ArtSake

November, upon us like a helping of heavily syrupped sweet potatoes, brings with it this bounty of news from our past Fellows/Finalists…

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Highly suggested: Think/Do/Experience one, some, or all of the following things in the next few days:

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12 (tonight) Alice Bouvrie‘s (Film & Video Fellow ’11) film Thy Will Be Done (see a clip, above) screens at the Marran Theatre at Lesley University, 7 PM, free. This documentary tells the story of male-to-female transsexual Sara Herwig in her journey to ordination in the Presbyterian Church. The artist and cast will be on hand for discussion.

THURSDAY, OCT. 13 Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) speaks at the Newton Senior Center, hosted by the Newton Art Association, free, 7:30-9:30 PM, coffee/discussion begins at 7 PM. Nathalie, who was recently featured at the Fuller Craft Museum and was a Global TED Fellow, transmutes weather data into 3D woven structures and musical multi-media art. This chance to get a glimpse into her brain is not to be missed.

FRIDAY, OCT. 14-SATURDAY, OCT. 15 The Think Art Conference takes place at Boston University. The event, which is free and open to the public and is organized by Toni Pepe (Photography Finalist ’11), is an interdisciplinary conference that brings together scholars and artists. This year, the participants explore the manipulation of memory and how the individual (and society) remembers.

SATURDAY, OCT. 15 The Boston Book Festival is a free, day-long schedule of events, readings, workshops, and other bookish happenings at Copley Square. While it’s hard to pick out a favorite happening among the power-packed day, this is pretty super: The Drum, an audio literary magazine founded and edited by Henriette Lazaridis Power (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06), is sponsoring PERAMBULIT. PERAMBULIT lets you experience a fictional narrative of the Boston Book Festival by listening to stories as you walk along the festival’s routes. Find out more about how you can hear stories by Ethan Gilsdorf, Jenna Blum, Daphne Kalotay, Matthew Pearl, Steven Brykman, Catherine Elcik, Becky Tuch, and Henriette Lazaridis Power, created especially for the Boston Book Festival’s Copley Square location.

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Today’s glimpse from our gallery of past MCC fellows/finalists: Juan Mandelbaum’s (Film & Video Finalist ’07) documentary Our Disappeared/Nuestros Desaparecidos.

The film, which appeared on on Independent Lens on PBS, traces the filmmaker’s investigations of the fate of a past girlfriend, one of Argentina’s many “disappeared” during it’s Dirty War of the ’70s and ’80s.

For further interest, watch the below embedded video, Shadows of Memory. The Our Disappeared YouTube Channel features a number of videos that accompany the feature-length film, including interviews that were cut from the final version or additional material like the video embedded here.

It’s an interesting use of social media for a documentary filmmaker, continuing the conversation while maintaining the film’s integrity as a finished work of art.

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Karen Aqua (Film & Video Fellow ’11) was an innovator in animation and a beloved figure in the Massachusetts arts community. The Massachusetts Cultural Council was honored to award her an Artist Fellowship shortly before her untimely passing in May, 2011.

On Sunday, September 25, 2011, at 3 PM, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston will present a special tribute to this exceptional artist.

In an August 2009 interview on ArtSake, Karen revealed that she always hand drew her vibrant animations. That exceptional attention to detail will be on display in a screening program of works ranging from her early career to her most recent work, Taxonomy. Twist of Fate, Sensorium, Andaluz, and her animated segments for Sesame Street will be among the other films in the program, which will be hosted by filmmaker Frank Mouris, filmmaker/teacher Amy Kravitz, and Karen’s husband and frequent collaborator Ken Field, a musician and composer.

Learn more about the ICA retrospective. Read a tribute to Karen by fellow animator Joanna Priestley.

Images: stills from films by Karen Aqua; TWIST OF FATE (2009); TAXONOMY (2011); SENSORIUM (2007); and ANDALUZ (2004), a collaboration with Joanna Priestley.

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Our Gallery@MCC shares samples of the outstanding work of past Artist Fellowships awardees, and we just added video and audio clips for the 2011 fellows/finalists.

So, the time seems right for a glimpse of that Gallery excellence. Here, we feature James Rutenbeck, a 2011 Film & Video Finalist for his moving, beautiful filmed documentary Scenes from a Parish, about a Catholic community in flux in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

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In September, past MCC fellows/finalists venture into imagined flora, faraway lands, outer space, the impermanent, the temporary, and the nearly not. (For starters.)

