ArtSake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Couldn’t rightly say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Composers, dramatic writers, and sculpture/installation artists: the deadline to apply for a 2011 Artist Fellowship in Music Composition, Playwriting, or Sculpture/Installation is this Monday, September 20, 2010 (this is a postmark deadline for mailed materials).

In other words: there’s still time! Read full program guidelines and apply – pronto, ASAP, and post haste.

The fellowships are anonymously-judged grants of $7,500 and finalist awards $500, based solely on the artistic excellence of the work submitted.

In this post you can see/hear some of the work that’s been successful in this grant; the image is a still from the performance piece Bailout by TRIIIBE (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09); in the audio clip you can hear Company One performing a scene from Reservoir by 2009 Playwriting Fellow Eric Henry Sanders.

And check out our tips for applying, based on feedback from past Artist Fellowships panelists and our own observations.

Image and media: Still from the performance piece BAILOUT (2008) by TRIIIBE; Company One performs a scene from Reservoir by Eric Henry Sanders (Playwriting Fellow ’09), directed by Shawn LaCount, with Fedna Jacquet as Psychiatrist and Brett Marks as Hasek.

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It’s Friday, late afternoon, and creatures everywhere are feeling snacky.

In short, it’s the perfect time to experience David Lachman‘s (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’07) essen/fressen, an installation that asks: what divides the human from the feline, or the hors d’oevres from the kibble?

Gallery Glimpse is a weekly sampling of our Gallery@MCC.

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It’s a sleepy August morning, and you are, hopefully, supine in a hammock or in crystalline sand on some manner of cape (Cod, Ann, Canaveral, etc.). In case you brought your laptop, here’s a round-up of useful, edifying, interesting, or otherwise nifty art-related web destinations.

I brake for blogs that find unique uses for the format. Like Good Ear Review, which publishes dramatic monologues by varied writers, including some Mass. playwrights. Though its editor-in-chief is listed as Tristram Stjohn Bexindale-Webb (editor for the past 147 years), one suspects Northampton playwright KD Halpin may be more than the “Adjuncty Staff” the site claims her to be. Find out how to submit your own monologues.

Another fun one is the His Room as He Left It project blog by Ariel Kotker, where she posts additions to her ongoing, handmade installation, as she makes them. Recently, this meant sharing the Mosspocket Spittle Tabs.

The Technology in the Arts blog covers different methods to crowdfund your art. You’ve probably heard of the site Kickstarter, in which creative rewards are used as incentives to donate to projects, such as the successfully-funded Big Hammock (pictured above), a public art project in Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. The post also delves into IndieGoGo and RocketHub.

A U-Mass Amherst theatre student shares the rules of comedy directing he gleaned from participating in rehearsals for The Hound of the Baskervilles at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, such as “If You Can’t Hide It, Feature It” and “Simplify (Unless You Shouldn’t).”

Comic virtuosity, rock star-ness, and individualized pencil sharpening convene in a bookstore you can’t find. On August 20, Brookline’s native son John Hodgman (of The Daily Show and The Areas of My Expertise), David Rees (of Get Your War On), and musical performer John Roderick are joining for an event at the Montague Bookmill in Western Mass. Among the evening’s offerings are this curiosity: Rees will present a rare, live artisanal pencil sharpening demonstration. What is artisanal pencil sharpening, you ask? My guess is it resides somewhere between satire, conceptual art, and hand-sanding, but seek out the bookshop (whose slogan is “Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find”) and find out for yourself. (The Bookmill can’t be too hard to find; according to this Globe article, Hodgman wrote most of his first book there.)

Apply to our Artist Fellowships Program, and you, too, might someday model for Vogue and Time Magazine! Further reading to support the previous sentence: 1. A profile of Jonathan Franzen in Time, which includes his visage on the cover (incidentally, the last time an author graced the Time cover was Stephen King, in March 2000). 2. A story about Franzen in Vogue, which includes a Vogue-ish photo portrait. 3. Our list of notable past Massachusetts state fellows, which includes Mr. Franzen (he received the award in 1986, two years before his first novel The Twenty Seventh City was published.)

When selecting honorary chairs for your theater company, it never hurts to aim high.

Stuck in traffic on the Mass Pike? Stay alert for talking felt, in case some Massachusetts artists decide to emulate Superclogger, a puppet show for gridlocked L.A. drivers.

