ArtSake

So, you want art this weekend. You’ve come to the right place. Here’s a handy dandy guide to your art-seeking travels.

Your starting point is Taunton, Massachusetts, on Sat., June 4, 2011, for the Dighton Cow Chip Festival. There, you’ll behold chainsaw sculptor “The Machine” Jesse Green as he lives out his slogan – “Carving Dreams into Reality” – by sculpting (live, in real-time, and using the previously mentioned chainsaw) a cow sculpture that’s to become Taunton’s newest fixture.

Then, make your way due north until you reach the cool waters of the Charles River, where the Cambridge River Festival (Sat, June 4) can offer you music, puppetry, dance, theatre, improv, a parade, children’s programming, and all manners of interactive and creative fun.

Cross the Charles River to Boston – specifically, to the Rose Kennedy Greenway. There, FIGMENT Boston (June 4-5) awaits you. FIGMENT Boston is a part of the national FIGMENT project, a “forum for the creation and display of participatory and interactive art by emerging artists across disciplines.” Over 80 artists are participating in FIGMENT Boston this year, including live video installation, interactive music performance, architectural dance installation, and many, many other interesting projects that are too hard to compact into a reasonable sentence. May we humbly suggest this event is likely to be far out.

Next, head north to Salem, MA. You’ll find the Salem Arts Festival, a weekend-long (June 3-5) celebration of visual, performing, and literary art. You can take a magic carpet ride, learn bellydance, do improv, and see tons of art.

Now, I understand that, with four festivals already under your belt, you’re weary, hungry, possibly a touch over-festive. But you must persevere. For a little over 30 miles from Salem is the formidable city of Lowell, where you’ll breathlessly rush through the doors of the Merrimack Repertory Theatre. There, the Lowell National Historical Park hosts an evening of Irish dance and fiddle music Saturday night, featuring master artists and their apprentices, from the MCC’s Traditional Apprenticeship Program. Read more at our sibling blog, Keepers of Tradition, on this fascinating evening of solo, duet, and group performances.

You may rest now.

It’s Sunday morning (almost noon – you slept late). Rise, and see art.

First, head to South Boston, where there’s a Spring Open Studio at the Distillery & King Terminal (Sun., June 5, 2011). See the current participating artists and check out some previous work by some of those same artists in an older post we did about their Fall open studios.

Finally, make your way, by roller skate, rickshaw, unicycle, or – if need be – an easier mode of transport, to the Tufts University Art Gallery in Medford. A show of MCC Fellows just opened (see pictures of the opening on our Facebook page). If you want a sense of the range and vision of work being produced by visual artists in Massachusetts, you have arrived at your destination. While you’re there, use your cell to call a special number for audio commentary by the artists.

There. You’ve reached the end of our guide. But feel free to expand the map.

Image: Gallery view of paintings by Monica Nydam, from a show of MCC Fellows at Tufts University Art Gallery.

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June is here. Sunshine is real. Let’s experience some art.

Here are a few ideas, care of our Fellows Notes (current news of past MCC fellows/finalists).

We are excited to announce New and Recent Work by 13 Massachusetts Cultural Council Award Recipients in Painting and Drawing, an exhibition at Tufts University Art Gallery in Medford. The exhibition will run June 2 – July 31, 2011, with an opening reception Thursday, June 2, 5:30-8 PM. The 13 exhibiting artists are all Fellows in Drawing and Painting from the 2010 grant cycle, including: Cree Bruins, Christopher Faust (his painting Vanishing Point is above), Jan Johnson, Masako Kamiya, Yanick Lapuh, Joshua Meyer, Monica Nydam, Daniel Ranalli, Harold Reddicliffe, Matthew Rich, Cristi Rinklin, Evelyn Rydz, and Michael Zelehoski. There will be an Artists’ Talk on Thursday, June 2, 5-6 PM, featuring Cree Bruins, Jan Johnson, Yanick Lapuh, Joshua Meyer, and Michael Zelehoski.

Numerous MCC fellows/finalists contribute artwork to Flourish, a juried exhibition of alumni of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The show, running June 8-July 9, 2011 in the Sandra & David Bakalar Gallery, features work by Elizabeth Alexander (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11), Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07), Candice Smith Corby (Painting Fellow ’08), and Adam Lampton (Photography Finalist ’07), among other MassArt alums. Tammy Dayton (Moth Design), Michelle Lamunière (curator, Harvard Art Museum), and Edward Saywell (curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) served on the selection committee.

Six MCC fellows/finalists are in new issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review: Sally Bellerose (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’04), Simeon Berry (Poetry Fellow ’06), Patrick Ryan Frank (Poetry Fellow ’06), Elizabeth Graver (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06), Caroline Klocksiem (Poetry Fellow ’08), and Tara L. Masih (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’96).