And now, we venture into our monthly round-up of the news of past awardees of our Artist Fellowships Program.

Karen Aqua (Film & Video Fellow ’11) will be honored by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston in a tribute program, on Sunday, September 25, 2011, 3 PM. Read more about the program on ArtSake.

Sally Bellerose (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’04) will read from her novel The Girls Club at Forbes Library in Northampton on Saturday, September 24, 2011, at 3 PM. The novel tells of the complicated, interconnected lives of three working class sisters in small town Massachusetts.

Congratulations to Alice Bouvrie (Film & Video Fellow ’11), whose documentary Thy Will Be Done now has a distribution partnership with New Day Films. The film will be appearing at Heart of England International Film Festival in the UK, September 7-18, 2011. The film, an excerpt of which won the artist an 2011 Artist Fellowship, will also be screening at the North Louisiana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Shreveport, LA on September 17 (12:30 PM) and September 20, 2011 (5:30 PM, followed by a panel discussion). Next month, along with a screening at the International Film Festival Australasia in Australia, the film will be shown at Lesley University‘s Marran Theater in Cambridge on October 12, 2011, at 7 PM.

Sarah Braunstein‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04) novel The Sweet Relief of Missing Children was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize.

John Cameron‘s (Crafts Fellow ’11) work is included in New Hampshire Furniture Masters 2011. The annual auction is on September 10, 2011, at the Currier Museum of Art in NH.

Cheryl Clark (Poetry Finalist ’10) will read her poetry on Saturday, September 24, 3 PM, at Outpost 186 in Inman Square, Cambridge, as part of the Unaffiliated Reading Series.

Shawn Cody‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’07) new music theater work The Water Dream will have a staged reading as part of Shakespeare & Company’s Studio Festival of New Plays. The performance features Broadway veteran Anthony Rapp and takes place Monday, September 5, 2011 at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. Read about the event in Playbill.

Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo show of new paintings, called Nearly Nots, at The Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown. The show runs September 2-21, 2011, with a reception on Friday, September 2, 7-10 PM.

Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ’06, Drawing Fellow ’00) will have an exhibition titled Floragenis at the Rice Polak Gallery in Provincetown from September 1 to September 15, 2011. Opening reception, with the artist, Friday, September 2, 2011 at 7 PM. An interview with Vico Fabbris on his Floragenis exhibition at the Rice Polak Gallery will appear in the Provincetown Banner on Thursday, September 1, 2011, written by art historian and art critic Susan Rand Brown.

Long time organizer of poetry and interdisciplinary programs in Massachusetts, Michael Hoerman (Poetry Fellow ’04) has created a brand new organization, The Temp Series Project, to advocate and promote writing and art in the Commonwealth. Based in culture-rich Lowell, MA, The Temp Series Project will create interdisciplinary events, develop commissions, and host special showcases that highlight Massachusetts artists and promote their appreciation. Projects in the works include a temporary reading series, pocket poetry festival, and temporary public art. For more information, join The Temp Series Project on Facebook. The Temp Series Project was recently approved for fiscal sponsorship by Fractured Atlas.

Brian Knep (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11) is showing Healing 2 as part of the group show Building Expectation: Past and Present Visions of the Architectural Future at Brown University in Providence, RI. The show runs at the David Winton Bell Gallery September 3-November 6, 2011, with an opening reception and curatorial talk on Friday, September 9, 5:30-7:30 PM.

Jesse Kreitzer (Film & Video Finalist ’11) has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for his independent feature film, The Wake. The film, which was recently selected as a finalist for the 2012 Sundance Institute’s Screenwriter’s Lab, is the story of a grief-ridden social worker who cares for a dying woman in secrecy from his wife and two children.

Dawn Lane (Choreography Fellow ’10) will premiere a new work of dance, one potato, two potato, at the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow on September 2, 2011 (8 PM) and September 3, 2 PM and 8 PM. The work draws on aspects of Irish culture & history (i.e. knitting, the famine and Irish dance) to explore perceptions of excess, wastefulness, having enough, or nothing. Dawn’s MCC Fellowship, as well as a Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Creative Development Residency, helped pave the way for the new work. One potato, two potato is presented in cooperation with Jacob’s Pillow Community Dance Programs and Community Access to the Arts. Read Dawn’s post about the development of one potato, two potato, on ArtSake.

