ArtSake

A week and a half ago, a few dozen ukulele players gathered at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Harvard Square.

And what happened? Was “You Are My Sunshine” thoroughly and enthusiastically plinked?

In your uke-lovin’ heart, you already know the answer.

And HAD anyone, in fact, “Seen My Gal,” with her eyes of blue pigmentation and five foot two stature? (No, but many, many uke players - around 40, by my count - were on the case.)

It was a meeting of the Ukulele Union of Boston (there’s also a chapter in Harvard, Mass.). Any further questions about the jam or the groups are perhaps best answered by this fun video, reposted from HubArts - who, incidentally, also wrote a great Globe piece about the modern uke resurgence.

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Laurie Anderson recently wrote and performed Music For Dogs, a 20-minute piece specifically composed for dogs which premiered at the Sydney Opera House in Australia.  My dog Lady would have loved to attend, but alas she has no passport. Could something like this ever occur somewhere in MA?

Read more about Laurie Anderson.

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A new Scott Wheeler composition in a new performance center; local artists go Threadbare

Last night (Thursday, June 11), Rockport Music celebrated the launch of its Shalin Liu Performance Center with a stirring concert that included the world premiere of Piano Trio No. 4 Granite Coast by Scott Wheeler (Music Composition Fellow ‘05), specially commissioned by Rockport Music to celebrate the new performance space.

Anytime a Massachusetts composer premieres a new piece or a vibrant new performance space has its inaugural tones, it is, in our humble opinion, a prime occasion to high five. But the evening is notable, too, because it was part of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, which runs through July 18 and will also include performances by contemporary Massachusetts composers Michael Gandolfi (Music Composition Fellow ‘03) and Gunther Schuller.

Rockport Music received a grant from MCC’s Cultural Facilities Fund for the construction of the Shalin Liu Performance Center. No doubt this new performance space (which you can learn the origins of in a YouTube clip) will host many a note, rest, and crescendo care of contemporary composers in future flutters of the baton. So welcome to the world, Shalin Liu Performance Center! We’re pleased to meetcha.

Threadbare

Three fiber artists and a photographer, all with local ties, present a show called Threadbare, about the history and process of fiber art. The show runs at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton through June 26, with an opening reception on Friday, June 11 from 5-8pm.

Among the creators is Northampton fiber artist Kathryn G. Swanson, who co-curated the show and contributed the installation “Coat of Many Colors” (pictured above). The show, which is funded in part by the Northampton Arts Council, takes crafts traditionally considered “women’s work” and explores their boundaries.

Later in the month, Threadbare welcomes the enigmatic theatre company The Missoula Oblongata, another boundary-exploring group that visits for a performance of their new play The Daughter of the Father of Time Motion Study, on Saturday, June 26, at 8 PM.

The Rockport Chamber Music Festival runs through July 18, 2010 at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, MA. Threadbare runs at A.P.E. in Northampton, MA through June 26, 2010.

Images: Scott Wheeler, photo by Susan Wilson; Installation view of COAT OF MANY COLORS by Kathryn G. Swanson, part of THREADBARE.

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At a lunch following the most recent Massachusetts Cultural Council board meeting, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Dr. Lisa Wong, who, along with serving on MCC’s board, is the president of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra.

Longwood Symphony Orchestra is a unique - and uniquely Massachusetts - organization. Nearly 80% of its musicians are health care professionals, including current and future physicians from Mass. General Hospital, Harvard Medical School - basically, if it’s an impressive local health institution, it’s probably represented on the LSO.

The Boston-area ensemble is about to have its Tanglewood debut, playing at Seiji Ozawa Hall in Lenox on June 12, 2010. And on June 11, the day before their concert, the group presents an arts and parenting symposium in partnership with Berkshire Children and Families, called Inspiring Prevention, at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield.

Both events get to the heart of LSO’s work: a confluence of music, medicine, and service. The group’s mission is to perform works of musical excellence while supporting medically-related nonprofit institutions. To achieve this, the LSO often partners with like-minded organizations, such as Berkshire Children and Families for the June events. Another of the LSO’s partnerships, long-running and fruitful in nature, is its relationship with the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, which supports emerging leaders addressing health disparities. The group’s namesake, the physician Albert Schweitzer, was a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate devoted to the most imperiled and under-resourced communities, and a proponent of a “Reverence for Life” as a unifying personal philosophy.