Alan Colby (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07) and Linda Price-Sneddon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’01) both have work in a group show curated by Jeff Hull at A Street Gallery, 4 Clarendon St, Boston MA. The show runs June 4-30, 2011, with an opening reception Saturday, June 4, 3-5 PM.

Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ’10), Eric Gottesman (Photography Fellow ’09), Frances Hamilton (Drawing Fellow ’98), and Dawn Southworth (Drawing/Printmaking/Artist Books Finalist ’04) are all exhibiting work in Picture Books, featuring art in all media that pictures, or, references a book within the composition, or, is a book of some kind. The show runs at Clark Gallery in Lincoln from June 6-August 6, 2011. There will be an opening reception 4-6 PM on Saturday, June 11, following a daylong sidewalk book sale.

Two MCC fellows/finalists are featured in the show Fresh Work: A Sampler of New England Photographers as part of the Flash Forward Festival Boston. Toni Pepe (Photography Finalist ’11) and Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ’09) will both have work on display at the Fairmont Battery Wharf in Boston, June 3-June 5, 2011, with an opening reception on Friday, June 3, at 7 PM.

Photography by Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07) is included in The Workers, a multi-disciplinary exhibition exploring the many aspects of labor, at MASS MoCA in North Adams.

S. Bear Bergman (Playwriting Fellow ’05) received a Lambda Literary Award for co-editing Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation.

Liza Bingham (Painting Finalist ’10) will have work in the 2011 Season Preview Exhibit at the Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown, MA, June 3-29, 2011, with an opening reception on June 3, 6-9 PM.

Alexander Chee (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) is currently a Fellow at Civitella Ranieri in Umbertide, Italy. The residency encourages the creative process by providing uninterrupted time to devote to work, as well as a collaborative spirit with the visual artists, writers, and musicians who are invited as Fellows.

Laura Harrington (Playwriting Fellow ’05, ’97) will publish her new novel, Alice Bliss (Pamela Dorman Books, Penguin/Viking, 2011), in June 2011. She’ll have numerous author events in New England: Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge (Weds, June 8, 2011, 7 PM); Barnes & Noble in Peabody, MA (Thurs, 6/9, 7 PM); Jabberwocky Bookstore in Newburyport (Fri, 6/10, 7 PM); Concord Bookshop in Concord (Sun, 6/12, 3 PM); Broadside Bookshop in Northampton (Tues, 6/14, 7 PM); Toad Hall Books at the Rockport Library (Wed, 6/15, 7 PM); and a joint reading with fellow debut author Rebecca Makkai at the Boston Public Library (Tues, July 12, 2011, 6 PM). Read an ArtSake interview with Laura.

Gregory Hischak‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) new full-length play Volcanic in Origin will have its world premiere at the Source Festival in Washington D.C., June 10-July 3, 2011.

Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’11, ’07) is among the ten photographers selected by Whitney Johnson, picture editor at The New Yorker, for inclusion in EXPOSURE 2011, the 16th chapter of the Photographic Resource Center’s juried members exhibition. Selected work will be on exhibition from Thursday, July 21 to Sunday, August 21, with an opening reception at the PRC on Thursday, July 21.

Koji Nakano (Music Composition Finalist ’11, ’09) will present the second concert in his Asian Young Musicians Connection, which commissions new music by Asian composers. The concert takes place Friday, June 3, 2011, 7:30 PM, at the California State University at San Bernardino Recital Hall.

Anne Neely (Painting Finalist ’10) has work in the exhibition Maine As Muse, at Lohin Geduld Gallery in NYC, through July 8, 2011.

Masha Obolensky‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) ten-minute Girls Play has been selected to participate in The Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. The festival, now in its 36th year, takes place at The Lion Theatre on Theatre Row in NYC on July 19-24. Girls Play was the winner of the 2010 KCACTF National Ten-Minute Play Award.

On Saturday, June 11, 2011, Susan Rivo (Film & Video Finalist ’11) will have a work-in-progress screening of her fascinating documentary Left on Pearl at The Berkshire Conference on the History of Women at UMass-Amherst (Thu, June 9–Sun, June 12). Left on Pearl explores a forgotten episode in local history, when, in March 1971, a group of women took over a Harvard University building to dramatize the need for a Women’s Center. Susan will also participate in a panel discussion at the conference called “Documenting Second Wave Feminism through Film.” Learn about the conference.

Candice Smith Corby‘s (Painting Fellow ’08) autobiographical, deadpan-humored mixed-media paintings are part of Patio, an exhibition at Drive-By Projects in Watertown. The show, which also features Matthew Clowney, Amze Emmons, Steve Novick, and Douglas Weathersby, runs June 9-August 25, 2011, with an opening reception – featuring Weathersby’s lemonade stand! – Friday, June 10, 6-8 PM.

Cam Terwilliger (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) has a short story, Cherry Town, in the most recent issue of The Literary Review. His story Reply Hazy appears in The Good Men Project. And he shares great advice gleaned from years of serving as a reader for literary journals and awards, in The Review Review.

