ArtSake

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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Exported (temporarily): If you spent last Wednesday searching up and down Massachusetts for master balafon player Balla Kouyate, here’s why you couldn’t find him. Balla, a recent Artist Fellow in Traditional Arts, was in D.C. performing at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and later at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Our sibling blog, Keepers of Tradition, has the scoop on this unique honor.

Exported (less temporarily): Jason Schupbach, the state’s very first creative economy industry director, is also D.C.-bound, but for more than a visit. He’s been named Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts. Jason, who’s also the former director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s ArtistLink project, introduces himself in a Q&A on the NEA Art Works blog. Full of surprises: who knew Jason has a cheese-themed video blog?

Exported (virtually): Evan Garza, who recently served on our Painting panel in the Artist Fellowships Program and is an editor at large at New American Paintings and curator/gallery manager at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, is guest blogging at the Art21 blog.

And: the New Yorker’s Book Bench blog talks with Cambridge author Allegra Goodman (on the occasion of the publishing of her Cambridge-set short story “La Vita Nuova”).

Imported: we recently covered Hannah Barrett (Painting ‘04) and her artistic partnership with the historic Gibson House in Boston. Another historic Massachusetts site, Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshires, has caught the contemporary artist-in-residence bug, and is hosting a master woodworker from Syracuse.

Locally made (and played): at the Huntington Theatre blog announces an intriguing series of site-specific audio plays by its Huntington Playwriting Fellows. A sampling: Kirsten Greenidge “eavesdrops” on two sisters outside the Co-op in Harvard Square, Martha Jane Kaufman slips between different types of “tea parties” at the Boston Harbor, and Ken Urban orchestrates a meet-up (set up online) at an MBTA station.

Looking for perfect synchronicity between a documentary subject and its screening venue? Just follow the green arrows behind Fresh Pond Cinema. A free rough-cut screening of Foreign Parts, a documentary by Verena Parvel and J.P. Sniadecki, will take place at Aladdin Auto Service, 162 Alewife Brook Parkway in Cambridge, on Saturday, May 8th at 6 PM (reception at 7 PM). Verena Parvel will be on hand to discuss the film, about a New York junkyard under the threat of demolition.

Arts blogger Greg Cook continues to do yeoman’s work (not that I understand precisely what a “yeoman” does - but I mean it as a compliment), covering the region’s highs, such as art inspired by Boston’s recent aquapolypse, and lows, such as the sad news of the impending closure of the Judi Rotenberg Gallery on Newbury Street.

New to the whole artist/gallery partnership process? The GYST blog has your starter kit: everything you ever wanted to know about galleries.

Finally, we thought you might enjoy this quote from writer James Arthur, from the Ploughshares blog, on the notion of “experience” as a writer:

At 19, I interpreted experience as mild psychedelic adventures and having a girlfriend. At 22, after a lackluster undergraduate career, I felt that I needed more job experience: more experience of what I then called “the real world.” At 27, I was in an MFA program, and I knew that a writer is someone who sits at a desk and writes.

Yep. To paraphrase what the wise man - or was it the massive transnational corporation? - once said: “Just do it, artists.”

Image: Balla Kouyate on balafon and Markane Kouyate on talking drum. Photo by Maggie Holtzberg.

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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.

Jane D. Marsching (Photography Finalist ‘03) and Joshua Meyer (Painting Fellow ‘10) are among the six new artists who have joined the artist roster of the Rice/Pollak Gallery in Provincetown.

Lisa Olstein (Poetry Fellow ‘06) and Tracy Winn (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) have both been nominated for Massachusetts Book Awards, Lisa for her poetry collection Lost Alphabet and Tracy for her short story collection Mrs. Somebody Somebody.

Steve Almond’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) new book Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life has rocked, rolled, and saved (or at least made funnier) the lives of reviewers for BookPage, Publisher’s Weekly, and Time Out New York.

The Claire Andrade-Watkins (Film & Video Fellow ‘09) documentary Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican?: A Cape Verdean American Story will have its broadcast premiere on Rhode Island PBS (Channel WSBE-TV 36) Saturday May 1, 7:00PM & Sunday May 2, 11:00PM. The screenings are part of the May 1-May 9 Whose History is it? Interpreting History, Memory and Culture schedule of events, programs, and activities celebrating Cape Verdean communities and history.