He was also a renowned organist and authority on Bach. In short, he’s the perfect figure to symbolize LSO’s art and work. And indeed, among the works performed at the June 12 concert will be Albert Schweitzer Portrait (2009), a work co-commissioned by the LSO and the ASF.

“Today,” Lisa writes in a blog post about the origins of Albert Schweitzer Portrait, “the members of the LSO are traveling along Schweitzer’s path. Music is the first influence in their lives, followed by a desire to make a difference, and a sense of compassion, leading to a career in caregiving.”

The piece was initially conceived by Thurston Moore, founder of the Tennessee Players (not to be confused with Thurston Moore of Northampton, founder of Sonic Youth). Moore, who has made it his life’s work to uphold Dr. Schweitzer’s legacy, envisioned a work similar to Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, weaving excerpts of text into an orchestral composition. LSO Artistic Director Jonathan McPhee and ASF President Lachlan Forrow crafted the text, utilizing Dr. Schweitzer’s own words, as well as words spoken about him. They collaborated with composer Gene Scheer and orchestrator Gary Fry, who created the musical score.

For the Tanglewood performance, the narrator will be State Representative Daniel E. Bosley. It’s another fitting partnership; who better than a local statesman for a performance - and an orchestra - equally engaged in serving the community and giving expression to its artists?

Inspiring Prevention: A Symposium on New Insights to Strengthen the Parent/Child Relationship through Literacy, Music, and the Art of Parenting
Friday, June 11, 2010, 9 AM - 4 PM (registration and coffee: 8:30 AM)
Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield
Co-sponsored by Berkshire Children and Families and Longwood Symphony Orchestra

Longwood Symphony Orchestra Debut at Tanglewood
Saturday, June 12, 2010, 8 PM
Seiji Ozawa Hall in Lenox, MA
Jonathan McPhee, Artistic Director and Conductor
Symphony No. 4, “The Inextinguishable,” Carl Nielsen
La Mer, Claude Debussy
Albert Schweitzer Portrait (2009), Gene Scheer, State Representative Daniel E. Bosley, narrator

Images: the Longwood Symphony Orchestra; Albert Schweitzer; LSO Artistic Director and Conductor Jonathan McPhee; the LSO.

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June 2010

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

Two past fellows are featured in Solstice: a Magazine for Diverse Voices. Poetry by Ben Berman (Poetry Fellow ‘08) and short fiction by Grace Talusan (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘02) were included in the Winter/Spring 2010 issue.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ‘08) joins stage/screen writer Sinan Ünel (Playwriting Finalist ‘07) for a reading at the Lesley University MFA Program summer residency, in the Marran Theater in Cambridge, on Sunday, June 27 at 7 PM. The full reading series schedule also includes Rachel Kadish (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction ‘08) on June 28 at 7 PM, and later, NPR writer David Rakoff.

Two past fellows/finalists recently received funding from The LEF Foundation’s Moving Image Fund. Marlo Poras (Film & Video Fellow ‘05) received a $15,000 production grant to work on The Mosuo Sisters, about two sisters who lose their jobs in Beijing and return home to a remote Himalayan village to help keep their family afloat. Jeff Daniel Silva (Film & Video Finalist ‘09) was awarded a $25,000 post-production grant for his film Ivan and Ivana, about a couple from war-torn Kosovo, now making a life in the US. Congratulations!

Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ‘09) is among the artists exhibiting in Familiar Bodies at Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston. The exhibition, which includes the work of photographers who focus their cameras on the nearest people in their lives, also includes Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison (Photography Fellow ‘01), Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ‘09), and Sage Sohier (Photography Finalist ‘05). The show runs through June 26, with an opening reception June 4th, 5:30-7:30 PM.

Brian Corey (Painting Fellow ‘08) has a solo show at Kingston Gallery in Boston, called The Terrain That Remains. The show runs June 2-27, 2010, with an opening reception Friday, June 4, 5-7:30 PM, and an artist’s talk Saturday, June 12, 4 PM.

