ArtSake

Call to artists: Wounded in Action: An Art Exhibition of Orthopaedic Advancements. The exhibition will be a tribute to injured troops, civilians, and the orthopaedic surgeons who are caring and have cared for them as they served and/or serve our country in time of crisis. This exhibition is open to all artists with an interest in this theme. Artists need not have been military personnel, orthopaedic surgeons, or personally injured in war themselves.
Deadline: October 15, 2009

HarborArts: Large-scale outdoor sculpture on loan at Boston Harbor Shipyard call to artists. Eligibility: Open to all artists/designers/teams in the US and internationally. Students welcome. HarborArts seeks to implement an outdoor artwork loan program for a limited number of large-scale, 2D, and 3D works at Boston Harbor Shipyard in East Boston, Massachusetts. Works will be exhibited on a rotating schedule lasting a minimum of 3 months to several years, depending on availability and feasibility.
Deadline: Monday, November 9, 2009

Calling all furniture, lighting, product, interior, or environmental designers.
Modern Painters Magazine and Louise Blouin Media invite designers to participate in the inaugural competion Re:Vision Design Awards. First prize is $10,000 and two finalist awards are $2,500 each. Submissions from across the design spectrum that thoughtfully explore new ways to live, work, play, and interact in the domestic environment are encouraged.
Deadline: November 17, 2009

Image credit: Photograph of Bessie Colman courtesy of NASA (NASA, GPN-2004-00027). Additional biographical information on Ms. Colman courtesy of NASA: Born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas to a family of sharecroppers, Bessie Coleman grew up in poverty. Her father abandoned the family when she was nine, and her elder brothers soon left as well, leaving her mother with the four youngest of her thirteen children. While taking care of her younger sisters, Bessie completed all eight available years of primary education, excelling in math. She enrolled at the Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma in 1910, but lack of funds forced her to leave after only one term.

Five years later, she left the South and moved to Chicago to join two of her brothers, Walter and John, where she worked as a beautician for several years. An avid reader, she learned about World War I pilots in the newspaper and became intrigued by the prospect of flying. As a black woman, she had no chance of acceptance at any American pilot school, so she moved to France in 1919 and enrolled at the Ecole d’Aviation des Freres Caudon at Le Crotoy.

After returning briefly to the United States, she spent one more term in France practicing more advanced flying before finally settling back in her birth country. She did exhibition flying and gave lectures across the country from 1922 to 1926. While flying, she refused to perform unless the audiences were desegregated. She was test flying a new plane on April 30, 1926 when it malfunctioned, killing both her and the mechanic who was piloting it. Her career as the world’s first African American pilot inspired many who followed.

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Photo above depicts two artists wondering whatever happened to their luggage.

On a happier note, The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has issued two Calls to Artists for upcoming projects at Washington Dulles International Airport and they have nothing to do with locating lost luggage.

The first call to artists involves the International Arrivals Building. The Airports Authority is looking for artists to make artwork for three permanent installations intended to welcome arriving international passengers to the United States and the National Capital Region, to enhance their travel experience and to promote the cultural diversity of the National Capital Region.

The second call involves the the Federal Inspection Services Area, Concourse C. One project artist will be selected to work with nine classroom/art teachers at schools in the National Capital Region to create student portraits for a public art project titled, HELLO AND WELCOME.

For more information contact Margaret Bishop, Community Relations Manager, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, 703-417-8383, or email Margaret.Bishop@MWAA.com

Deadline for both projects: October 15, 2009.

There are two upcoming free talks to note:
The first is the launch event of Artists In Context on Friday, October 9, 2009, from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum Lecture Hall, Harvard University, 485 Broadway, Cambridge. Seating is limited so reservation is recommended. Email RSVP@artistsincontext.org to attend.

ARTISTS IN CONTEXT is a flexible organizational framework designed to assemble artists and other creative thinkers across disciplines to conceptualize new ways of representing and acting upon the critical issues. The speakers include: Claudine Brown, Director of the Arts and Culture Program, Nathan Cummings Foundation; Mel Chin, Ann Hamilton, Dava Newman, Director, MIT Technology and Policy Program and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems; and an additional speaker TBA. The moderator is Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture and of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University.