Scott Listfield (Painting Finalist ’10) is among the artists with work in Lift Off: Earthlings and the Great Beyond at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University in NJ. The exhibition is in the Main Gallery September 1, 2011-January 5, 2012, with an opening reception and catalog launch Thursday, September 15, 5-7 PM. Follow Scott’s new blog for more info on his upcoming solo show at the University Gallery at UMass Lowell, Astronaut: Paintings by Scott Listfield. That show will run November 7–December 2, 2011, artist talk & reception November 8, 3-5 PM. Finally, Scott is featured in a recently released book documenting the great Crazy 4 Cult art shows at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles.

Christian McEwen‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’11) new book World Enough and Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down will be published by Bauhan Publising this month. The book reflects on how slowing down the pace of one’s life can have profound benefits, including on creativity.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) has two solo shows in Massachusetts, this month: Musical Storms is on exhibit at the Cushing-Martin Gallery at Stonehill College in Easton from September 22-October 31, 2011, with an opening reception October 5, 6-7:30 PM. Another solo show, Changing Waters, is on exhibit at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown September 30-November 30, 2011.

Anne Neely (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo exhibit, Mopang: Recent Paintings on view at Lohin Geduld Gallery in NYC, from September 7 through October 8, 2011, with an opening reception September 8, 5–7 PM. A catalog with essay by Jonathan Franzen (who, incidentally, won our Artist Fellowship in 1986!) accompanies the exhibit.

Congratulations to Marlo Poras (Film & Video Fellow ’05), whose film-in-progress The Mosuo Sisters received a Chicken & Egg Pictures Liberty Grant.

Eric Henry Sanders‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) play Reservoir is being remounted at Theater 89 in Berlin (translated title: Haseks Heimkehr), following a successful production there in May. There was one performance in August, and upcoming performances September 9, 10, 16, and 17, 2011.

Tara Sellios (Photography Fellow ’11) is preparing for a solo show called Lessons of Impermanence at The New England School of Art & Design, this November 2011.

Peter Snoad‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) short play My Name is Art was staged at Artists Exchange in Cranston, RI, August 19-28 as part of their Black Box Theatre’s annual one-act festival.

Julia Story‘s (Poetry Finalist ’10) poetry was recently featured in TriQuarterly literary journal.

Steve Tourlentes (Photography Fellow ’11, ’05) currently has a piece in Night Vision, an exhibition on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City through September 16, 2011.

Frank Ward (Photography Fellow ’11) gave two presentations in Central Asia, in August, first presenting his work in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, followed by a lecture in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Jeff Warmouth (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’05) has a solo exhibition at the SHOW Gallery and Performance Space in Staten Island, NY. The show, called SuperJeffuBurgerMarket, runs September 10-October, 29, 2011, with an opening reception Saturday, September 10, 5-8 PM.

Ellen Wineberg (Painting Finalist ’04) has work in two MA exhibitions this months: she has four pieces in 24 Solo Shows at Bromfield Gallery in Boston, August 31-October 1 (opening reception Sept. 9, 6-8:30 PM). She’s also part of a five-person show, Exquisite Corpse at Deerfield Academy. The show, with work ranging from minimal to real, runs September 22-November 17 (opening reception Sunday, Oct. 2, 2-5), at the school’s Russell Gallery.

Michael Zelehoski (Painting Fellow ’10) has a solo show at Sanford Smith Fine Art in Great Barrington, running through October 13, 2011.

Past Fellows Notes
Aug. 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
Apr. 2011
Mar. 2011
Feb. 2011
Jan. 2011

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: Painting by Vico Fabbris, from the FLORAGENIS series; paintings by Rebecca Doughty, from the NEARLY NOTS series; Michael Hoerman’s digital rendering of Storehouse No. 1, a video installation proposed by The Temp Series Project in Lowell; cover art for Christian McEwen’s WORLD ENOUGH & TIME (Bauhan Publishing, 2011); Frank Ward, #3 (2009), Giclee print, 22X33 in.

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Set off some dazzling fireworks (naturally, I mean safely and legally) – it’s time to celebrate July’s news and notes from past MCC fellows/finalists.

Shakedown, an exhibition at DODGE Gallery in NYC, includes work by Taylor Davis (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’99), Sheila Gallagher (Drawing Finalist ’10), and Laurel Sparks (Painting Fellow ’04). The show also features Massachusetts artists Robert de Saint Phalle, Jane Fox Hipple, and Douglas Weathersby, among others.

Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ’10), Eric Gottesman (Photography Fellow ’09), Frances Hamilton (Drawing Fellow ’98), and Dawn Southworth (Drawing/Printmaking/Artist Books Finalist ’04) are all exhibiting work in Picture Books, featuring art in all media that pictures, or, references a book within the composition, or, is a book of some kind. The show runs at Clark Gallery in Lincoln through August 6, 2011.

Chuck Holtzman (Drawing Fellow ’06), Joel Janowitz (Painting Fellow ’08) and Harold Reddicliffe (Painting Fellow ’10) join Mary Armstrong, Carol Gove, Conley Harris, and Anne Lilly for an exhibition at Victoria Munroe Fine Art in Boston. The show of drawings, paintings, and sculpture runs through August 20, 2011.

Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ’09) and Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ’09) are exhibiting in a dual show of their recent photography, called Details at a Distance. The show runs at Fountain Studios in Brooklyn, NY, July 9-30, 2011, with an opening reception July 9, 7-10 PM.

An installation of the work of Karen Aqua (Film & Video Fellow ’11), called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, will be on exhibit at the Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville, through July 10, 2011. The exhibition features pastel drawings, sounds, and video from Karen’s final film, Taxonomy, which was completed one month before her untimely passing on May 30, 2011. There will be a memorial tribute to Karen’s life and work on July 10, 2011, 2 PM, at the Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville.

Sweetgrass, a film by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Film & Video Fellows ’11), will be broadcast on PBS as part of the POV series starting July 5, 2011.

Congratulations to Michele Caniato (Music Composition Fellow ’07) for receiving a Fulbright award. He will be in Helsinki, Finland for four months starting in September, hosted by Metropolia University and will be composing, conducting, and lecturing.

On her blog, Cheryl Clark (Poetry Finalist ’10) added an audio recording of her reading from the Commonwealth Reading Series this past March 2011.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ’08) has a great interview on the Mass Poetry Festival blog, where he discusses opportunities available at The Frost Place, a poetry education center where he is Director of the Advanced Seminar.

Janet Echelman (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) was recently interviewed by CNN!

Samantha Fields (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11) has a solo show, Ecstasy and Common Sense, at NK Gallery in Boston. The show will run July 6-29, 2011, with an opening reception July 8, 6-8 PM.

Laura Harrington‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’05, ’97) novel Alice Bliss is a People Pick, receiving four out of four stars in the July 4th issue of People Magazine. Laura will join JoeAnn Hart for a reading on Wednesday, July 6, 2011, 7:30 PM, at Gloucester Writer’s Center (call for start time). Laura will also have a joint reading with fellow debut author Rebecca Makkai at the Boston Public Library (Tues, July 12, 2011, 6 PM). And, she’ll have a talk, Q&A, and signing at Stellina’s Restaurant in Watertown, on Wednesday, July 13, 6-7:30 PM.

Gregory Hischak‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) new full-length play Volcanic in Origin had its world premiere at the Source Festival in Washington D.C. and runs through July 3, 2011. Read an essay about the play by its dramaturg LaRonika Thomas.

Congratulations to Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’11, ’07), whose A Girl and Her Room series is featured in a same-titled exhibition at The Mosaic Rooms in London, UK (through July 23, 2011). Also, Umbrage Editions will print a book of photos from the A Girl and Her Room series, scheduled for release Spring 2012. Rania’s exceptional work has recently been awarded the Legacy Award by Debra Klomp Ching in conjunction with the 17th Juried Exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography (through August 29); First Place at the Off the Wall Exhibit at the Danforth Museum of Art (through August 7, 2011); First Prize at The Julia M. Cameron Awards: Category Portrait, People and Figure; and Winner in the PDN Magazine Photo Annual 2011 in the Personal Category (featured in the June 2011 edition). Rania’s work is included in a number of group shows: University of Maine Museum of Art Photo National 2011 Exhibition (through September 24, 2011); Photographic Resource Center Exposure 2011 Exhibit (opening reception: July 21, 6:30PM, exhibit through August 21); Beirut Exhibition Center, Rebirth: Lebanon 21st Century Contemporary Art (through July 24, 2011).

