ArtSake

September 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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The Rifrákt artist collective takes the conventional approach to art exhibitions and bends it a bit (the name is a play on the word “refract”). Founded by Carolyn Hulbert and Stephanie Goode, the collective shows work in a variety of spaces, including private homes, galleries, and alternative spaces like coffee houses and libraries. And, with their latest effort, the book 25 Emerging Boston Artists 2010, they aim to advance the featured artists while donating proceeds to causes they support.

We interviewed co-founder Carolyn Hulbert and Stephanie Goode about Rifrákt and the new book, as part of our Art and Philanthropy series, looking at artists who merge creative projects with philanthropic goals.

ArtSake: I was interested in something Carolyn said in an interview with TeaParty Boston, that one of the motives behind forming Rifrákt, along with exhibition opportunities, was helping the members grow as professional artists. How important is community and dialogue to your work, and your careers?

Carolyn: Community and dialogue are very important, especially when you’re trying to create a name for yourself, or for a collective. It helps to start in an environment you consider home, where you know and see people and they start to recognize you and your work. Even though our subjects aren’t directly connected to our community, our work is a product of where we live and the time we are living in.

Stephanie: If one is used to traditional schooling with the benefits of critique groups, Rifrákt and groups like ours make the transition to the art world outside school easier. It helps with self motivation especially.

ArtSake: Can you talk about how the new book came to be? How does the book fit in with Rifrákt’s goals, as a collective?

Stephanie: Carolyn and I talked about doing the book to showcase artists work, hoping that it would help each artist in exhibition and public representation. For some artists, getting their work out there can be very difficult without prior knowledge, contacts, and steady stream of personal strength as potential rejection letters come in. The book was a chance for us to see who else was out there in Boston that we felt everyone should know about. Rifrákt has always been a group aimed to help not only ourselves as we continue our career, but also those in our community.

Carolyn: We just wanted to see more opportunities for emerging artists in Boston. The book was the first larger scale project that we have done, and there are definitely more plans for projects that involve Boston-based artists.

ArtSake: Rifrákt has had four exhibitions since June 2009, and one upcoming in August. Can you talk a little bit about your curatorial process and how you select your venues?

Stephanie: Exhibition and competition is very prevalent in Boston, a city full of art schools. Creating your own alternative space is one way to curate and exhibit your own work within your own means and desires. We started doing one-night house shows with the core members and other guest artists in 2009. Basically, we took in any artist who wanted to exhibit their work and had the same positive and strong energy that we embodied. As time went on, more and more people became interested in joining. We created our website, adding to our member count, and began contemplating exhibiting in spaces other than apartments.

Carolyn: Most of our upcoming shows are through networking with previous and current Rifrákt members. Most of our venues are selected from research and networking. We definitely look at a lot of artist web sites, blogs, venue and gallery web sites, and try to see if it’s a good fit for us.

ArtSake: Carolyn, your own prints and paintings are influenced by ancient cultures, animal imagery, and mysterious symbols. What draws you to the subjects of your work?

Carolyn: The subject of my work is something that is personal or something I am very interested in at the moment. I love the unknown and mysteries. I can’t get enough of ancient cultures. There seems to have been a closer or more spiritual relationship between humanity and the earth. I feel by painting or drawing that, I feel closer to being a human, as well as transferring that feeling into my work. Most of the animal imagery is culture related, or is a current or past pet. I love adding Iceland my cat or Sais my dog into my work, or even using them as inspiration for a piece.

ArtSake: Stephanie, what draws you to the subjects of your work?

Stephanie: Most of my work revolves around psychology, and could be viewed as art therapy. Many projects work within the human psyche, dreams, familial spaces and nostalgia. I am always interested in why things are, how they came to be, analyzing. When I first started taking art seriously in my early teens, I worked a lot with drawing and mixed media. I became heavily involved within traditional photography in college. Now I am bringing back some of the mixed media work, printing photographs on adhesive vinyl, collage works on paper and assemblage projects for the future involving my own and found photographs.

ArtSake: What’s next for Rifrákt?