The second talk involves Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Poetry Festival presenting Massachusetts Poetry in Hard Times: What the Best of Bay State Bards Offer Us in Bad Times and Good. Poets include David Ferry, Suji Kwock Kim, Jill McDonough, Gail Mazur & Lloyd Schwartz, with moderator Christopher Lydon. For more information, call the Ford Hall Forum at 617-557-2007. Event takes place on Thursday, October 15 at 6:30-8:00 pm, at the Rabb Auditorium, Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Image credit: NASA Center: Headquarters, Image # wrightflyer-1904.

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Artadia, a New York-based arts nonprofit, announced the finalists for the Artadia Awards 2009 Boston – including several past MCC Artist Fellows/Finalists (linked, below). Congratulations to: Claire Beckett, Cree Bruins, Ambreen Butt, Laura Chasman, Caleb Cole, Margo Cooper, Raul Gonzalez, Eric Gottesman, Wendy Jacob, Erik Levine, Steph Plourde-Simard, Nick Rodrigues, Amie Siegel, Suara Welitoff, and Joe Zane.

Each of the finalists, who were selected from nearly 600 applications, will receive a studio visit in the upcoming weeks. The Artadia jury will then select two artists to receive awards of $15,000 and five to receive awards of $3,000, to be announced mid-August.

More info about the Artadia awards.

Images: Claire Beckett, CIVILIAN JOSHUA OSBORNE PLAYING THE ROLE OF AN IRAQI CIVILIAN, WADI AL-SAHARA, MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER, CA (2008), 2008 Archival ink print, 30 x 40 inches; Laura Chasman, NURSE ASSISTANT (2008), Gouache on mounting board, 12 x 11 inches; Eric Gottesman, MOTHER AND SON REUNITED (1978/2002), Rephotographed and Degraded (2006), Inkjet print, 24 x 17 inches.

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The 2009 Artist Fellowships in Crafts, Film & Video, Music Composition, Photography, Playwriting, and Sculpture/Installation have been announced.

MCC’s Artist Fellowships are anonymously judged and provide unrestricted grants (this year, $10,000 for fellows and $1,000 for finalists) to individual artists in recognition of artistic excellence. We profile awarded artists and share samples of their work on the Gallery @ MCC, and we share the current accomplishments of past fellows and finalists in Fellows Notes.

Here’s a full list of this year’s fellows/finalists and panelists.

Images (top to bottom): Janet Echelman (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09), SHE CHANGES, NET NO. 2 (2008), Polyester fiber, steel 50 x 150 x 150 meters; Patricia Shannon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09), OPEN HOUSE (2008), cut newspapers, acrylic gel, binder’s board 17 in x 24 in x 22 in; Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ’09), FLIGHT SUIT (2008), Archival Inkjet Print, 16 in x 20 in; Niho Kozuru (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09), LIQUID SUNSHINE SERIES (2008), cast rubber, variable size (smallest, H 22 in to Largest, H 40 in); David Prifti (Photography Finalist ’09), EMRYS AND MR. FRENCH (2007), Tintype 8 x 10 inches; Angela Cunningham, YELLOW NESTING SET (2007), Ceramics 6 in x 13.5 in x 13.5 in

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Candice Smith Corby (Painting Fellow ’08) and Julie Levesque (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05), who had a terrific Artist to Artist conversation on this blog a few months ago, both unveil installations this weekend.

Candice’s Estate of Things opens at Essex Art Center in Lawrence tonight (Friday, May 8), with a 5-7 PM opening reception. The painted wall installation considers the objects – beloved but meaningless – left behind once we are gone. Like the image below, the piece pulls you in with curious juxtapositions of the familiar yet discordant.

Julie’s Sift is installed in a new space beside the Clark Gallery in Lincoln. The sculptural work depicts a monochromatic figure crawling on a circular path. Like much of Julie’s work, it’s stark and creepy, a beautiful scene harboring dark secrets.

Read what other past fellows/finalists are up to in the Fellows Notes.

Image: Candice Smith Corby, detail of ESTATE OF THINGS (2009), acrylic on cut-out canvas on painted wallpaper (objects are life size)’ Julie Levesque, installation view of SIFT (2009), 3.5′X20′X20′; Julie Levesque, detail of SIFT (2009), 3.5′X20′X20′.