Rachel Mello (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo show of works from her Cities and Shadows Series at Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, July 8 through July 20, 2011. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, July 9 5-7 PM. Rachel’s monoprint School of Pliers in Peril is featured in Crest Hardware Art Show in Brooklyn, NY, a show that features art inspired by and/or involving hardware. The show runs through July 30. Also, Rachel’s work was recently featured in Multiple/Unique at the Washington Street Art Center in Somerville.

Congratulations to Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09), who received a TED Global Fellowship! As part of the Fellowship, she’ll participate in the TED Global Conference, which will be held in Edinburgh (UK), July 11-15, 2011.

Caleb Neelon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07) was one of the innovative thinkers invited to speak at the June 2011 TEDxBoston! Read a recent interview with Caleb on the Converse blog.

Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) is among the artists in Shifting Terrain: Landscape Video at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH. The exhibition runs July 2-September 18, 2011, with an opening reception July 7, 5:30-7:30 PM.

Masha Obolensky‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) ten-minute Girls Play has been selected to participate in The Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. The festival, now in its 36th year, takes place at The Lion Theatre on Theatre Row in NYC on July 19-24. Read an interview with the playwright on the Festival’s blog.

Monica Raymond‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) story Ludd and the Perkadoodles was a runner up for the contestoria contest at HERE ARTS CENTER. Read it online.

Alison Safford (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03) just completed a solo show at Gallery 303 at the New England Institute of Art.

Katy Schneider (Painting Fellow ’00) is featured in Inside/Out, a dual show with David Gloman of expressive landscapes and interiors, at studio21south in North Adams, through July 10, 2011.

Congratulations to Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry (Film & Video Fellows ’07), whose Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project won a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts!

Naoe Suzuki (Drawing Fellow ’06) is collaborating with the theatre company Dramahound Productions for a fascinating multi-media installation. Mi Tigre, My Lover at the Open Source Gallery in Brooklyn, NY features a play based on Naoe’s paintings, which are inspired by early 20th century female tiger trainer Mabel Stark. The paintings serve as the backdrop for a play by Anne Phelan. The play runs June 25-July 9, 2011, at 306 17th Street, between 5th and 6th Ave, South Slope, Brooklyn.

Rachel Perry Welty‘s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) Rachel Perry Welty 24/7 at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Musueum was very favorably reviewed in Art in America Magazine.

Nine Houses: nine matted archival pigment prints by Maxine Yalovitz-Blankenship (Drawing Fellow ’83, Painting Finalist ’82, ’83), has just been published by Tahawus Press. The prints are in a clothbound boxed folio, limited to an edition of fifty, and are accompanied by text and poetry, written in response to the images, by Alan Lightman, Maxine Kumin, Florence Ladd, John Baeder, Elizabeth McKim, and her fellow Guggenheim Fellows: Morris Halle, Philip Levine, Ann Patchett, and Richard Wendorf.

Kevin Young (Poetry Fellow ’10) will present an afternoon of poetry at The Mount, the historic home of Edith Wharton in Lenox, MA. The reading, presented in partnership with the Amy Clampitt Fund, is on July 9, 2011, at 4 PM. Tickets are $12 and are available online.

Evan Ziporyn (Music Composition Fellow ’11) will present in The Music of Evan Ziporyn on Thursday, July 7, 2011, 8 PM, at the Shalin Liu Performance Center as part of the Rockport Music Festival. The composer will perform along with musicians including “friends from Bang on a Can.” Speaking of: from July 13 through July 31, the tenth annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival takes place at MASS MoCA in North Adams. Evan Ziporyn, who has been actively involved in the festival since its inception, will pariticpate in the Festival, which is dedicated to programming today’s most innovative new music and includes public performances, recitals, and lectures, plus workshops for participants in everything from Balinese music to improvisation, master classes, music business seminars, and more.

Past Fellows Notes
June 2011
May 2011
Apr. 2011
Mar. 2011
Feb. 2011
Jan. 2011

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: production photo from Masha Obolensky’s GIRLS PLAY, featuring scenic design by Caitlin Fergus; Samantha Fields, Detail of SHE SPEAKS FOLLY IN A THOUSAND HOLY WAYS; Liz Nofziger, PORE; Evan Ziporyn, photo by Kevin Yatarola.

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Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry (Film & Video Fellows ’07) have a remarkable thing going with the Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project (currently in-progress with collaborator Chiz Schultz). It’s the first feature length documentary about Hansberry, and given her impact as a mid-20th century African American artist and activist, the project is an opportunity to inquire into a crucial chapter in American cultural history. In exploring that history, the filmmakers’ work is quintessentially contemporary, mapping out a variety of platforms with which to engage audiences.