Carolyn: Rifrákt will be showing at Voltage Coffee and Art in August and at the West End Library branch in September. We will probably do a few small projects and a couple more proposals and submissions. We do have a proposal for a collaboration with another Boston collective! As for me, I have grad school on the mind, so I am taking my time and doing research.

Stephanie: We will continue to show and collaborate. I would like to grow in members and expand our reach beyond current limits. Perhaps collaborate with other Boston collectives, NYC collectives or show in corporate galleries and other venues that we haven’t been able to participate in before. Personally I would like to continue building a body of new work and grow in contacts to exhibit said projects. I may want to collaborate with glass and sculpture artists as well.

25 Emerging Boston Artists 2010 features work by Valerie Arruda, Fiona Boyd, Jessica Brilli, Alexandra Carter, Corey Corcoran, Leah Cunningham, Barbara Geoghegan, Stephanie Goode, Todd Goodman, Luba Grenader, Maggie Hennessy, Amy Hitchcock, Carolyn Hulbert, Vanessa Irzyk, Marco Jimenez, Scott Listfield (Painting Finalist ‘10), Rachel Mello (Painting Finalist ‘10), Aaron Morris, Nathaniel Price, Jennifer Reich, Nora Richardson, Anna Rochinski, Alec Strickland, Patricia Sarrafian Ward, and Brandy Wolfe.

An opening reception for 25 Emerging Boston Artists 2010 takes place on Friday, August 6, 6-10pm at The Temple in Jamaica Plain. The free event will include musical performances by Huellas and The Organ Beats starting at 7:30pm.

Copies of the book will be sold at cost through the 8/6 event. After that, all proceeds from the regularly-priced book will be generously donated to the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Images: book jacket for 25 EMERGING BOSTON ARTISTS 2010 by Rifrakt Artist Collective; Vanessa Irzyk, UNTITLED (2009), oil on panel, 22×24 in; Marco Jimenez, YOUR DOG WAS AMAZINGLY CUTE, YOU WERE OKAY (2010), Missed Connections, mixed media; Carolyn Hulbert, SAIS AND HIS FRIEND OF GOLD (2010), digital print, silkscreen & gold leaf, 12×16 in; Stephanie Goode, RED, 9 HOURS (2003), light jet print, aluminum/plexiglas mtd. 12×12 in, editioned; Rachel Mello, WHITHER SHALL I WANDER (2009), Oil on hardboard cut to silhouette, 21 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.

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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.

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Gretchen Romey-Tanzer (Crafts Fellow ‘05) is one of the painters and weavers who created works to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the anthem “America the Beautiful.”

The exhibition, curated by Cape Cod painter Shawne Nelson, pairs teams of painters and weavers together to interpret the lyrics of the anthem (from a poem by Cape Cod writer Katharine Lee Bates, incidentally).

America the Beautiful runs at the Massachusetts State House in Boston July 19-30. Read more about the exhibition.

And check out Fellows Notes for other current news of MCC fellows/finalists.

Image: Gretchen Romey-Tanzer, AMBER WAVES - GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEE (2010), weaving, 50×36 in.

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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.

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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.

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June 2010

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

Two past fellows are featured in Solstice: a Magazine for Diverse Voices. Poetry by Ben Berman (Poetry Fellow ‘08) and short fiction by Grace Talusan (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘02) were included in the Winter/Spring 2010 issue.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ‘08) joins stage/screen writer Sinan Ünel (Playwriting Finalist ‘07) for a reading at the Lesley University MFA Program summer residency, in the Marran Theater in Cambridge, on Sunday, June 27 at 7 PM. The full reading series schedule also includes Rachel Kadish (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction ‘08) on June 28 at 7 PM, and later, NPR writer David Rakoff.

Two past fellows/finalists recently received funding from The LEF Foundation’s Moving Image Fund. Marlo Poras (Film & Video Fellow ‘05) received a $15,000 production grant to work on The Mosuo Sisters, about two sisters who lose their jobs in Beijing and return home to a remote Himalayan village to help keep their family afloat. Jeff Daniel Silva (Film & Video Finalist ‘09) was awarded a $25,000 post-production grant for his film Ivan and Ivana, about a couple from war-torn Kosovo, now making a life in the US. Congratulations!

Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ‘09) is among the artists exhibiting in Familiar Bodies at Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston. The exhibition, which includes the work of photographers who focus their cameras on the nearest people in their lives, also includes Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison (Photography Fellow ‘01), Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ‘09), and Sage Sohier (Photography Finalist ‘05). The show runs through June 26, with an opening reception June 4th, 5:30-7:30 PM.

Brian Corey (Painting Fellow ‘08) has a solo show at Kingston Gallery in Boston, called The Terrain That Remains. The show runs June 2-27, 2010, with an opening reception Friday, June 4, 5-7:30 PM, and an artist’s talk Saturday, June 12, 4 PM.

Denver Office of Cultural Affairs: we applaud your good taste in public artists. They recently commissioned Janet Echelman (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09) to create a Biennial of the Americas installation.

Ralf Yusuf Gawlick (Music Composition Fellow ‘09) premiered Kinderkreuzzug, his dramatic cantata for children’s voices and small chamber ensemble, in April (read about it on ArtSake). Boston College has put together a fabulous audio slideshow about the performances.

Michael Hoerman (Poetry Fellow ‘04) will read on June 17 for ThoughtCrime, a reading series at Khon’s Wine Bar and Darts, 2808 Milam in Houston, Texas. He joins the roster of the 5th Annual Word Around Town Tour for a weeklong series of readings around Houston in July. On September 10 and 11 he will be a featured performer at Houston Fringe Fest, an annual performing arts festival presented by FrenetiCore at Frenetic Theater in Houston’s East End.

Lisa Kessler’s (Photography Finalist ‘05) solo exhibition Seeing Pink is at the Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson, NY. The show, which explores the idea of the color pink in American, runs June 3-June 27, with an opening reception Saturday June 12, 6-8 PM.

Yanick Lapuh (Painting Fellow ‘10) is among the artists in Eye Spy: Playing with Perception at the Peabody Essex Museum, June 19, 2010 to June 1, 2011.

Jane D. Marsching (Photography Finalist ‘03) has a host of Spring/Summer exhibitions and events. She’s part of Resurrectine at the Ronald Feldman Gallery, NYC, through June 28, a large-scale group show that embraces the notion of transformation. In April, Jane opened a dual photo exhibition (with Andrea Juan) called Tribute Phase II: Polar Encounter. Sites for the exhibition, which was curated by Veronica Willenberg, CEO of Art in Lobby, include the International Book Fair, the PanAmerican Hotel, and Botanica Gardens, all in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jane will also take part in an alumni exhibition of art at Hampshire College’s Johnson Gallery (June 11-July 30, 2010, reception June 12, 4-6 PM).

Tara L. Masih’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ‘96) Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction was awarded a bronze medal from the 2009 ForeWord Book of the Year Awards in the writing category.

Congratulations to Cynthia Maurice (Drawing Fellow ‘02), who received the Jurors First Prize from the Danforth Museum 2010 Off The Wall Juried Exhibit. The prize was selected by Jen Mergel, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, MFA and Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator of the ICA.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09) is among the artists exhibiting in The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft at the Fuller Craft Museum, through February 6, 2011. Artists in this show use new technologies in tandem with traditional craft materials – clay, glass, wood, metal and fiber – to forge new artistic directions.

Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘05) has a solo show, Underwater, at the Melle Finelli Studio, June 4-July 16, 2010, opening reception: June 4, 5 - 8 PM.

Monica Nydam (Painting Fellow ‘10) has a solo show of new paintings at LaMontagne Gallery in Boston, through June 19.

Linda Price-Sneddon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘01) has a solo show at HallSpace in Boston, Soon… Our Salvation. The show, which opens Saturday, June 5 (reception 3-6 PM) and runs to July, is inspired by the UFO Mythos, Armageddon evangelism and small town parades.

Monica Raymond’s (Playwriting Finalist ‘07, Poetry Finalist ‘08) radio play The Telemarketer will be performed on Shoestring Radio Theater on KUSF 90.3 FM in San Francisco. The performance will air at 6:30 PM Eastern time, June 30, and listeners outside the San Francisco area can access a live Internet stream. The performance will also stream for one week following the live broadcast, on Shoestring Theatre’s Web site.