When writing, do you suffer from the Yoda Effect? Chatty Cathy-ness? The Old Spice Guy Effect? A San Fran literary agent breaks down common writing maladies.

A painter accepts commissions to paint people’s ideal bookshelf, a row of their most treasured or meaningful books.

Provocative filmmaker John Waters is interviewed in the Paris Review, where he talks about his longtime tradition of summering in Provincetown. In particular, his happy days working for local booksellers:

It was a magical time in my life. I worked in the bookshop. First I worked in the East End Bookshop that was run by Molly Malone Cook and her girlfriend, Mary Oliver, the poet, who was not famous yet. And then I worked at the Provincetown Bookshop for many, many years. And it’s still there. Elloyd Hansen, one of the owners, was the guy who really gave me my complete education about books. I didn’t go to school, so he’s the one who told me about Ronald Firbank, Jane Bowles; I learned everything working there.

Image: Digital prototype of THE BIG HAMMOCK, a public art project by Hansy Better. Image courtesy of The Big Hammock Project. The Big Hammock has its grand opening party on August 20th, 1:30 PM, in the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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We’re excited to announce that the Massachusetts Cultural Council 2011 Artist Fellowships program guidelines are now available. The Artist Fellowships are unrestricted, anonymously judged, competitive grants in recognition of artistic excellence.

If you’ve applied before, you may notice that the deadline structure has changed since previous years. There are two application periods for 2011 Artist Fellowships, divided by discipline. Applications are now being accepted in Music Composition, Playwriting, and Sculpture/Installation. Deadline: September 20, 2010.

Beginning December 1, MCC will accept applications in Crafts, Film & Video, and Photography. Deadline: January 24, 2011.

Who should apply? Generative Massachusetts artists who meet eligibility requirements are encouraged to apply. In the current categories, this means:

• Music Composition – composers of original music including chamber, choral, electronic, experimental, symphonic, popular, band music, jazz, opera, solo work, and musical theatre.
• Playwriting – writers of original plays, screenplays, musical scripts, audiodramas, monologues and experimental or solo performance work submitted in script form.
• Sculpture/Installation – artists working in sculpture, installation, and cross-disciplinary forms such as interactive, event-based, and new media.

We know artists work in ways that are not easily categorized, and there might be creative work not mentioned above that still fits into the current application disciplines. So if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask us.

Listen to an excerpt from A.P. by David Fiuczynski (Music Composition Fellow ’09)

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

Image and media: Pat Shannon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09), OPEN HOUSE (2008), cut newspapers, acrylic gel, binder’s board 17 in x 24 in x 22 in; excerpt from A.P. by David Fiuczynski (Music Composition Fellow ’09).

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John Ewing is interested in sparking public dialogue. And he does so the way he, as a public artist specializing in digital media, knows best: through interactive, boundary-pushing art.

The Virtual Street Corners project connects Coolidge Corner, Brookline with Dudley Sq, Roxbury through 24/7 video teleconferencing. The project, which you can read about in a terrific interview in The Atlantic, inspires spontaneous conversations by passers-by in both neighborhoods as well as planned discussions by artists, politicians, and other community figures from each neighborhood.

Tomorrow (Friday, June 25, at 5 PM), former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis will visit Virtual Street Corners. He’ll discuss his recent projects, share his perspective on the relationship between Brookline and Dudley Sq., and engage in dialogue with State Senate candidate Carlos Henriquez and Union of Minority Neighborhoods Executive Director Horace Small about what can be done to strengthen the relationship between the two communities.

Virtual Street Corners is installed at A Nubian Notion and Brookline Booksmith (respectively), through June 30. Learn more

Images: View of the two locales in Virtual Street Corners, photo by John Ewing; Portrait of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis by Gardner Cox (1983).

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April 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.

Three MCC Fellows/Finalists are featured in an exhibition of Artadia Boston’s recent awardees at the Mills Gallery in the Boston Center for the Arts. Work by Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07), Ambreen Butt (Drawing Finalist ’10), and Eric Gottesman (Photography Fellow ’09), along with that of Caleb Cole, Raúl González, Amie Siegel and Joe Zane, will be on exhibit through April 25, 2010.

Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) visits the Brattle Theatre (hosted by Harvard Bookstore) on Friday, April 16 for a musical celebration of his new book, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, an ode/confessional for the musical superfan in all of us.

Congratulations to S. Bear Bergman (Playwriting Fellow ’05). Bear’s essay collection The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You is a finalist for a 2010 Lambda Literary Award.