We asked Tracy about the origins of the project, the multi-faceted work of a contemporary documentary filmmaker, and her trajectory as a film artist.

ArtSake: Can you talk about how this project began? What led to your decision to make a documentary on Lorraine Hansberry?

Tracy: I had never heard of Lorraine Hansberry when my grandmother took me and my younger sister to see the Harrisburg Community Theater’s production of To Be Young, Gifted and Black. It was quite an experience. First, it was just kind of cool for my grandmother to take me to something called To Be Young, Gifted and Black: I was 17. You hope that your parents and family see you as gifted. And of course I was black. But then I was really drawn in. Her life and her observations particularly resonated with me, made me feel less lonely. I had had some of the same experiences that she’d had. And to put that in context, I was a part of that big cohort of African American families that moved from the cities to the suburbs in the mid-’60s. Mixed in with what was a very happy childhood were some very unpleasant experiences because of race and racism. The pools were still segregated. At certain restaurants, waitresses would sometimes go out of their way not to take our family’s order. Gas stations sometimes wouldn’t let us use their restrooms. People often want to forget that there was, and sometimes still is, de facto segregation in the north.

Hansberry was addressing those kinds of issues. She wanted to foster change using her art. Of course, A Raisin in the Sun is the most visible example. I remember after college, getting out of college – I was an American Studies major – and my first job was in advertising and direct marketing, and I was really inspired by the ’80s independent film movement. I decided then that I would make a film about Lorraine Hansberry. I would go to the Boston Public Library after work and research her. I would talk about her, and people didn’t know who she was and didn’t know anything about her. And I hardly knew – compared to what I know now – I hardly knew anything about her, either.

I found a job in production so I could learn how to make films. Once I saw Eyes on the Prize on TV, I knew I needed to work at Blackside, which is Henry Hampton’s company. After starting there as an associate producer on The Great Depression series, I later worked there as a producer/director/writer on two films for a series called I’ll Make Me a New World: A Century of African American Art. And I did a short segment on Hansberry in that. I kind of debated whether I’d already made my Hansberry film. Could I stop right there? But the more I learned about her, the more I knew I’d have to make a feature length documentary. To just leave her story as it had been told up to that point, a positive tale about opportunities in post-WWII America, would do a disservice to the reality of her experiences. Not to say that that’s not one of the ways you can look at her life. But I saw her life was more of a struggle than I originally thought.

Then I found out that there was someone else who was also on a mission to make a film about Lorraine Hansberry: Chiz Schultz. We joined forces in 2004. He actually – this is so wild to me – he used to work at Harry Belafonte’s company, and he and Harry were the original producers of the Off-Broadway production of To Be Young, Gifted, and Black in 1969. So it felt like it was meant to be.

ArtSake: Contemporary documentary film artists are no longer just making films, it seems. They’re embarking on multi-platform projects that include both the making of the film and a greater outreach and community building effort. Am I right that this is indeed a recent shift in documentary filmmaking? And how does this complicate your work as a filmmaker?

Tracy: Well, creating outreach for documentaries is not new. Almost every project I’ve worked on for public television had teachers’ and study guides, and involved outreach. When I worked at Blackside or WGBH, for example, the outreach was being developed as we were doing the film. So this notion of multi-platform projects was already out there. Now we are expected to develop transmedia storytelling projects in which the public engagement, social media, and interactivity are to be built into the entire life of the project. It is a paradigm shift that is both challenging and exciting.

There are great digital tools, and I’m very motivated, having focused on Technology, Innovation, and Education in graduate school, but the hours in the day haven’t increased. And as you’re working really hard to be a filmmaker, it can be difficult to step out and try to be an expert at something else, or find the right folks to collaborate with when you do not have the money to pay them. The challenge is figuring out how to have the time and resources – both psychological and financial – and even the capacity to make the film and complete the educational and engagement activities. In the Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project, we’re moving forward on each in fits and spurts. We don’t have any other choice!

All of this has been changing intensely within the last several years. And it’s happening at the same time many foundations are becoming more interested in public engagement and cross-media storytelling. Some want to see if your project has followers on Facebook and Twitter as a way to determine if your project actually has an audience and/or if you’ve started cultivating it.