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For culture junkies like us, trying to answer the question So, whats going on tonight? can incite a mad scramble across several different websites and one or two free newspapers. Luckily, our friends at ArtsBoston are unveiling their new site, and its a must-bookmark for art lovers. ArtsBoston.org compiles just about every event in the Boston area – music, theater, dance, film, museum and gallery exhibits, opera. If you have a performance or an exhibition coming up, make sure its listed. If youve seen something recently and want to share your opinion, you can write a review.

Were particularly psyched about the extensive visual arts listings, which even come with image galleries. But most of all, were relieved that the answer to that pesky question is finally all in one place.

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In honor of this past Saturday’s Earth Hour, I thought I’d round up a handful of shows/calls for artists centered on the environment, green-ness, and/or where we’re headed as an Earth.

Salem Arts Association, in collaboration with the Marblehead Arts Association, has announced a call for art for The Green Show: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, deadline tomorrow, March 31. The Green Show theme creates an opportunity for artists to express different aspects of nature, and the environment, representing nature at its best, that which is detrimental to nature and the environment, and artwork using recycled materials and found objects. The exhibit will run from Saturday, April 4 through Sunday, April 26. More information.

The Somerville Arts Council is seeking craft vendor applications, talent applications, and community vendor applications for ArtBeat, held on July 17 & 18, 2009 throughout Davis Square in Somerville. This year’s theme is: What will Somerville look like in ten years? One hundred years? A million years? Among the possibilities, of course, is future-Somerville through an environmental lens, but the main thing is that all proposals “boldly should go where no one has gone before!” Deadlines and more info here.

Two past MCC Artist Fellows, Jane D. Marsching (Photography Fellow ’99) and Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03), have work in Near Everywhere, which opened last week at GASP (Gallery Artists Studio Projects) in Brookline. The show features the work of Jane and Deb alongside art by Ellen Driscoll, Marguerite Kahrl, Troy David Ouellete, Adriane Coburn, and Vivan Sundaram. The show runs through May 2.

As curator Ellen Driscoll puts it: “Near Everywhere encourages us to awaken to the daily details around us that remind us that ‘everything we need is already here.’”

To read what other past fellows/finalists are up to, check out the latest Fellows Notes.

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Click for larger view

The above image was dispersed by artist Nick Rodrigues (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07), announcing the latest interactive project in his Hi (Human Interaction) series.

Nick is seeking participants for his “social love experiment” at the BEEHIVE’s next art show Sting 4, February 18th from 6:30 pm-9:30 pm. Artists are encouraged to send personal ads of 60 words or less by 2/14 (click the image and read the cocktail napkin to find out how). The ads will be displayed on beer glasses, and at the art show, as Nick puts it, “Every drink you buy is a chance for love.”

Nick has a gift for illustrating intriguing ideas through hilarious, interactive art. Recently, he drew the attention of WBZ news in Boston when he donned a portable, one-person tollbooth to drive home (as it were) the personal impact of toll hikes.

In November, Nick led a group of teen artists (he’s the resident sculptor at the youth art organization Artist for Humanity) as they lit the way to the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo at Boston Children’s Museum. Teens dressed in colonial garb carried LED-lamp “torches” and rode stationary bikes that used pedal power to light up signs reading “The GREEN Revolution is Coming” and “Proclaim Sustainability Throughout the Land.”

All images care of Nick Rodrigues.

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Every month, using a series of glyphs and words (well, mainly the latter), we share the latest scoops on fellows and finalists from our Artist Fellowship Program.

We just added some spiffy new updates, so go to the MCC Fellows Notes page to see what Prometheus Dance, Vico Fabbris, Michael Gandolfi, Donna Hbert, Colleen Kiely, Robert Knox, Francie Lin, Chloe Joan Lopez, Melinda Lopez, Stephen Mishol, Andrew Mowbray, Dean Nimmer, Allan Reeder, Dawn Southworth, Dana Salvo, Naoe Suzuki, Marguerite White, and Rachel Perry Welty are up to these days.

Image: Dawn Southworth, BURNT OFFERINGS #1 (2003) mixed media on paper, antique ironing board covers, thread, pencil, stain, fire, and pyrography 40 in x 32 in. Dawn and Dana Salvo (Photography Finalist ’01, ’87 ) are entering their 2nd year as owners of Clark Gallery in Lincoln, MA. The gallery exhibits contemporary art in all media by emerging, mid-career and established artists from the Northeast and nationally. Submissions from artists residing in Massachusetts and New England are encouraged.

