ArtSake

Today’s glimpse from our gallery of past MCC fellows/finalists: a heartbreaking excerpt from Alexandra Anthony’s (Film & Video Fellow ’07) personal documentary, Lucas Lost and Found, about a young boy who went missing in Greece – and was found in the U.S., many years later.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

This is what happens when interesting ideas get together and make interesting idea babies.

In the past, we’ve talked about The DocYard; it’s a documentary film screening/networking series based at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, designed to foster the Boston-area filmmaking community. Among the films screened in DocYard’s first season was Today the Hawk Takes One Chick, a moving documentary by past MCC Fellow Jane Gillooly.

And we’ve discussed Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that allows projects to offer creative rewards to reach fundraising goals.

Sensing the model was a good fit with their project, the founders of DocYard – Sara Archambault of the LEF Foundation, Sean Flynn of Principle Pictures, and Ben Fowlie of the Camden International Film Festival – are using Kickstarter to support the DocYard’s second season.

In the Kickstarter model, if a project falls short of its fundraising goal, none of the donations are collected. Will this one reach its mark? (The suspense! This is like a movie unto itself.)

For more info, check out the project’s Kickstarter page, or The DocYard website.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Today’s glimpse from our gallery of past MCC fellows/finalists: a clip from Kate Feiffer‘s (Film & Video Finalist ’03) Matzo and Mistletoe, a look at her family’s complicated relationship to the winter holidays.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Applications are now available for 2011 Artist Fellowships in Crafts, Film & Video, and Photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Deadline: Monday, January 24, 2011.

The fellowships are anonymously-judged competitive grants for Massachusetts artists. Fellowships of $7,500 and finalist awards of $500 are awarded based solely on the artistic excellence of the work submitted. Check out our tips on applying.

Read full program guidelines, eligibility requirements, and application instructions.

Images and media: excerpt from NORA, a film by Alla Kovgan (Film & Video Fellow ’09); Heather White (Crafts Fellow ’05), MURMURING BROOCH (2006), cast sterling lips, gold, rubies, seed and cultured pearls, 4.75 x 4.75 x .75 in; Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ’09), FLIGHT SUIT (2008), Archival Inkjet Print, 16 in x 20 in.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

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

Two past Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellows will read from their respective short story collections as part of the Blacksmith House Reading Series in Cambridge. Tracy Winn (’08), author of Mrs. Somebody Somebody, reads with Peter Brown (’06), author of A Bright Soothing Noise, on December 6, 8 PM.

Sachiko Akiyama (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) has a solo show at The Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, called Sachiko Akiyama: Things Unseen, an exhibition of carved polychrome wood sculpture and relief. The show runs through February 6, 2011. The artist will speak on her work on Sunday, December 12 at 3 PM.

Congratulations to Kathryn Burak (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’10), whose novel The Dress is going to be published by Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan in Spring 2012. Read an excerpt of an earlier version of the novel, which garnered Kathryn her MCC honor.

Michael Dowling‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) film Speck’s Last (adapted from his award-winning play) will screen at Anthology Film Archives in NYC, on Sunday, December 5th, 3 PM. RSVP here. Find more details on the film’s Facebook page.

Brian Knep’s (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’07) interactive installation Healing 1 is on display in the Brigham Young University Museum of Art’s e.g. (Electronic Gallery) through January 2011.

Niho Kozuru (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) has a solo show of new work at Boston’s Arden Gallery on Newbury Street. The show runs December 1-30, 2010, with an opening reception Friday, December 3, 5-7 PM.

Scott Listfield (Painting Finalist ’10) has created a series of 15 small works which will debut in Stars & Cars: Paintings by Jason Chase and Scott Listfield, which runs at Laconia Gallery in Boston in December and January. The exhibit opens Friday, December 3rd (5:30-8 PM) at Laconia Gallery. In other news: Scott was selected as the creator of this year’s First Night Boston pin; on December 31st, an estimated 70,000 people will have one of Scott’s distinctive astronaut images pinned to their clothes. (See a picture of Scott at the button unveiling.) Scott also has a work in the current Icons + Altars show at the New Art Center in Newton (through Dec. 12); benefits from the show will go to the New Art Center.