Hannah Verlin (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11) has a solo show, Knowing Not Knowing, at Boston Sculptors Gallery in Boston, through June 26, 2011. There’s a SOWA First Friday reception: June 3, 5–8 PM.

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

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

Images: Chris Faust, VANISHING POINT (2010), Acrylic on canvas, 36×48 in; Camilo Ramirez, FLIGHT SUIT (2008), Archival Inkjet Print, 16 in x 20 in; Cover art for ALICE BLISS by Laura Harrington (Pamela Dorman Books, Penguin/Viking, 2011).

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Spring is a-bloom, allergens are omnipresent, and Massachusetts artists are being their usual awesome. Here’s this month’s news from past MCC fellows/finalists.

This month, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival takes place in Salem, Massachusetts (you’ll see events featuring past fellows/finalists throughout this month’s notes). But we wanted to be sure to draw your attention to Follow the Fellows at the Phillips Library in the Peabody Essex Museum, 4:30-5:45 PM, on Saturday, May 14. The event will feature readings by MCC Poetry Fellows Ben Berman (’08), John Canaday (’10), Patrick Donnelly (’08), Regie Gibson (’10), Sharon Howell (’10), Rosann Kozlowski (’10), and Leslie Williams (’10).

Meg Alexander‘s (Drawing Finalist ’04) solo show New Landscapes recently showed at Boston’s Gallery Kayafas.

Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) is featured in two events at the upcoming Massachusetts Poetry Fest. He will read his own (good) poetry (Main Stage, 2-2:20 PM, 5/14), before exploring bad poetry (The Gathering, 3-4 PM, 5/14) as judge of the Festival’s Bad Poem Contest

Diane Arvanites-Noya and Tommy Neblett (Choreography Fellows ’04, ’08), directors of Prometheus Dance, will premiere Desiderare, an evening-length dance work at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, Thursday-Saturday, May 12-14, 8 PM. “Desiderare” means “to wish, to want, to like, to desire.”

Sally Bellerose (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’04) won first place in fiction and will be a featured reader at The Saints and Sinners Literary Conference in New Orleans, LA. Her story Fishwives will also appear in the conference’s anthology of short stories. All proceeds of the anthology are being donated to the No/AIDS Task Force. The conference takes place May 11-15, and Sally will read her winning short story on May 11. She will also read from her soon-to-be-released novel, The Girls Club on May 13. The Girls Club won the Bywater Prize and will be published by Bywater Books with an August release date.

Ben Berman (Poetry Fellow ’08) has new poems coming out in Solstice Quarterly and Drunken Boat and his poem Good Grief was just nominated for Best New Poets 2011 by Unsplendid. At the Mass Poetry Fest, Ben will lead the Grub Street Poem Generator workshop at Green Land Cafe, 12-1:30 PM, on May 14.

Simeon Berry (Poetry Fellow ’06) will read work at part of the Salamander Reading at the Mass Poetry Fest, at The Gathering, 5:30-6:30 PM, on May 13. It’s a reading from editors and contributors to Salamander Literary Journal.

Nell Breyer (Choreography Fellow ’06) staged a dance performance in Fall of 2010, on the Sol Lewitt terrazzo floor at MIT. Now, a video installation projecting footage of the performance will be on exhibit at Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston. Perspectives on a Dance in Sol LeWitt’s ‘Bars of Color within Squares (MIT)’ will run through May 30, 2011, with an opening reception Friday, May 6, 5:30-7:30 PM. Also, there will be an encore performance of A Dance in Sol LeWitt’s ‘Bars of Color within Squares (MIT)’ at the MIT+150 Festival of Art, Science & Technology, part of the Boston Cyberarts Festival. The performance takes place at the MIT Green Center for Physics, Building 6C, May 7, 4pm and 8pm Performances. Tickets are FREE, but Reservations are required.

Jamie Cat Callan (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) will read from her latest book, Bonjour, Happiness!, at New York City’s Tribeca Barnes & Noble on Monday, May 16th at 7 PM. Dress like a French woman and win a prize!

Shawn Cody‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’07) new music theater work The Water Dream is playing in concert, featuring Anthony Rapp (Original Broadway Cast and Feature Film of Rent), at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York City, May 28, 29, and 30, 8 PM. It’s open to the public, but reservations are recommended. Email with name, night, and number of seats. The Water Dream (read an excerpt) is a multi-media musical with whale puppets and an on-stage aquarium.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ’08) offers a workshop on How to Be a Good Public Reader of Your Own Poetry as part of the Mass Poetry Fest, at the House of Seven Gables Hooper House #1, 2-3:30 PM, May 14.

Rosalyn Driscoll (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’97) is among the artists contributing to the collaborative installation Just Under the Surface, which explores the aesthetic, emotional, bodily and metaphysical possibilities of an art that integrates all the senses, especially touch, using sculpture, moving image, sound and word. It is on exhibit at The Crypt Gallery, a former burial site under St. Pancras Church, in London, May 6-19, 2011.