Denver Office of Cultural Affairs: we applaud your good taste in public artists. They recently commissioned Janet Echelman (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09) to create a Biennial of the Americas installation.

Ralf Yusuf Gawlick (Music Composition Fellow ‘09) premiered Kinderkreuzzug, his dramatic cantata for children’s voices and small chamber ensemble, in April (read about it on ArtSake). Boston College has put together a fabulous audio slideshow about the performances.

Michael Hoerman (Poetry Fellow ‘04) will read on June 17 for ThoughtCrime, a reading series at Khon’s Wine Bar and Darts, 2808 Milam in Houston, Texas. He joins the roster of the 5th Annual Word Around Town Tour for a weeklong series of readings around Houston in July. On September 10 and 11 he will be a featured performer at Houston Fringe Fest, an annual performing arts festival presented by FrenetiCore at Frenetic Theater in Houston’s East End.

Lisa Kessler’s (Photography Finalist ‘05) solo exhibition Seeing Pink is at the Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson, NY. The show, which explores the idea of the color pink in American, runs June 3-June 27, with an opening reception Saturday June 12, 6-8 PM.

Yanick Lapuh (Painting Fellow ‘10) is among the artists in Eye Spy: Playing with Perception at the Peabody Essex Museum, June 19, 2010 to June 1, 2011.

Jane D. Marsching (Photography Finalist ‘03) has a host of Spring/Summer exhibitions and events. She’s part of Resurrectine at the Ronald Feldman Gallery, NYC, through June 28, a large-scale group show that embraces the notion of transformation. In April, Jane opened a dual photo exhibition (with Andrea Juan) called Tribute Phase II: Polar Encounter. Sites for the exhibition, which was curated by Veronica Willenberg, CEO of Art in Lobby, include the International Book Fair, the PanAmerican Hotel, and Botanica Gardens, all in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jane will also take part in an alumni exhibition of art at Hampshire College’s Johnson Gallery (June 11-July 30, 2010, reception June 12, 4-6 PM).

Tara L. Masih’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ‘96) Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction was awarded a bronze medal from the 2009 ForeWord Book of the Year Awards in the writing category.

Congratulations to Cynthia Maurice (Drawing Fellow ‘02), who received the Jurors First Prize from the Danforth Museum 2010 Off The Wall Juried Exhibit. The prize was selected by Jen Mergel, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, MFA and Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator of the ICA.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09) is among the artists exhibiting in The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft at the Fuller Craft Museum, through February 6, 2011. Artists in this show use new technologies in tandem with traditional craft materials – clay, glass, wood, metal and fiber – to forge new artistic directions.

Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘05) has a solo show, Underwater, at the Melle Finelli Studio, June 4-July 16, 2010, opening reception: June 4, 5 - 8 PM.

Monica Nydam (Painting Fellow ‘10) has a solo show of new paintings at LaMontagne Gallery in Boston, through June 19.

Linda Price-Sneddon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘01) has a solo show at HallSpace in Boston, Soon… Our Salvation. The show, which opens Saturday, June 5 (reception 3-6 PM) and runs to July, is inspired by the UFO Mythos, Armageddon evangelism and small town parades.

Monica Raymond’s (Playwriting Finalist ‘07, Poetry Finalist ‘08) radio play The Telemarketer will be performed on Shoestring Radio Theater on KUSF 90.3 FM in San Francisco. The performance will air at 6:30 PM Eastern time, June 30, and listeners outside the San Francisco area can access a live Internet stream. The performance will also stream for one week following the live broadcast, on Shoestring Theatre’s Web site.

Salvatore Scibona (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘06) was named as one of The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 fiction writers to watch.

Leslie Sills (Crafts Fellow ‘95) has a mixed-media sculpture in a furniture exhibition at the Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge. The exhibition runs June 15-July 31st, with an opening reception June 17, 6-8 PM.