ArtSake: Because your project revolves around a mid-century writer, much of the film includes archival footage. The footage is, of course, extremely rich content, but it’s also expensive to license. Can you talk about how this increases the financial burden on this project?

Tracy: One of the biggest challenges we face making this film is rights cost. We’d like to make a project available in all platforms known now and in the future. That means asking people to give us rights in all media worldwide, in perpetuity. We’re estimating that the rights for this project will cost $300,000. It’s a lot of money of course. Some people make whole documentaries on that amount of money.

And the historical material is key. Because we need to examine artists like Lorraine Hansberry in the context of the time in which she was operating, in which her parents were operating. I think a lot of funders today want to fund present-day documentaries, social issue documentaries, and I applaud that. But I also think those same issues have important historical contexts. And I think it would be helpful and instructive for today’s activists to see the continuity and the contrasts of what has changed, what hasn’t. Hansberry was an artist – and an activist.

I worry we’re going to start seeing fewer films of this kind because it’s so hard to raise the money. There are people who through kindness will share their historical material at little or no cost. And we hope that that tradition will continue in this project. We’re passionate about making this film happen and have put a lot of our own money into sustaining it between other work.

ArtSake: You just received a $30,000 Arts and Radio and Television grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and other grants panels – the 2007 MCC Artist Fellowships and LEF Moving Image Fund Grant and the 2009 Brother Thomas Fellowships – have recognized you for artistic excellence. Can you talk about grants such as these affect you as an artist?

Tracy: I’m so grateful that the panels recognized what I’m trying to achieve – in the documentary, in the short run. And hopefully they see me emerging, in the long run, as an artist.

I’ve done a lot of work-for-hire and in each project I’ve learned new things. This is the first time I’m making my own film. But it is very important to stress that I’m not making my own film alone. My husband Randall MacLowry and veteran filmmaker Chiz Schultz – we’re all working together on this. And I have friends and colleagues who’ve been supportive and have helped us in a variety of ways. We’ve interviewed several individuals who knew Hansberry personally, and I’ve been moved by their willingness to share their stories about her, including Philip Rose, the original producer of A Raisin in the Sun, who recently died. I’m grateful not only to the grant panels but also to all the other people supporting me, for believing in my artistic vision, and a qualitative approach based on what I learned from working at Blackside.

ArtSake: You mentioned that the collaboration with Chiz Schultz began in 2004. Is part of the reason a film like yours can take so many years to create that the artistic content is enriched by that commitment of time?

Tracy: Lorraine was so smart and so well read. And she drew on references that aren’t commonplace today. If I look at one five page letter she wrote, and if I really want to know what she’s trying to say, I have to look up a lot of material. So if we have notebooks filled with letters, and I really want to understand her, it requires a lot of time to do that work and let the information sit.

She was born in 1930. She died in 1965. Those are four decades of great transformation in American society: the Depression, WWII, post-war progressive politics, the Cold War. And then the modern Civil Rights movement. One reason I really like this story about her is that she and her family show that the Civil Rights movement didn’t just start with the Montgomery bus boycott, Brown Vs. the Board of Education. Her family had been engaged in protests for a long time. Less well known is that Hansberry was also secretly supporting gay/lesbian activism at the time. She gave money to emerging organizations and contributed to publications using pseudonyms or her initials.

So how do I bring context?  I want to make a film that makes deep connections, and that does take time. You have all these wonderful, cheaper, digital media-making tools, but you still have to think and wrestle with the ideas and the vast amount of material we’ve collected from various archives – and you can’t necessarily speed up your thinking.

ArtSake: Social media is one of the facets of the “transmedia” project. Have you been met with excitement about the project through its online platforms?

Tracy: One of Hansberry’s nieces actually contacted me through the Facebook page. And yes, a lot of people are really excited. It’s hard to believe that this prominent artist who died in 1965 has never been featured in a documentary. We think this new scholarship we’ve uncovered and this presentation of a fuller picture of who Hansberry was will resonate with people similarly to the way To Be Young, Talented, and Black resonated with me.

Tracy Heather Strain is a documentary filmmaker, a producer of educational videos and museum segments, and a principal and co-founder of the Boston-based media production studio The Film Posse, Inc.

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We were profoundly sad to learn of the passing of Karen Aqua, a trailblazing animator whose work and life have had a tremendous impact on the New England arts community for more than three decades.