Janet Echelman (Crafts and Sculpture/Installation ’09) received a prestigious 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ’06) has a solo show of watercolor paintings and work-on-paper called Florasynthesis, at Gurari Collections in Boston May 6-29, 2011. There will be an opening reception on Friday, May 6, 6-8 PM, as part of the South End Gallery District’s First Friday event.

Kate Feiffer (Film & Video Finalist ’03) reads from My Side of the Car, her children’s book illustrated by her father, Jules Feiffer, at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, May 19, 9 AM.

David Fiuczynski (Music Composition ’09) was among the artists and scholars who received a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Regie Gibson (Poetry Fellow ’10) hosts the The Headword Poetry Presentation, performances by area spoken word poets as part of the Mass Poetry Fest, at the Main Stage, 1:30-2:45 PM, on May 14.

Eric Gottesman (Photography Fellow ’09) is now being represented by Clark Gallery in Lincoln. He has two solo shows coming up: Paths that cross cross again at TPW Gallery in Toronto, May 12-June 15, 2011, part of the Scotiabank Contact Photo Festival, and Intimacy is the Reconciliation of Foreignness and Habit, running June 30-October 2, 2011 at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT. Eric is curating the Apex Art show in Amman, Jordan as part of the 2011 Franchise Award. The show is called We Have Woven the Motherlands with Nets of Iron and runs May 4-June 4, 2011. This year, Eric will be publishing a book of his work in Ethiopia, with Umbrage Editions. Eric will seek finishing funds for the project, called May the Finest in the World Always Accompany You!, through Kickstarter – stay tuned. He will be the Artist-In-Residence at Amherst College in Spring 2012. Furthermore, he will have work in the Artadia group show at the San Francisco Art Institute in July 2011.

Joel Janowitz (Painting Fellow ’08) has a self-titled solo show at Victoria Munroe Fine Art in Boston, May 12-June 18, 2011, with an opening reception Thursday, May 12, 6-8 PM. There will be a gallery talk at 7 PM.

Rachel Kadish (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction ’08) has a fascinating essay about her cousin, an Israeli artist who becomes a protest art icon, in the Good Men Project.

Frannie Lindsay (Poetry Fellow ’06) takes part in The First and Last Word Poetry Series at the Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville on May 17, 6:30-9 PM. Earlier this month, she’ll join Nancy K. Pearson (Poetry Finalist ’10) and other poets as part of BEG, BORROW, AND STEAL at the Mass Poetry Fest (House of Seven Gables #1, 3:30-4:45 PM, May 14), a reading featuring Perugia Press poets.

Congratulations to Melinda Lopez (Playwriting Fellow ’03), who won an IRNE Award for her play From Orchids to Octopi.

Congratulations to Caitlin McCarthy (Playwriting Finalist ’11) who signed a contract with Populus Pictures in London to develop her film script Resistance. Also, Caitlin’s work to raise awareness about the DES drug disaster was featured in The Boston Globe Magazine, which discusses her screenplay about DES, Wonder Drug (read an excerpt). Caitlin will be on a speaking panel, DES Forty Years Later, to Be Held At Massachusetts General Hospital on May 19, 2011, 3-5:30 PM, followed by a reception. Free and open to the public.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) will have two wall sculptures/musical scores on display at the Future Everything Festival in Manchester, UK, May 11-14, 2011. The festival/conference brings together innovative thinkers, artists and musicians to explore the interface between technology, society, culture and cool ideas. To quote the Guardian Newspaper, the festival is “crammed with geek cool,” and Nathalie’s work will be part of “Data Dimensions,” featuring artists and designers from across the globe who love working with data.

Monica Raymond‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) free translations of Francois Villon and a Provencal lyric have been published on qarrtsiluni.com. Also, she just returned from an April staged reading of her play The Owl Girl, sponsored by Golden Thread Theater in San Francisco, directed by Naomi Newman, founder of A Traveling Jewish Theater. Later this month, Monica has a reading of her play A to Z at the Great Plains Theater Conference in Omaha, May 31, 2011, directed by Elena Araoz.

Congratulations to Anna Ross (Poetry Finalist ’10), whose alma mater Mount Holyoke College awarded her their Mary Lyon Award given to “a young alumna who has been out of the College fifteen years or less, who demonstrates promise or sustained achievement in her life, profession, or community consistent with the humane values that Mary Lyon exemplified in her life and inspired in others.” The award is named for Mount Holyoke founder Mary Lyons. Anna recently read as part of the Calliope Reading Series in Falmouth, MA on May 1.

Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ’09) has a solo show of photography, This Russia, at the Garner Center of Photography at the New England School of Photography in Boston. The show runs through June 3, 2011, with and an artist talk May 9, 6 PM. Fraction Magazine has a sneak peak of Irina’s soon-to-be-published monograph One to Nothing. The monograph will be published by Kehrer Verlag in Fall 2011; see a preview. Also, Irina is among the artists featured in The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Vol.2, a biennial sourcebook with new work by 100 contemporary photographers, from the Humble Arts Foundation.