Orbiting Mars, a full-length comedy by Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ‘09), will receive a staged reading at the Penobscot Theatre in Bangor, ME June 23 in its Northern Writes New Play Festival. The play recently won the annual new play contest of Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre in Santa Cruz, CA. Several of Peter’s short plays have been staged recently or are slated for upcoming productions. The Greening of Bridget Kelly and My Name is Art will feature in the London Fringe August 11-14, part of a repeat of Liminal Productions’ “American Bytes” series by emerging American playwrights that was first produced in April at the New Wimbledon Studio in Wimbledon, London. Stone’s Soup Theatre in Seattle included The Greening of Bridget Kelly in its short play festival in May, and My Name is Art can be seen at the Raconteur Theatre in Columbus, OH through June 12. Boston Actors’ Theatre produced Either Or in its SLAMBoston festival on May 19. Peter has a new website where you can check out his work: www.petersnoad.com.

Cam Terwilliger (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) was featured in a recent Boston Globe article by Danielle Dreilinger about a memoir writing workshop he ran for seniors living at the Somerville Home. Cam was supported in the effort by a Somerville Arts Council grant.

Debra Weisberg (Drawing Fellow ‘08) is among the artists in By Hand at Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, June 6-26, opening reception Sunday, June 6, 6-8 PM.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09, Drawing Fellow ‘04) was commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston to create a limited edition benefit artwork.

Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘03) has a solo exhibition, BLEW, at the Miller Block Gallery in Boston. The show, which runs through June 26, features blown film polyethylene – aka plastic. Read a nano-interview with Deb on ArtSake.

Tracy Winn’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) short story collection Mrs. Somebody Somebody comes out this month in paperback, and she’ll be reading at the Salem Athenaeum on June 11 at 5 PM, at Newtonville Books on June 17 at 7 PM, at Barnes & Noble in Lowell on June 18 at 7 PM, at The Book Rack in Newburyport on June 19 at 3 PM, and at Gibson Books in Concord, New Hampshire on July 1 at 7 PM.

Jeff Zimbalist’s (Film & Video Fellow ‘05) documentary The Two Escobars, a film about the convergent stories of murdered soccer star Andrés Escobar and Columbian drug baron Pablo Escobar, will have a Hometown Screening in the historic Academy of Music in Northampton on Sunday, June 20 at 7:30 PM, followed by a post-screening Q&A. The film, which was commissioned to celebrate ESPN’s 30th anniversary with 30 documentary films, will have its ESPN premiere on June 22. It also premieres in Florida and screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival this month (on Friday, June 18th and Sunday, June 20th) and recently screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Cannes International Film Festival.

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

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

Images: Linda Price-Sneddon, drawing from the SOON…OUR SALVATION suite; Brian Corey, COORDINATES UNKNOWN (2010), Ink, Acrylic, on Paper,7×8 in; Lisa Kessler, CODE PINK, from SEEING PINK; Deb Todd Wheeler, image from BLEW.

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Congratulations to all Massachusetts artists and scholars who received 2010 Guggenheim Fellowships! We note in particular: Shelby Lee Adams of Pittsfield (photographer), Paul Harding of Georgetown (writer), Salvatore Scibona of Provincetown (writer), and Steven Kazuo Takasugi of Waban (composer).

Stray notes/observations:

• According to the Guggenheim website, the average fellowship grant in 2008 was was approximately $43,200.
• Though a resident Western Mass., Shelby Lee Adams is best known for photographing another region: Appalachia.
• Yes, it’s the same Paul Harding that emerged from relative obscurity to win that major American prize that rhymes with Schmulitzer this year. Also, if you’re an alternative-rock-circa-1990s fan, he’s the same Paul Harding who played drums for this band that you rocked out to, 15-20 years ago.
• Steven Kazuo Takasugi’s composition for the award will be a virtual string quartet: four loudspeakers on four chairs.
• And we humbly note that Salvatore, along with receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, is on a winning streak (he’s also won a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Young Lions Award, and was a National Book Award finalist) that began with an MCC Artist Fellowship, in 2006.