Salvatore Scibona (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘06) was named as one of The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 fiction writers to watch.

Leslie Sills (Crafts Fellow ‘95) has a mixed-media sculpture in a furniture exhibition at the Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge. The exhibition runs June 15-July 31st, with an opening reception June 17, 6-8 PM.

Orbiting Mars, a full-length comedy by Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ‘09), will receive a staged reading at the Penobscot Theatre in Bangor, ME June 23 in its Northern Writes New Play Festival. The play recently won the annual new play contest of Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre in Santa Cruz, CA. Several of Peter’s short plays have been staged recently or are slated for upcoming productions. The Greening of Bridget Kelly and My Name is Art will feature in the London Fringe August 11-14, part of a repeat of Liminal Productions’ “American Bytes” series by emerging American playwrights that was first produced in April at the New Wimbledon Studio in Wimbledon, London. Stone’s Soup Theatre in Seattle included The Greening of Bridget Kelly in its short play festival in May, and My Name is Art can be seen at the Raconteur Theatre in Columbus, OH through June 12. Boston Actors’ Theatre produced Either Or in its SLAMBoston festival on May 19. Peter has a new website where you can check out his work: www.petersnoad.com.

Cam Terwilliger (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) was featured in a recent Boston Globe article by Danielle Dreilinger about a memoir writing workshop he ran for seniors living at the Somerville Home. Cam was supported in the effort by a Somerville Arts Council grant.

Debra Weisberg (Drawing Fellow ‘08) is among the artists in By Hand at Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, June 6-26, opening reception Sunday, June 6, 6-8 PM.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09, Drawing Fellow ‘04) was commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston to create a limited edition benefit artwork.

Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘03) has a solo exhibition, BLEW, at the Miller Block Gallery in Boston. The show, which runs through June 26, features blown film polyethylene – aka plastic. Read a nano-interview with Deb on ArtSake.

Tracy Winn’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) short story collection Mrs. Somebody Somebody comes out this month in paperback, and she’ll be reading at the Salem Athenaeum on June 11 at 5 PM, at Newtonville Books on June 17 at 7 PM, at Barnes & Noble in Lowell on June 18 at 7 PM, at The Book Rack in Newburyport on June 19 at 3 PM, and at Gibson Books in Concord, New Hampshire on July 1 at 7 PM.

Jeff Zimbalist’s (Film & Video Fellow ‘05) documentary The Two Escobars, a film about the convergent stories of murdered soccer star Andrés Escobar and Columbian drug baron Pablo Escobar, will have a Hometown Screening in the historic Academy of Music in Northampton on Sunday, June 20 at 7:30 PM, followed by a post-screening Q&A. The film, which was commissioned to celebrate ESPN’s 30th anniversary with 30 documentary films, will have its ESPN premiere on June 22. It also premieres in Florida and screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival this month (on Friday, June 18th and Sunday, June 20th) and recently screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Cannes International Film Festival.

Past Fellows Notes
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: Linda Price-Sneddon, drawing from the SOON…OUR SALVATION suite; Brian Corey, COORDINATES UNKNOWN (2010), Ink, Acrylic, on Paper,7×8 in; Lisa Kessler, CODE PINK, from SEEING PINK; Deb Todd Wheeler, image from BLEW.

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Jeff Zimbalist screens film at Tribeca and Cannes, ESPN next; Marlo Poras and Jeff Silva receive LEF funding

In an interview with Linda Hassler in Huffington Post, Jeff Zimbalist (Film & Video Fellow ‘05) and Michael Zimbalist discuss how their film The Two Escobars originated not with PBS or HBO (as you might expect with an international documentary), but with ESPN. The sports network invited the brothers to create a film for the 30 for 30 project, which commemorates the network’s 30th anniversary with 30 documentary films about sports. The organizers wanted a South American story and knew of Jeff’s film Favela Rising, about a hip hop movement that counteracts the ravages of drugs and crime in one of Rio de Janeiro’s most violent slums (incidentally, it’s the film that won Jeff a 2005 MCC Artist Fellowship).