Eric Henry Sanders‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) play Reservoir will have its European premiere this month, when it’s produced at Theater 89 in Berlin (under the translated title Haseks Heimkehr), running May 20-June 11.

Adam Schwartz (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) was interviewed in The New Yorker.

Jeff Daniel Silva‘s (Film & Video Finalist ’09) feature-length documentary Ivan & Ivana had its world premiere in the International competition at Visions de Réel in Nyon, Switzerland on April 8. The film chronicles the lives of Ivan and Ivana, an émigré couple who uprooted from Kosovo to California to start anew after the last Balkan war. The film reveals their successes, trials, and tribulations over five years of turbulent economic, political, and personal tides to reveal an unorthodox depiction of the American immigrant experience. The film also screened in the Independent Film Festival Boston, on April 30 and May 1. Read a terrific review on Not Coming to a Theatre Near You.

Sarah Slifer (Choreography Fellow ’10) is among the performers presenting Charles Olson’s dance play Apollonius of Tyana at the Mass Poetry Fest (Main Stage, 11 AM, May 14). She’ll also create an “installation-specific” work to collaborate with a Susan Phillipsz sound installation as part of the Peabody Essex Museum’s Art After Hours series. The performance will take place June 30, 5:30 PM, at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Cam Terwilliger (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) shares his experiences as a creative research fellow at The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in Worcester, on the Grub Daily blog.

Poetry by Leslie Williams (Poetry Fellow ’10) is featured in the Spring 2011 issue of the Southern Review.

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

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

Images: Still from DESIDERARE w/ Naoko Brown (foreground), Jennifer Kelble (background), photo by JJJ Cole; Cover art from THE GIRLS CLUB by Sally Bellerose (Bywater Books, August 2011); Eric Gottesmean, BANDED PHOTOGRAPHS (2007), C-print, 20×24 in; Promotional image for IVAN & IVANA by Jeff Silva.

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Congratulations to all Massachusetts artists and scholars who received 2011 Guggenheim Fellowships!

We note in particular past MCC Fellows Janet Echelman (Crafts and Sculpture/Installation ’09) and David Fiuczynski (Music Composition ’09), plus Waban composer Chaya Czernowin, Cambridge writer Ann Jones, Cambridge dramatist Jay Scheib, Northampton writer Seth Shulman, and filmmaker Michelle Handelman, who divides her time between New York City and Boston and teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Here are all of the artists and scholars currently living in Massachusetts, honored with 2011 Guggenheim awards:
Mr. Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History, Harvard University: Capitalism: a global history.
Ms. Chaya Czernowin, Composer, Waban, Massachusetts, and Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Composition, Harvard University: Music composition.
Ms. Janet S. Echelman, Artist, Brookline, Massachusetts, and Faculty Member, Department of Visual and Performing Arts, New School University: Fine arts.
Ms. Ann Jones, Writer, Cambridge, Massachusetts: War comes home.
Mr. Todd Lewis, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross: The enculturation of Buddhist teachings: traditional and modern vernacular literature for children.
Mr. Eric Matthew Nelson, Professor of Government, Harvard University: Thinking the Revolution: American political thought, 1763-1789.
Mr. Fallou Ngom, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the African Language Program, Boston University: Wolof Ajami literature and the Africanization of Islam in Senegambia.
Mr. Fiorenzo Omenetto, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Physics, Tufts University: Optics and electronics at the biotic-abiotic interface.
Mr. John M. G. Plotz, Professor of English, Brandeis University: Semi-detached: the aesthetics of partial absorption.
Mr. Bjorn Poonen, Professor of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Random maximal isotropic subspaces and Selmer groups.
Mr. Jay Scheib, Dramatist, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Associate Professor of Music and Theater Arts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Drama and performance art.
Mr. Seth Shulman, Writer, Northampton, Massachusetts: Thomas Edison and the electric car.
Mr. Vahid Tarokh, Perkins Professor of Applied Mathematics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow of Electrical Engineering, Harvard University: Random matrices from deterministic structures: theory and applications.

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

The April 1, 2011 weather may be a Fool’s Day snow-prise, but the following list of April awards, honors, news, and announcements is pure sunshine.

We’re thrilled to share that Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’11) play Before I Leave You, a portion of which the playwright submitted for her Artist Fellowship, will be produced by Boston’s Huntington Theatre in the 2011/2012 season! Read a Boston Globe article about Rosanna and the production.

Hannah Barrett (Painting Fellow ’04) has collages in the show Family Portraits, which explores the “complexities and possibilities of family structures, relationships, and interactions, both real and constructed.” The show runs through April 22, 2011 at the Foster Gallery in Dedham, with an opening reception Friday, April 8, 6-8 PM. Along with Hannah, the show features Christine Rogers, Cobi Moules, Megan & Murray McMillan, Dustin Williams, and Tanit Sakakini – and was curated by Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ’10)!