TRIIIBE, aka Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ‘09), has a solo show of photographic works at Gallery Kayafas in Boston, through May 29, 2010. Dates to know: Friday, April 30, Crime Night, 6-9 PM; First Friday, May 7, Multiples Night (for look-alikes and like-a-looking), 6-9 PM; Friday, May 28, Last Chance!, 6-9 PM. Read a fascinating profile of TRIIIBE in the Boston Globe.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ‘08) has a new website, which includes details about his latest news, events, and his poetry manuscript review service.

Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ‘10) joins Boston-based photographer Mary Kocol for a joint show at Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson, NY, May 6-30, with an artists’ reception Saturday, May 8, 6-8 PM.

Congratulations to Rebecca Kaiser Gibson (Poetry Fellow ‘08), who was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholar’s grant. She’ll be teaching creative writing in Hyderabad, India. Bravo! Also, this month Rebecca joins Charlie Digges, Henri Cole, and possibly others for a reading celebrating poet Deborah Digges, whose poetry collection The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart is being posthumously published this month. The reading takes place at Pierre Menard Gallery in Cambridge, May 16, 3 PM, sponsored by the Grolier Bookshop. Read Deborah’s poem Write a Book a Year.

D.M. Gordon’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) book The Fourth World has been released by Adastra Press.

Jewelry by Tricia Harding (Crafts Fellow ‘09) is in a two person exhibition entitled Two of a Kind: Enamels by Tricia Harding and Michael Romanik, at the Luke & Eloy Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA, through May 22, 2010.

Work by Dawn Lundy Martin (Poetry Fellow ‘02, ‘06) is featured in the recent issue of jubilat.

Koji Nakano (Music Composition Finalist ‘09) is one of the founders of the Asian Young Musicians’ Connection, which will hold its opening event on May 15, 2010, at Soochow University Performing Arts Center in Taipei. The Asian Young Musicians’ Connection commissions compositions from emerging Asian composers to be performed by world-class musicians at regular concerts in Asia and North America. The renowned Canadian string quartet, Borealis String Quartet, will premiere six string quartets (including one by Koji Nakano) at the May 15 event.

Caleb Neelon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘07) will present an artist talk at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on Friday, May 7 in conjunction with his Signs and Symbols project (showing at the MFA through Monday, September 6). There will be a reception for the project, a collaboration between Caleb and children from after-school programs and community organizations in Boston, on Friday, May 14, 5-7 PM. Later this month, Caleb’s Imagination Wall, a mural project created for Children’s Hospital Boston, will be on exhibit at Fourth Wall Projects in Boston (May 12-28). There will be be a reception for the exhibition on Friday, May 21, 6-9 PM. The Fourth Wall show is the last chance to see the Imagination Wall mural in person before it moves to another city. Caleb will also have a new set of paintings on sale, and will debut some clothing items as well, and all sales benefit the arts program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Monica Raymond (Playwriting Finalist ‘07, Poetry Finalist ‘08) will give a talk at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education at 56 Brattle Street on Monday, May 3rd at 1:30 PM. It’s called “A Carbon Neutral Life,” and it’ll be about the insights Monica gleaned from her experience of ten years of living without fossil fuel in Cambridge.

Nick Rodrigues (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘07) is among the artists vying to see their concept realized for The Cambridge Street Project at CAC Gallery. Read about Nick’s Gossiping Birds, as well as those of the other Boston-area artists who are finalists for the contest, on ArtSake.

George Rosen (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) has a short story, “A Second Language” (incidentally, it’s the story George submitted when he won his 2008 Artist Fellowship), in the current issue (#37) of the Harvard Review.

Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ‘09) is among the artists featured in EXPOSURE: The 15th Annual PRC Juried Exhibition, juried by Mia Fineman. The show runs through June 20, 2010 at the Photographic Resource Center in Boston. Read Irina’s guest blog on ArtSake discussing her current project.