Here’s the full list of Massachusetts scholars and artists who received Guggenheim Fellowships in 2010:

Mr. Shelby Lee Adams, Photographer, Pittsfield, Massachusetts: Photography.
Ms. Arachu Castro, Assistant Professor of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School Women and AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Ms. Caroline Elkins, Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Harvard University: The end of the British Empire after the Second World War.
Mr. Paul Harding, Writer, Georgetown, Massachusetts; Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Iowa: Fiction.
Mr. Jonathan Harr, Writer, Northampton, Massachusetts: Humanitarian workers in conflict situations.
Ms. Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard University: A comparative study of nature-culture relations.
Mr. Walter Johnson, Winthrop Professor of History and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University: Slavery, capitalism, and imperialism in the Mississippi Valley’s Cotton Kingdom.
Ms. Elizabeth Kolbert, Writer, Williamstown, Massachusetts: Extinction and the history of life.
Mr. Tomasz S. Mrowka, Simons Professor of Mathematics, MIT: Applications of gauge theory and low dimensional topology.
Mr. Salvatore Scibona, Writer, Provincetown, Massachusetts; Writing Coordinator, Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown: Fiction.
Ms. Sarah Stanbury, Professor of English, College of the Holy Cross: The social construction of manmade things from Chaucer to Lydgate.
Mr. Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Composer, Waban, Massachusetts; Associate of the Music Department, Harvard University: Music composition.
Mr. Gordon Teskey, Professor of English, Harvard University: Myth and metaphysics in early modern poetry, 1590-1674.

Image: Cover art for THE END by Salvatore Scibona (Riverhead Books 2009).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jeff Zimbalist’s (Film & Video Fellow ‘05) documentary The Two Escobars, a film about the convergent stories of murdered soccer star Andrés Escobar and Columbian drug baron Pablo Escobar, was selected by the Tribeca Film Festival (including two screenings in May). It is also slated to screen in the upcoming Cannes International Film Festival and will have its broadcast premiere on ESPN on June 22.

Past Fellows Notes
Apr. 2010
Mar. 2010
Feb. 2010
Jan. 2010

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

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

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Speck’s Last in the Boston International Film Festival and Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen at the Boston University Tsai Center

Last fall, we wrote about Speck’s Last, Michael Dowling’s (Playwriting Fellow ‘09) play-turned-screenplay-turned-short film (read about the work’s origins and metamorphosis). The film had an initial screening at Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington in September ‘09, and has since been finalized in post-production and is about to screen at the Boston International Film Festival on Friday, April 23.

It is not, in our humble yet earnest opinion, one to miss. The play (which garnered Michael an Artist Fellowship) is a lean, edgy, and gripping work about three siblings in the aftermath of their brother Speck’s death, under mysterious circumstances.

The film version, brought to life by stage/screen actors Gretchen Egolf, Chris Innvar, and Charley Tucker, is truly a Massachusetts project. It’s written by a state-honored artist, funded in part from Michael’s MCC grant money, and filmed and produced here. Fittingly, it shows in Boston this Friday, then at the Berkshire International Film Festival in early June, and hopefully onward and elsewhere as the film lives on.

You can follow the film’s journey on its Facebook page.

This Friday, April 23, is also the world premiere of Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen, a multi-media chamber opera by Shirish Korde (Music Composition Fellow ‘79, ‘01, ‘07). The opera, which had a series of preview performances at The College of the Holy Cross (where Shirish teaches) last week, is about Phoolan Devi, a controversial figure in contemporary Indian history who was assassinated in 2001. Celebrated by some as a Robin Hood-like outlaw and reviled by others as a ruthless killer, her story makes for fascinating - if grim - source material for the new opera. From the official website:

Drawing on the ancient traditions of India such as Vedic Chant, the ecstatic and spiritual style known as Qawwali (made popular in the US by the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan), Bollywood, Jazz, propulsive rhythms of tabla drumming, and contemporary music; the composer unifies these styles into a seamless lyrical score.

Two classical Indian singers and a tabla player join Boston Musica Viva for Shirish Korde’s world premiere Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen, with stage direction by Lynn Kremer. Performances are Friday, April 23, and Saturday, April 24, 2010, 8 pm, at the Tsai Performance Center at Boston University.

Images: Promotional images from Specks Last, from top: featuring (l to r) Charley Tucker, Gretchen Egolf, and Chris Innvar; Charley Tucker (as Tuck) and Chris Innvar (as Ivan); promotional image for PHOOLAN DEVI: THE BANDIT QUEEN.

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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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