Claire Beckett‘s (Photography Fellow ’07) recent show at Carroll and Sons, Simulating Iraq, was reviewed in Art New England.

Jamie Cat Callan (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) will be at the French Cultural Center in Boston on Tuesday, April 19 to present her recent book Bonjour, Happiness! Read a recent interview with Jamie on ArtSake.

Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky, aka TRIIIBE Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09) were reviewed in Art in America Magazine for their recent solo show at Dodge Gallery in New York. Also, check out a terrific series of short films by Yari Wolinsky about TRIIIBE’s creation of their recent In Search of Eden show at Boston University.

Watercolor paintings by Betsy Damian are on exhibit at the Harding House bed and breakfast in Cambridge. Read Betsy’s recent Three Stages post about her children’s book Rèv Abnè a: Abner’s Vision.

Joshua Fineberg‘s (Music Composition Fellow ’11) piece for flute and electronics, The Texture of Time, will receive its Boston premiere on Saturday April 30 at Brandeis University’s Slosberg Music Center. This performance will be part of the 2011 BEAMS Electronic Music Marathon and the Boston Cyber Arts Festival.

Regie Gibson (Poetry Fellow ’10) will perform spoken word poetry at Munroe Center for the Arts in Lexington, MA on Saturday, April 9, 8-10 PM, a task to which he’s uniquely suited: he’s a former National Poetry Slam Champion and performer on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Incidentally, the 4/9 performance is on the heels of Regie’s participation in the final event in MCC’s Commonwealth Reading Series at Newtonville Books in Newton on Tuesday, April 5.

James Haug‘s (Poetry Fellow ’98) new chapbook, Why I Like Chapbooks, has been published by Factory Hollow Press.

Gregory Hischak‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) short play Hygiene is included in this year’s Humana Festival of New American Works in April (Louisville KY). Later this year, his new play Clueless & Lark (& Other Geologic Variations) will be staged as part of the 2011 Source Festival (Washington DC) in June, 2011.

Ariel Kotker‘s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07) fascinating His Room As He Left It installation will be part of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Scholars Show, at the SMFA March 30-April 30. There will be an opening reception Wednesday, March 30, 5-7 PM.

Niho Kozuru (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) was commissioned to create a sculpture for the permanent collection of the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Nebraska. Read an article in the Lincoln JournalStar about Niho and the unique commission.

Yanick Lapuh (Painting Fellow ’10) currently has a solo show, Yanick Lapuh: Your Ladder is on Fire, at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, through July 10, 2011. He’s also among the artists selected by juror Jen Mergel, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for the show Massachusetts Artists 2011 at The Brush Art Gallery and Studios in Lowell. The show runs through April 30, 2011, with an opening reception on April 3, 2-4 PM.

Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) has a solo photography show, A Girl and Her Room at the De Santos Gallery in Houston, TX, running April-May, 2011. There is an opening reception April 2, 5:30-8:30 PM.

We heard good news from Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) recently: she won a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant! Where can you see her work this month? First, a detail of her installation Changing Waters, on view at the Fuller Craft Museum through September 2011, is on the cover of the March/April 2011 issue of Art New England. She’s in the exhibition The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft, on display through June 12 at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, WI. As part of this exhibit, a trio called Nineteen Thirteen will perform one of Nathalie’s scores, called “Hurricane Noel” at the Milwaukee Art Museum on April 15, 8:30 PM. Furthermore, she’s participating in Craft Meets Technology at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, April 2-July 16, and the Appearances: Provincetown Green Arts Festival, at Art Current in Provincetown, MA, April 15-24.

Caleb Neelon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07) is the co-author of the book The History of American Graffiti, published this month by Harper Design. The book features over 1,000 never-before-published photographs and interviews with hundreds of graffiti artists from throughout the country.

Congratulations to Nancy K. Pearson (Poetry Finalist ’10), who won the Sycamore Review Poetry Prize.

Jendi Reiter (Poetry Fellow ’10) won the 2010 Anderbo Poetry Prize for her poem “Bullies in Love” (watch the clip embedded above to hear her reading the poem). Bravo!

Matthew Rich (Painting Fellow ’10) is among the artists exhibiting in The Thingness of Color at Dodge Gallery in New York. The show runs April 2-May 1, with an opening reception April 2. Read a Studio Views with Matthew Rich on ArtSake.

Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ’09) has a solo show of photography, This Russia, at the Garner Center of Photography at the New England School of Photography in Boston. The show runs April 18-June 3, 2011, with an opening reception Wednesday, April 20, 6:30-8 PM and an artist talk Monday, May 9, 6 PM. Fraction Magazine has a sneak peak of Irina’s soon-to-be-published monograph One to Nothing. The monograph will be published by Kehrer Verlag in Fall 2011; see a preview. Also, Irina is among the artists featured in The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Vol.2, a biennial sourcebook with new work by 100 contemporary photographers, from the Humble Arts Foundation.