Searching for a subject to explore for 30 for 30, the Zimbalists learned about the intriguing overlaps in the lives of Andres Escobar and Pablo Escobar, Colombian soccer star and drug kingpin (respectively). The stories of these two unrelated, unalike men make for a fascinating portrait of the world of Colombian soccer in the 1990s.

The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival (where it received great reviews), recently screened at the Cannes International Film Festival, and has its ESPN premiere on June 22, 2010 (the anniversary of a fateful 1994 match between the U.S. and Colombian soccer teams).

Learn more, and see footage from the film, on its 30 for 30 page.

Congratulations to all filmmakers awarded in the recently announced LEF Foundation Spring 2010 Moving Image grants. $165,000 went to New England documentary filmmakers - including grants to Marlo Poras (Film & Video Fellow ‘05) and Jeff Daniel Silva (Film & Video Finalist ‘09).

Marlo received an MCC fellowship based on the artistic excellence of her documentary Mai’s America, about a Vietnamese exchange student in rural Mississippi. Marlo later won renown for her documentary Run Granny Run, about nonagenarian Senatorial candidate Doris “Granny D” Haddock. From LEF, she received a $15,000 production grant to work on The Mosuo Sisters, about two sisters who lose their jobs in Beijing and return home to a remote Himalayan village to help keep their family afloat.

Jeff Silva, who co-founded and co-curates the Balagan Film Series, won fellowships from the Somerville Arts Council and the MIT Council for the Arts for his film Balkan Rhapsodies. LEF awarded him a $25,000 post-production grant for his film Ivan and Ivana, about a couple from war-torn Kosovo, now making a life in the US.

Have a doc in the works yourself? The LEF Foundation Moving Image Fund is currently accepting proposals for all projects in pre-production. Deadline is Friday, June 18, 2010 (and that’s an in-hand deadline). You can read more about Moving Image Fund, including guidelines and a full list of awarded artists and projects, at the LEF Foundation website.

Read our Fellows Notes for more news about past and present fellows/finalists from the MCC Artist Fellowships Program.

Image: still from THE TWO ESCOBARS by Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist; video clip from MAI’S AMERICA by Marlo Poras.

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Rebecca Kaiser Gibson joins poets honoring Deborah Digges; Sue Murad returns to Buried; Cam Terwilliger in print and at Emerson

Deborah Digges was a renowned poet and memoirist whose life ended far too soon at age 59, in 2009. A resident of Amherst, she taught at Tufts University and wrote lyrical poetry and prose that won her, among other honors, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. This Sunday, a group of poets, including Henri Cole, Cynthia Zarin, Franz Wright, and Rebecca Kaiser Gibson (Poetry Fellow ‘08) will gather at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Cambridge (Sunday, May 16, 3 PM) to read from her posthumously published collection, The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart.

Rebecca, a student and friend of Deborah’s, writes movingly about her mentor in an essay for the Tufts University alumni magazine. One detects a life never far from poetry in Rebecca’s anecdote about the two friends stealing a lily from a garden, and later, her discovery that the spontaneous act was predated by a poem Deborah wrote called The Flower Thief.

In March, we wrote about Buried, an intriguing, movement-based performance by Sue Murad (Choreography Fellow ‘08) exploring the ancient stories of many cultures. This Monday, Sue reprises the piece, in a free performance adapted from the first; Monday, May 17th, 7:30-8:30 PM, side entrance of the Park Street Church in Boston.

Finally, we recently heard from Cam Terwilliger (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08), who has two stories about to be published: “The Shut-down Class” will appear in Post Road, and “Happy Trails” in West Branch.

Also, Cam will be teaching a writing class through Emerson College’s Continuing Education program, called “Learning from the Masters: The Art & Craft of Fiction.”

From Cam: “This workshop is for people who want to think like a writer thinks - considering both inspiration and technique. In order to uncover the secrets of great writing, our class will analyze classic short stories, getting at the heart of plot, character, dialogue, and style. Throughout the course, students will use these lessons to write their own stories for workshop.”

More info here.

Read our Fellows Notes for more news about past and present fellows/finalists from the MCC Artist Fellowships Program.

Images: Cover art for THE WIND BLOWS THROUGH THE DOORS OF MY HEART by Deborah Digges (Knopf, 2010); Still from BURIED by Sue Murad.

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