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

Gary Metras (Poetry Fellow ’84) has published a new book of poems, Two Bloods: Fly Fishing Poems, winner of the Split Oak Press Chapbook Award.

Joshua Meyer (Painting Fellow ’10) has a solo exhibit, Everything in between at Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, December 2, 2010-January 31, 2011. Check out Joshua’s terrific video interview with Evelyn Herwitz.

David Moore (Painting Fellow ’08) has work on exhibit at the FP3 Gallery in Boston’s Fort Point Channel, through January 3rd.

You can hear Monica Raymond‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) poem Economies read aloud by Nic Sebastian on the Whale Sound website. Monica’s photograph of the Cambridge Carnival was published by Dave Bonta on qarrtsiluni.com. As part of an evening program devoted to mythology, Monica read her poems Tale Tale, The Love Twin, and What the Echo Knows at Sprout in Somerville on November 17th.

Salvatore Scibona (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06), named one of The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40, has a short story in the just-published accompanying story collection, 20 Under 40: Stories from The New Yorker.

Congratulations to Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ’09), whose play Identity Crisis, a farce about race, won the 2010 New Play Festival of Centre Stage in Greenville, SC in October and will be produced there January 13-22, 2011. Peter won the same festival in 2006 with his play Guided Tour. Identity Crisis is also scheduled for a staged reading in February by HRC Showcase Theater in Hudson, NY. In November, Peter’s popular short play, My Name is Art, had two more Australian productions at Short and Sweet Festivals in Melbourne and Brisbane after being staged earlier this year in Canberra. Another of his short plays, The Greening of Bridget Kelly, will be produced December 1-5 in New York by 3 Road Productions.

Congratulations to Julia Story (Poetry Finalist ’10), whose poetry collection Post Moxie won the Zacharis Prize, awarded by Ploughshares each year to a first book of poetry or fiction. This month, Julia will read as part of the Small Animal Project series, joining Claire Hero and Becca Klaver on Wednesday December 15th, 8 pm, at Outpost 186 in Cambridge’s Inman Square. The Small Animal Project series is directed by Jessica Bozek (Poetry Finalist ’10).

Rachel Perry Welty‘s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) solo exhibition Lost in My Life continues at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York through December 23, 2010 (a recent review calls the show “a hoarder’s dilemma and an obsessive-compulsive dream.”) What’s more, Rachel’s work has or will feature into two art fairs, PARIS PHOTO in the Carrousel de Louvre (November 18-21), and PULSE Miami, at the Ice Palace in Miami Florida (December 2-5). Yancey Richardson Gallery is representing Rachel in both fairs. Other recent news: Rachel recently donated a pigmented print from the “Lost in my Life” series to The Kitchen Benefit Art Auction, and she’s been invited to be visiting artist (and speak) at Cranbrook Academy of Art (Detroit, Michigan) and Montserrat College of Art (Beverly, Massachusetts).

Past Fellows Notes
Nov. 2010
Oct. 2010
Sept. 2010
Aug. 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
Apr. 2010
Mar. 2010
Feb. 2010
Jan. 2010

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

Images: Scott Listfield, painting from the STARS AND CARS exhibition at Laconia Gallery in Boston; Brian Knep, HEALING #1 (2003), Computer, custom software, video projectors, video cameras, vinyl flooring. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist; David Moore, FLIGHT I (2007), oil on linen, 72×72 in; cover art for POST MOXIE: POEMS by Julia Story (Sarabande Books 2010).

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Today’s glimpse from our gallery of past MCC fellows/finalists: an excerpt from the personal documentary Bright Leaves by filmmaker Ross McElwee (Film & Video Fellow ’05).

Ross McElwee is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, and for decades, he’s been a key figure in the Massachusetts nonfiction filmmaking scene. He is one of the many artists of national and international prominence to receive state fellowships over the years.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Past Fellows Notes
Oct. 2010
Sept. 2010
Aug. 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
Apr. 2010
Mar. 2010
Feb. 2010
Jan. 2010

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

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

Powered by Bookmarkify™

What stands between you and What Stands Between Us and the Sun? Well, the literal answer would be whatever mileage and topography stands between your current location and the AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media in Jamaica Plain. But isn’t it also the modern era, that socially networked hyper-connectivity that distracts us all from attending the readings, art exhibitions, film screenings, dance concerts, orchestral work premieres, and other assorted artistic greatness that we know in our heart of hearts we want to attend? Not surprisingly, our official ArtSake suggestion is, after reading this post (and all other ArtSake posts you have yet to read), disconnect and go experience some art.