Eric Henry Sanders‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) play Reservoir, on the heels of a successful ’10/’11 run at the Drilling CompaNY in New York, will return for a three week run (Apr. 1 -17, 2011) at the theatre. Read a terrific review of the play in the New York Times, and read about the process behind the play, as well as hear a scene performed by Company One, on ArtSake. Also, Eric’s short play Don’t Push the Red Button was performed as part of Elephant in the Room, performed at Raconteur Theatre in Ohio in March 2011.

Vaughn Sills (Photography Fellow ’09) has a solo exhibition of photographs at the Trustman Gallery at Simmons College in Boston. The show, which runs March 21 – April 22, is in conjunction with Vaughn’s new book of photography Places For The Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens. Read a review in the Boston Globe.

Jeff Daniel Silva‘s (Film & Video Finalist ’09) feature-length documentary Ivan & Ivana will have its world premiere in the International competition at Visions de Réel in Nyon, Switzerland on Friday, April 8 at 8 PM. The film chronicles the lives of Ivan and Ivana, a couple who emigrated from Kosovo to California to start anew after the last Balkan war. It’s an unorthodox depiction of the American immigrant experience, revealing the couple’s successes, trials, and tribulations over five years of turbulent economic, political and personal tides. Local audiences will have the chance to see the film when it screens in the Independent Film Festival Boston, on April 30 and May 1.

Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ’09) is among the playwrights whose ten-minute plays were selected for the 2011 Boston Playwrights’ Theatre Boston Theatre Marathon. Read Peter’s terrific ArtSake guest post about the terrain for new plays – nationally and locally.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) will join deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum Director for Curatorial Affairs Nick Capasso for a talk and tour of Rachel’s current exhibition: Rachel Perry Welty 24/7. The events takes place on Saturday, April 2, at 3 PM, at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln.

Tracy Winn (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) reads from her novel Mrs. Somebody Somebody at the Blacksmith House in Cambridge on Monday, April 25, 2011, 8:00 PM.

Past Fellows Notes
Mar. 2011
Feb. 2011
Jan. 2011

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

Images and media: Matthew Rich, DOUBLE AMPERSAND (2010), latex and spray paint on cut paper and linen tape, 41×57 in; cover art for WHY I LIKE CHAPBOOKS by James Haug (Factory Hollow Press, 2011); Jendi Reiter reads “Bullies in Love” at the Green Street Café in Northampton, recorded by Adam Cohen, from the WinningWriters Youtube Channel; Cover for PLACES FOR THE SPIRIT: PHOTOGRAPHS BY VAUGHN SILLS (Trinity University Press, 2010).

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

March comes in like a lion with readings, exhibitions, awards, books, world premieres, and more. (I have a feeling that when it comes to artists, March will defy proverb and go out leonine, too.)

MCC is honored to have two opportunities to present awardees from our Artist Fellowships Program this month: the Commonwealth Reading Series, a schedule of literary events featuring awardees in prose and poetry, and State of Art: Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellows and Finalists, a showcase of MCC’s 2008 Painting and 2009 Crafts Fellows/Finalists at the Concord Art Association.

Salamander, a magazine for poetry, fiction, and memoirs hosts Peter Brown (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06) author of A Bright Soothing Noise, Daniel Tobin (Poetry Finalist ’10), author of Belated Heavens, and Valerie Duff, author of To the New World, for a reading on Wednesday, March 9, 7 PM at The Suffolk University Poetry Center.

On February 9, 2011, the 2010 New England Art Awards were celebrated at the Burren in Somerville. The event, organized by the New England Journal for Aesthetic Research, honors the best art made locally and the best exhibitions organized in New England. On the NEJAR blog, Greg Cook solicited nominations for New England Art Awards in 19 categories. Numerous past fellows were among the awarded artists: Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky, aka TRIIIBE Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09) won the People’s Choice award in “Performance or spectacle” for their event Crime Night in conjunction with a show at Gallery Kayafas. Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) received the People’s Choice award in Photography for A Girl in Her Room, a show at Gallery Kayafas. Caleb Neelon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07) is the Critics’ pick for “Essay by a local writer about locally-made art” for Ten Short Memos to Young Boston Artists on the New England Journal of Aesthetic Research blog. Cristi Rinklin (Painting Fellow ’10) won both the People’s and Critics’ choice award for Painting for her show at Zevitas Gallery. Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ’10) won the People’s choice award for “Standout work by a local artist in a group show” for her work in ICA Foster Prize exhibit. Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03) won the People’s and Critics’ choice in New Media for Blew at the Miller Block Gallery and the People’s Choice for “Solo show by a local artist (or collaborative)” for the same show.