David Binder’s (Photography Fellow ’01) documentary Calling My Children is screening at the Sacramento International Film Festival on April 19. The film recently screened at the Bermuda International Film Festival on March 24.

Martha Jane Bradford (Drawing Fellow ’85) is creating an exciting educational exhibit for the Cahners ComputerPlace at the Museum of Science, Boston, on digital and virtual art. The exhibit, an immersive installation with sound and video projections that emulate the environments Martha creates in Second Life, will further visitors’ understanding of digital images and of making virtual art. You can find more information, as well as a video tour of Martha’s Second Life creations, on her blog. Incidentally, the Museum is currently accepting applications for a Technical Designer Internship for this exhibit.

Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky, aka TRIIIBE (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09) will have a solo show at Gallery Kayafas in Boston, April 15-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.

Michael Downing (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’08) wrote an essay for Huffington Post about his experience as an “embedded reporter” in the healthcare debate.

Kurt Cole Eidsvig (Poetry Fellow ’04) is taking part in x/o: a visual/sound/spoke word installation on Saturday, April 24, 7 PM, at the Fort Point Theatre Channel, Fort Point, Boston. The free event, created by Kurt, Martin Cockroft, and Brendan Murray uses art, sound, poetry, and projected imagery for a 90-minute performance on opposites, building blocks, and the relationships between things. The event will include the premiere of X-and-O.com, an Internet installation created by Eidsvig, Murray, and Claude Keswani.

Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ’06) will have a solo exhibition of watercolors and works on paper, called Floralies, at Gurari Collections in Boston. The exhibition continues Vico’s exploration of the precariousness of the natural world through invented botanicals. The exhibition runs April 2 through May 2, 2010, with an opening reception April 2, 6-9 PM.

Ralf Yusuf Gawlick (Music Composition Fellow ’09) will premiere Kinderkreuzzug, his dramatic cantata for children’s voices and small chamber ensemble, on Saturday, April 10, 7:30 PM, at St. Ignatius, Chestnut Hill and again on Sunday, April 11, 3 PM Trinity Episcopal, Concord. The cantata, which takes as its source material Bertolt Brecht’s extraordinary and grim anti-war poetry, will be performed by two New England choirs and a German boys choir sponsored to fly to the region specifically for this piece. The choirs will record the cantata for the label Musica Omnia. Read more about Ralf and Kinderkreuzzug in an ArtSake profile.

Congratulations to D.M. Gordon (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08), who won first place the Glimmer Train Short Story for New Writers Prize!

Liza Johnson (Film & Video Finalist ’03, ’07) has won a Cinereach Grant for her film Return, which follows a female soldier home from a tour of duty.

Masako Kamiya (Painting Fellow ’06, ’10) has a solo show at Gallery NAGA in Boston: “Masako Kamiya: New Work 2009-2010,” running April 3-May 1, with an artist reception on April 2 (6-8 PM) and an artist talk on April 10, 2 PM. The show is presented in conjunction with the mid-career retrospective of Masako’s work at the Danforth Museum of Art, Masako Kamiya Outspoken: 2002-2010, through May 16.

Yanick Lapuh (Painting Fellow ’10) is among the local artists whose work will light up a gallery at the Boston Children’s Museum with “their yellowy best.” The Yellow Show will run April 22-June 20, 2010.

Melinda Lopez’s (Playwriting Fellow ’03) play From Orchids to Octopi: an Evolutionary Love Story runs at Central Square Theatre through May 2, 2010. The play was commissioned by the National Institutes of Health to celebrate the 150th anniversary of “On the Origin of Species.” From Orchids to Octopi is a project of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT – Underground Railway Theater’s science theater initiative with MIT. Read an interview with Melinda on ArtSake.

Julie Mallozzi (Film & Video Finalist ’07) wrote a fascinating essay on The Public Humanist, a blog of Mass Humanities, about her documentary-in-progress Lalita.

It won’t be your average artist talk when Jane D. Marsching (Photography Finalist ’03) presents 7 Stories & a Dance: Feeling Data at Upgrade! Boston on April 6, 7-9 PM, at MIT-ACT. Jane will “weave together an evening of storytelling, dancing, and conversation as part of her talk about recent projects that seek to translate abstract climate data and depressing climate news into sensory experiences.”