One of the options you’ll have available to you is the current AXIOM show, a photography, installation, and video project by artists Megan and Murray McMillan.The McMillans’ interdisciplinary work starts when the collaborators build a theatrical set, which serves as a stage for a video and photography production. With What Stands Between Us and the Sun, the McMillans built an artificial lake in warehouse in Rhode Island (where the McMillans are based). The AXIOM exhibition includes a video, photography, and elements from (or referring to) the original set interwoven into the piece.

Below are images from AXIOM’s Flickr page, including the exhibition’s installation and its opening reception. The show is on exhibit at the AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media until November 27, and Megan and Murray McMillan will take part in an artists’ talk on Tuesday, November 9, 7-9 PM.

Images: Megan and Murray McMillan, WHAT STANDS BETWEEN US AND THE SUN, photo, installation, and video project; images from AXIOM’s Flickr page (photos by Sarah Rushford): the show being installed at AXIOM; three images from the opening reception.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

This post is a pictorial tour of some of the exceptional stuff past fellows/finalists from MCC’s Artist Fellowships Program are currently up to.

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

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

3. Chinese World Expos. Martha Jane Bradford (Drawing Fellow ’85) collaborated with Chantal Harvey to produce Acquarella: The Fable, digital/virtual art on view in the Air Tree Exhibit in the Madrid Pavilion of the World Expo in Shanghai, curated by Spanish curator and virtual arts leader Cristina García-Lasuén. Martha (Alizarin Goldflake in Second Life) produced, directed, and designed most of the virtual environment, while Chantal Harvey helmed the 3-D computer animation. Watch the clip with narration in English or Chinese.

4. Literary/culinary benefit events. Former Poetry Slam National Champion Regie Gibson (Poetry Fellow ’10) will emcee the literary feast A Taste of Grub, a November 5 fundraiser for Grub Street, a writers’ service organization based in Boston.

5. Edens-in-progress. TRIIIBE (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09), the artists collective of Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio and photographer Cary Wolinsky, is turning Boston University’s massive 808 Gallery space into a site-specific installation. In Search of Eden will evolve as creators and observers participate in developing a present day version of the Garden of Eden. If you’re in search of art that’s visually arresting, socially engaged, and possessed of a truly unique vision, then traveler, I think I know where to find your paradise.

6. Collaborative, two-part installations. Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) and Linda Price-Sneddon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’01) have created a multi-media installation showing at two different art venues. Part one of That Which Changes That Which Stays the Same shows at the Villa Victoria in Boston through November 3, 2010. Part two shows at the Essex Art Center in Lawrence through December 8, with an Artists’ Talk Wednesday, November 17, 7-8 PM. The artists’ collaboration is itself the result of a collaboration (woah, meta) between Villa Victoria and Essex Art Center, called Exchange.

For more exceptional stuff, check out Fellows Notes.

Images: Leslie Sills, HIGH TEA (front and side view), ceramic; still from THE TWO ESCOBARS by Jeff and Michael Zimbalist; still from ACQUARELLA by Martha Jane Bradford and Chantal Harvey; Regie Gibson; promotional image for A Taste of Grub; TRIIIBE, FINE; installation view of THAT WHICH CHANGES THAT WHICH STAYS THE SAME by Liz Nofziger and Linda Price-Sneddon.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Today’s glimpse from our gallery of past MCC fellows/finalists: a brief excerpt from Irene Lusztig‘s personal documentary Reconstruction, which explores Irene’s maternal grandmother and her role in a failed bank robbery in late-1950s Romania.

Since winning her MCC grant, Irene has gone on to teach at UC Santa Cruz, but she’s currently back in the area on a 2010/2011 Radcliffe Institute Fellowship.

Find a longer, higher quality clip from Reconstruction on Vimeo.

Powered by Bookmarkify™