poetry, Anna Ross juxtaposes the personal against the scale of civilizations and Leslie Williams writes stirring poems that recently won her the Bellday Books Prize & Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Memorial Award!
• And, in Choreography, watch this clip from Sarah Slifer‘s my own personal (#2), with its idiosyncratic references to rec center sports:

See more at the Gallery@MCC.

Credits: Excerpt from To the High School Prom Queen by Nancy K. Pearson; video excerpt from my own personal (#2) by Sara Slifer.

Nancy K. Pearson reads at the Wellfleet Library, Thursday, July 29, 8 PM (CANCELLED: due to unforeseen circumstances, Nancy has had to cancel this appearance).

Sarah Slifer will perform a new duet with dancer Jimena Bermejo in a group evening of pieces that play with perception, on August 5th at Club Oberon in Cambridge.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

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.

MCC Painters in Cape Cod Exhibition: The Massachusetts Cultural Council is proud to partner with the Cultural Center of Cape Cod for a small works exhibition featuring 2010 fellows/finalists in Painting, on display at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in South Yarmouth, July 13 – August 8, 2010. This exhibit will celebrate the work of artists Liza Bingham, Christopher Faust, Rebecca Doughty, Yanick Lapuh, Scott Listfield, Joshua Meyer, Anne Neely, Monica Nydam, Harold Reddicliffe, Matthew Rich, and Michael Zelehoski. There will be an opening reception Saturday, July 17th from 5:00 – 7:00 PM.

Three past fellows/finalists are participating in Pioneer Women in Wonderland at the Paper City Project Space in Holyoke, Mass. The exhibition includes work by Cynthia Consentino (Crafts Fellow ’07), Karen Dolmanisth (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’03), and Sandy Litchfield (Painting Fellow ’06), and is on view through July 31, 2010.

Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) presents Rock & Roll Will Save Your Life: The Musical, billed as “An evening of words, music, drinks, dancing, and bad hair,” on Thursday, July 8, at 8 PM. The event takes place at Club Oberon in Harvard Square, and will feature Steve reading from his new book and music by Dayna Kurtz. Buy tickets and/or check out the event’s Facebook page.

Congratulations to Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07), selected as the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward 2010 Award Winner! Her work will be featured in the Flash Forward 2010 book, and in the Flash Forward Festival, scheduled for October. Meanwhile, see Claire’s arresting photography in the show In Training: Soldiers Before War at the Gallery 303 at The New England Institute of Art in Brookline. The show runs July 19-September 8, with an opening reception Monday, July 19, 5:30-7:30 PM.

Liza Bingham (Painting Finalist ’10) is in a three person show with Alice Denison and Cathleen Daley at the Alden Gallery in Provincetown. The show opens Friday, July 16, 2010 (reception 7 to 9 PM) and shows through July 29.

Kristin Bock (Poetry Fellow ’06) joins fellow poet Lee Sharkey for a reading on Thursday, July 1 at 7 PM, as part of the Collected Poets Series. The reading takes place at Mocha Maya’s Coffee House in Shelburne Falls.

William Ciccariello (Painting Fellow ’06) joins artists Eileen Wagner and Robin Winfield for a show of new works at Rice/Polak Gallery in Provincetown, July 2 – July 15, with a preview Thursday, July 1, 9-10 PM and an opening reception Friday, July 2, 7:00 PM.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ’08) joins Laura Williams McCaffery and M. Evelina Galang for a reading at the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, MA.

Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ’10) is among the artists in a group exhibition of new work at the Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown. The show runs July 16-August 4, 2010.

Michael Dowling (Playwriting Fellow ’09) will have a staged reading of his new play Tamarack House at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. The reading, which is presented by the Berkshire Playwrights Lab in association with the Atlantic Theater Company, will take place on Wednesday, July 14, at 8 PM. The play is about a boarding house – run down but harboring potential – in a bucolic New England town. As developers encroach, the house’s residents need to act, and quick. Recently, the film version of Michael’s play Speck’s Last screened at Boston International Film Festival and the Berkshire International Film Festival. In other work as a theatre artist, Michael is directing Molly Sweeney, performing this month by the Chester Theatre Company in Western, Mass.

This coming year, Pagan Kennedy (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) will be in residence at MIT as a Knight Fellow in Science Journalism.

Kathryn Kulpa (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’10) is the editor of Newport Review and has organized upcoming reading events at Barrington (RI) Public Library on Wednesday, July 28, at 7 PM and Baker Books in Dartmouth, MA on Saturday, August 14 at 7 PM.