The Massachusetts Cultural Council was honored to award Karen Aqua an Artist Fellowship in Film & Video in 2011, based on the strength of her remarkable film Twist of Fate. The film explores, through a richly envisioned landscape of physiological, medical, and emotional imagery, the experience of being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.

Below is a tribute to the artist written by fellow animator Joanna Priestley, who collaborated with Karen and her husband Ken Field to create the film Andaluz. The tribute, reprinted with permission from Priestley’s website, gives a sense of the scope of Karen’s contributions as an artist and a person.

In Memoriam – Karen Aqua by Joanna Priestley

Karen Aqua was an extraordinarily talented, creative, pioneer indie filmmaker. She made a dozen wonderful films that have been a huge inspiration to me and to people all over the world. Her work is about ritual, landscape, color, transformation and spirit. I love her films. Just two weeks before her death on May 30 of cancer, she premiered a brand new film, Taxonomy.

Karen was a delightful, playful, energetic woman and a kind, generous, thoughtful friend. Karen and her husband, talented composer/musician Ken Field, and I were guests at the Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain in 2001, where the three of us collaborated on a film about the region (Andaluz). To complete the drawings for the film, Karen and I shared residencies at the MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, NH) and the Millay Colony (Austerlitz, NY). I am so grateful I got to make a film with Karen and Ken.

We also met up at Mardi Gras in New Orlean, where Karen and Ken played music and danced in parades. Karen always looked spectacular and I fondly remember her wearing a magnificent, purple and silver sequined dress that stopped traffic. One afternoon she started talking to an old gentleman in a bar and within 15 minutes they were friends and he had given her a beautiful Zulu coconut.

All over the world, everywhere she went, people fell in love with her. That’s the kind of person she was. Everyone loved her. The world has lost a great human being and an amazingly talented artist. I will miss her with all my heart.

Learn more about Karen Aqua and her work. Read a 2009 ArtSake interview with Karen.

Images: Karen Aqua, photo by Vasia Anagnostopoulou; still from TWIST OF FATE by Karen Aqua (2009), 8:40 min; still from ANDALUZ by Karen Aqua and Joanna Priestley (2004), 6 min.

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The Massachusetts Cultural Council is honored to announce the 2011 MCC Artist Fellowship awards in Crafts, Film & Video, and Photography. Twenty artists will receive fellowships of $7500 and another 19 will receive $500 finalist awards. See a complete list of this year’s fellows and finalists.

The awards are anonymously judged, based solely on the artistic quality and creative ability of the work submitted. Applications were open to all eligible Massachusetts artists. A total number of 619 eligible applications were received; 152 in Crafts, 128 in Film & Video, and 339 in Photography.

The Crafts panelists were Michael Giaquinto (Cape Cod Museum of Art Exhibitions Curator), Robbie Heidinger (Crafts Fellow ’09), and Perry Price (Fuller Crafts Museum Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Collections).

The Film & Video panelists were Claire Andrade-Watkins (Film & Video Fellow ’09), Carter Long (Museum of Fine Arts Boston Katharine Stone White Curator of Film & Video), and Jake Mahaffy (filmmaker), with David Dinnell (Ann Arbor Film Festival Program Director), Rebecca Meyers (ArtsEmerson Director of Film Programs), Marlo Poras (filmmaker), and Jonathan Schwartz (filmmaker) serving as first-round readers.

The Photography panelists were Vaughn Sills (Photography Fellow ’09), George Slade (Photographic Resource Center Program Manager/Curator), and Paula Tognarelli (Griffin Museum of Photography Executive Director).

Earlier this year, we announced awards in Music Composition, Playwriting, and Sculpture/Installation.

Read profiles of the fellows/finalists on Gallery@MCC.

Images: Stephen DiRado, CARA, AQUINNAH, MA (2009), from the series BEACH PEOPLE, Silver gelatin contact photograph, 9.5×7.5 in; Carrie Gustafson, PALE PRIMROSE (2008), hand blown glass – sandblasted and wheel cut, 7.5×8 in; Still from FWD: UPDATE ON MY LIFE by Nicky Tavares (28 minutes, Video, 2010); Toni Pepe, THE GESTURE OF TRADITION, INSTALLMENT 2 (2010), Archival Inkjet, 30×40 in; Still from TWIST OF FATE by Karen Aqua (8:40 minutes, 35mm, 2009); Mariko Kusumoto, RYOUNKAKU (2007), board game, metalworks, 27x9x1-1/2 in, photo by Dean Powell.

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