Salvatore Scibona (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘06) has received a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship! According to the Guggenheim website, the average fellowship grant in 2008 was was approximately $43,200. (On a sidenote: we humbly note that Salvatore’s remarkable literary winning streak - he’s won the Young Lion’s Award, a Whiting Award, and was a National Book Award Finalist - started when he won an MCC fellowship in 2006.)

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, was selected by the Tribeca Film Festival (including two screenings in May). It is also slated to screen in the upcoming Cannes International Film Festival and will have its broadcast premiere on ESPN on June 22.

Past Fellows Notes
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, AND THE LOVE THAT LOVES THE LOVE THAT LOVES TO LOVE (2009) Oil on canvas, 35×46 in; excerpt from SOME KIND OF FUNNY PORTO RICAN? by Claire Andrade-Watkins; image from the proposed GOSSIPING BIRDS project by Nick Rodrigues.

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Congratulations to all books nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, an honor for books by Massachusetts writers or about Massachusetts themes, ably administered by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

In particular, bravo to Lisa Olstein (Poetry Fellow ‘06) and Tracy Winn (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08): Lisa’s poetry collection Lost Alphabet was nominated in the poetry category, and Tracy’s story collection Mrs. Somebody Somebody was nominated in fiction (read about Tracy’s Three Stages in the writing of this collection).

A ceremony to announce the 2009 winners will take place on Wednesday, April 28, at an opening night cocktail reception at the Massachusetts Library Association conference, in Hyannis.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 6 to 7:30 PM
The Resort & Conference Center at Hyannis
This event is free and open to the public.

RSVP here.

To see what else past fellows/finalists are up to, check out the Fellows Notes.

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TRIIIBE at Gallery Kayafas; The New Media Curious Experimental Moving Images Festival at Axiom

You know TRIIIBE is an intriguing group of artists when the fact that three of the four members are identical triplets is only part of what makes them compelling (and not necessarily the most majority part!). The work of TRIIIBE, aka Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ‘09), lives in that curious place between performance, photography, video, and conceptual art. A solo show at Gallery Kayafas in Boston this month offers a unique opportunity to see the range of their photographic work, with a revealing focus on identity and the politics of identity.

See a video excerpt from Art on Art/People on Plywood, TRIIIBE’s surprise performance at the ICA Boston

The show runs at Gallery Kayafas in Boston, April 17-May 29, 2010. Dates to know: Saturday, April 17, opening reception, 6-9 PM; Friday, April 30, Crime Night, 6-9 PM; First Friday, May 7, Multiples Night (for look-alikes and like-a-looking), 6-9 PM; Friday, May 28, Last Chance!, 6-9 PM.

Something curious is afoot on Thursday nights this April at the Axiom Center For New and Experimental Media in Jamaica Plain. Axiom and Art Technology New England are hosting The New Media Curious Experimental Moving Images Festival. Like the work of TRIIIBE, experimentation and innovation is at the heart of the festival, with work from the borderlands (or brand new territories) of creative disciplines.

This Thursday, April 15 will feature INtransit V.6: Scientific American, a video journal of art and technoscience produced by AstroDime Transit Authority. in V.6, artists and scientists examine the question “what is a scientific American” through the lens of their disciplines. Massachusetts filmmaker Karen Aqua (whose interview with ArtSake you can read here), is among the artists featured.

Thursday, April 22 will include Experimental Moving Images from the ATNE, a burgeoning community of people working at the intersection of technology and the arts. Thursday April 29 brings What if? 60×60x60, a participatory media experiment that uses 60 video and 60 sound clips of 60 seconds each, from media artist Gene Gort and composer/sound artist, Ken Steen.

Both Axiom and ATNE are programs of Boston Cyberarts. All show times are at 7:30 PM. Find more info and purchase tickets here.

AXIOM is located on the ground floor level of the Green Street Subway (”T”) station on the Orange line, at the corner of Amory and Green Streets in Jamaica Plain, MA.

Images: TRIIIBE, THE COMPATIBILITY QUIZ; video excerpt from Art on Art/People on Plywood by TRIIIBE; Still from SENSORIUM (2007), co-directed/co-produced by Karen Aqua & Ken Field.

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