Dawn Lane (Choreography Fellow ’10) choreographed and directed “common ground” at the Harmon Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., in June. Dawn’s Moving Company, a troupe of Community Access to the Arts in Great Barrington, was selected to perform at the International VSA Festival, which showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities. The Moving Company, the only Massachusetts performing arts group selected to appear at the D.C. event, also recently performed at the She’s Got Moxie Awards and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

Work by Scott Listfield (Painting Finalist ’10) is included in Crazy 4 Cult at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles, CA. The show, which features artists re-interpreting cult classics, runs July 9-30. An opening reception on July 9, 7-10 PM, will feature an appearance by Kevin Smith!

Anne Neely’s (Painting Finalist ’10) work is included in the Northeast competition edition of New American Paintings. Juror Monica Ramirez-Montagut, Curator of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, writes of Anne’s work: “Her paintings imagine an environment that goes beyond the human surface into the underground, exploring the possible colors and textures of sediment and strata. They depict wonderful surprises, like large bodies of water, yet the richness and possibility evident in these invented landscapes exist on planes not accessible to us.”

Nancy K. Pearson (Poetry Finalist ’10) will join novelist and short story writer Heidi Jon Schmidt for a reading at the Wellfleet Library, Thursday, July 29, 8 PM (CANCELLED: due to unforeseen circumstances, Nancy has had to cancel this appearance).

Cynthia Morrison Phoel’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04, ’10) new book Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories is now available. She’ll read from the book as part of the Summer Salon at the Salem Athenaeum in Salem, MA, on July 16, 5 PM.

Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ’10) has work in The Pencil of Nature, a group exhibition exploring the dialogue between drawings and photographs, at Julie Saul Gallery in NYC. The show runs July 1-August 20, 2010, with an opening reception on Thursday, July 8, 6 to 8 PM.

Sarah Slifer (Choreography Fellow ’10) joins U.K.-based interdisciplinary performer Vincent Cacialano for Plex at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, July 9th, 7PM. On August 11th, she will perform a new duet with dancer Jimena Bermejo in a group evening of pieces that play with perception, at Club Oberon in Cambridge.

My Name is Art, a short play by Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ’09) will be performed at the Short and Sweet Festival in Singapore July 21-25, and at Salem Theatre Company in Salem, MA in its “Moments of Play” festival July 22-25. Peter’s new full-length play, Identity Crisis, a comedy about race and identity, is one of four finalists in the annual new play contest of Centre Stage-South Carolina and will receive a staged reading in Greenville, SC in October. More information at: www.petersnoad.com.

Julia Story (Poetry Finalist ’10) will read from her book of poems, Post Moxie, as part of the Deep Moat Reading Series. The reading will take place on July 24, at 7 PM, at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Cambridge.

Poetry by Daniel Tobin (Poetry Finalist ’10) is included in the most recent issue of Salamander.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) is featured in the June/July/August 2010 issue of Art New England (pictured above), is participating in the exhibition Incognito: The Hidden Self-Portrait, July 15 – August 27, 2010, at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in NYC, and is showing new work in the group exhibition At the Edge at the Portsmouth Museum of Art, in Portsmouth NH, through July 11, 2010. More good news: the Baltimore Museum of Art has acquired one of Rachel’s fruit sticker drawings for its permanent collection. You can follow Rachel’s near-daily performances on Twitter.

Judith Wombwell (Choreography Fellow ’10) recently joined with Kathryn Alter to present Intersect/Integrate, an evening of works that explore different stages and phases in life and relationships, at the Dance Complex in Cambridge. Both choreographers presented new work, and Kathryn Alter (a NYC-based dancer working with the Limón Company) danced in Judith’s work “Shed.”

Kevin Young’s (Poetry Fellow ’10) poetry collection Dear Darkness will be published in paperback in July 2010.

Jeff Zimbalist’s (Film & Video Fellow ’05) documentary The Two Escobars has been getting ecstatic reviews, including an A grade from the hard-to-get-A’s-from-people at The Onion’s AV Club! Check out more on the film’s Facebook page.

Past Fellows Notes
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: Scott Listfield, GRAND CANYON (2008), Oil on canvas, 24×48 in; Rebecca Doughty, FETCH (2010), acrylic on wood, 5×5 in; Cover of June/July/August 2010 issue of Art New England, featuring work by Rachel Perry Welty; excerpt of GRASS, choreographed by Judith Wombwell.

Powered by Bookmarkify™