Anne Neely (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo show of paintings called Waterlines at the Danforth Museum in Framingham. The show runs through May 16. Anne will give an artist talk on May 9 at 3 PM.

Mary O’Malley (Drawing Fellow ’06) has a solo show, called Super Natural, at Sam Lee Gallery in LA, through May 13.

Jim Peters (Painting Fellow ’08) is among the artists in an artSTRAND exhibition at Fort Point’s FP3 Gallery. Jim Peters’ mixed media piece of oil on canvas, photo and glass, “Blue Bath,” is part of a new series of works done in Paris and Provincetown and is inspired by French poetry and fiction. The show runs through April 30.

Monica Raymond (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) will be participating in the Cambridge Poetry Festival in Jill Rhone Park (Lafayette Square, Cambridge, corner of Main and Columbia). The festival runs 12-5 PM on Sunday, April 18.

Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ’10) was featured on the website Artist a Day.

Vaughn Sills (Photography Fellow ’09) is among the artists in Shoot’n Southern: Women Photographers, Past and Present, at Mobile Museum of Art April 30 – July 18, 2010. The show will feature photographs from Vaughan’s series “Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens.”

Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ’09) has two short plays, The Greening of Bridget Kelly and My Name is Art, in the “American Bytes” series by Liminal Space Productions at the New Wimbledon Studio in Wimbledon, London, UK. There will be four performances the week of April 5, 2010. My Name is Art will also be produced by Edgemar Theater Group in Santa Monica, CA April 23-May 16 as part of their “Acts on the Edge” series. And two of Peter’s other short plays are being staged this month: Apple Pie by the Boca Raton Theatre Guild in Boca Raton, FL April 23-25; and Resistance by Actors’ Refuge Repertory Theatre in Boston April 23-24.

Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz (Drawing Finalist ’06) was recently featured in The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College’s Five from Around exhibition.

Jeff Warmouth’s (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’05) solo exhibition, Food Court, was recently featured at UMASS Lowell’s University Gallery (closing April 2, 2010). The show consisted of three video installations — two of them interactive food stands that battle for your media-starved attention: JeffuBurger and the brand new Il Jeffuria Pizza. For a sense of what a JeffuBurger entails, visit Jeff’s website.

Past Fellows Notes
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.

Image: TRIIIBE, PAINT BY NUMBERS, 50×42 in; images from FLORALIES by Vico Fabbris; Anne Neely, SURPRISE (2009) Oil on linen, 45×60 in (photo by Clements/Howcroft).

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Robyn Love in collaboration with the Simmons College community have created Unconditional Yes, a mixed-media installation and performance.

Artist Robyn Love seeks answers to the question, “Have you ever made a decision with an unconditional yes?” Combining her knitted and crocheted aphorisms with text, objects, and artwork contributed by faculty, staff, students, and alumnae, the exhibition is both inclusive and provocative. Transforming the gallery’s center into a temporary “living room.”

A knitted trail pieced together from communal donations leads visitors to the “living room.”

Love explains, “I am hoping to encourage people to look a little deeper at some of their ideas about themselves. I think if we really consider why we make our choices, we can take responsibility for them and that gives us a lot of freedom. Also I hope that the process of creating this exhibition together will generate a renewed sense of community at Simmons.”

Simmons Arts Administration majors collaborated with Love on many aspects of the project, suggesting the knitted trail (inspired by Love’s The Knitted Mile), developing publicity, encouraging community participation, knitting, and creating and maintaining a blog and Facebook page. One Arts Administration student noted, “We wanted to have the trail be all different colors and textures, representing the diversity of Simmons as a whole.”

Unconditional Yes
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 25 from 5-7 p.m. at the Simmons College Trustman Art Gallery, fourth floor, Main College Building, 300 The Fenway, in Boston. The Simmons Choir will perform beginning at 6 p.m.
Exhibition dates : March 20 – April 18. Gallery hours:10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.The gallery is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible. For more information, contact Marcia Lomedico at 617-521-2268.

Robyn Love will be in the gallery – in the living room – from Monday to Thursday, March 22 – 25, working and talking with visitors about the idea of Unconditional Yes. Love will also host periodic knit-togethers during the course of the installation.

Unconditional Yes is curated by Michele Cohen, Director of the Trustman Gallery and Assistant Professor, Arts Administration Program and the students in class AA390 who have been integral to the development of this project.

Image credits: All images courtesy of Simmons College, Trustman Gallery

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