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Sitting in our dark rooms, snowed in.

As you may know, this blog is hand-cranked by the folks at the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. On Friday, the day of the first snow storm (and the day I meant to write this post), Governor Patrick instructed non-emergency state workers not to come in. So I was home Friday, and the post got a snow day.

Anyway, we’re back in the office, so… to the art! There’s a fascinating interview with 2008 ICA Foster Finalist Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) in the most recent Big RED and Shiny, where she discusses her photographs in war-torn Lebanon and why she was drawn to go back.

Via Practicing Writing: good news, web writers – you can now be the Best Americans. (In that writers who’ve been published in web-based literary journals are eligible for inclusion in the Best American Short Stories anthology. I’m not saying you can necessarily be better than the best Americans overall, such as the American Ninja or National Arts Council member Lee Greenwood. But you know, of writers.)

Check out Lloyd Schwartz’s NPR review of the CD of Scott Wheeler’s (Music Composition Fellow ’05) opera The Construction of Boston. Schwartz calls the recording of Boston Cecilia’s 2002 performance “close to an ideal realization.” The work uses the text of Kenneth Koch’s poem of the same name, an ode to the building of Boston. “I think anyone who loves cities will be charmed by this inventive and moving work,” says Schwartz.

In the ’60s, David Wheeler’s Theatre Company of Boston included Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino in its acting troupe. But the standout was Paul Benedict, who recently passed away in Martha’s Vineyard. The Globe has an excellent obituary (and check out the tributes in the comments section, too). And the Playgoer, the eponymous blogger shares his personal memories of Mr. Benedict.

In The Public Humanist, filmmaker Larry Hott argues that, along with visual skills, film & video artists ought to be able to string a few words together, to get ahead in their field.

Via the NY Times: according to an NEA report, supply of non-musical plays is outstripping demand. But is this on an aggregate demand curve or a marginal utility curve? And have all exogenous variables been considered? Or could it be, as the UK’s Guardian Theatre Blog suggests, that “demand” for art can be helped along, as with the NEA’s Big Read program for literature. A Big See, anyone?

Via Publishers Weekly, Dennis Lehane, scribe of such iconic Boston tales as Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, will edit Akashic’s forthcoming Boston Noir anthology of mystery stories.

The roster of artists for President-elect Obama’s inauguration is shaping up. Elizabeth Alexander will be inaugural poet (Mass. connection: she studied with Derek Walcott at BU), and Cambridge master cellist Yo-Yo Ma is among the musical performers. (Based on the musicians and the instruments they play, Alex Ross takes a stab at guessing the musical selection.)

A handful of calls to artists…
Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theatre is accepting submissions of features, shorts, documentaries and student films that have some connection to Cape Cod for a juried festival called the 2009 Cape Cod Filmmaker Takeover. Chosen films are screened at WHAT’s Julie Harris Stage, the audience votes, and the grand prize winner participates in the Provincetown International Film Festival. Submission must be postmarked by January 23, 2009; guidelines and submission criteria here.

Central Productions has an open call for submissions for the 8th Annual Boston Cinema Census, showcasing innovative works by emerging New England filmmakers. The BCC is hosted by the Brattle Theatre. Deadline Feb. 10, 2009. Check here for details.

Visionary drawings conveying a dwelling/structure/architectural concept can be submitted to Kidspace @ MASS MoCA’s March 2009 Exhibition Cribs to Cribbage and the publication Visionary Architecture. Interested artists should procure a submission form (find out how here), then use the form to create your drawing and submit by January 15, 2009. Selected drawings will be compiled in Visionary Architecture.

And finally…
In case you missed the excellent traditional arts performances in conjunction with the Keepers of Tradition exhibition at the National Heritage Museum, you can check some of them out at the MCC YouTube Channel. (Perhaps during the next snow storm?)

Image: Timothy Horn (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05), WATERSPORTS (Installation, 2002), mixed media, variable dimensions. Timothy’s works are currently on exhibit in In Pursuit of Beauty at the Montserrat Gallery at the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, through January 24. Read the Boston Globe’s review.

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