Chris Abouzeid (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04) recently wrote a guest post for Grub Street Daily, the new blog from the Boston-based writers’ service organization Grub Street, sharing his hilarious definitions of social media terms. His definition, for example, of a “post”: A blog article featuring useful information cribbed from other blogs and capped with an image used without permission.

Congratulations to Steven Barkhimer (Playwriting Fellow ’11), who received a 2011 IRNE (The Independent Reviewers of New England) Award nomination for Best Drama Actor for a small theatre company, for his performance in Table Manners at Gloucester Stage.

Photography by Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07) is included in two recent publications: The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Vol. 2 from the Humble Arts Foundation and 5 Cities / 41 Artists / Artadia 08/09 from Artadia. What’s more, Claire’s solo show You Are… exhibits at Carroll and Sons through March 26, opening reception Friday March 4, 5:30 – 7:30 PM. Claire is also among the artists currently exhibiting in The Truth Is Not in the Mirror: Photography and a Constructed Identity at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, through May 22, 2011. Finally, her work is featured in Reality Check at FOTODOK in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The show explores the use of fiction in documentary photography, and Claire will give a lecture in conjunction with the show, along with Dr. Martijn Stevens of Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, on Friday, March 25 at 8:00 PM at Domplein 5, Utrecht.

Ben Berman (Poetry Fellow ’08), a finalist for the Philbrick Poetry Award this year, has a new poem in Unsplendid and a new poem forthcoming in Solstice.

Congratulations to Martha Jane Bradford (Drawing Fellow ’85): juror Jim Dine selected two of her digital prints for inclusion in The Boston Printmakers 2011 North American Print Biennial. The show is taking place at The Danforth Museum in Framingham, February 27 – May 1, 2011.

We’re excited to share that Shawn Cody‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’07) new music theater work The Water Dream is playing in concert, featuring Anthony Rapp (Original Broadway Cast and Feature Film of Rent) Karmine Alers (also from Rent) at the Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn, NY. It plays in a double-bill with Clear by Paul Oakley Stovall on Friday, March 11, 2011, 8 PM. The Water Dream (read an excerpt) is a multi-media musical with whale puppets and an on-stage aquarium.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ’08) is new director of the Advanced Seminar at The Frost Place, one of three summer programs at the poetry conference center at Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH.

Joshua Fineberg (Music Composition Fellow ’11) will premiere Speaking in Tongues, a new concerto for 6 percussionists and orchestra, performed by the world’s pre-eminent percussion ensemble, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, at Tsai Performance Center at Boston University, March 10, 2011, 8 PM. The concerto, conducted by John Page, was commissioned in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Les Percussions de Strasbourg. Also this month, Jeff Means and his new group Sound Icon will perform Joshua Fineberg’s piece Receuil de pierre et de sable, for two harp soloists and sextet, for their inaugural concert on March 26, 2011, 8 PM, at the Boston University Concert Hall. In April, watch for the composer’s work to be featured at Brandeis University as part of the 2011 BEAMS Electronic Music Marathon and the Boston Cyber Arts Festival.

Christy Georg (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’11), currently artist-in-residence at the Boston Center for the Arts, will have an open studio on Saturday, March 5, 1 – 4 PM at the Boston Center for the Arts, Artist Studios Building (above the Mills Gallery). Later this month, Christy will have an artists’ residency at Jentel in Banner, WY.

Winner of the 2009 Clauder Competition, Gregory Hischak‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) The Center of Gravity has it’s world premiere at Portland Stage Company (Portland ME) in March 2011. His short play Hygiene is included in this year’s Humana Festival of New American Works in April (Louisville KY); his new play Clueless & Lark (& Other Geologic Variations) will be staged as part of the 2011 Source Festival (Washington DC) in June, 2011.

Liza Johnson (Film & Video Finalist ’07), winner of the 2010 Rappaport Pize from the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, will give a Rappaport Prize Lecture on Thursday, March 10, 7 PM, at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline. The lecture is free on a first-come, first-served basis, with tickets available at the box office day-of show only. Lisa will screen two of her recent video pieces and discuss how she worked with participants in the Mississippi Gulf Coast and an Appalachian circus school for the respective works. She’ll also discuss new projects, including the feature film Return, featuring Michael Shannon, Linda Cardellini, and John Slattery. To learn more about Return, check out Liza’s guest post on the post-production process for the independent film-in-progress on the Sundance blog.

Melinda Lopez (Playwriting Fellow ’03) received a 2011 IRNE nomination for Best New Play for a small theatre company, for From Orchids to Octopi (read about this play in an ArtSake interview with Melinda).

Tara L. Masih (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’96) reads from her award-winning short story collection Where the Dog Star Never Glows and discusses the art of short story writing on March 27, 2 PM, at Duxbury Free Library. The event is part of the library’s “Short and Sweet” series about short stories.

Caitlin McCarthy (Playwriting Finalist ’11) was interviewed on WCVB-TV Boston’s Chronicle, on Friday, February 18, 2011, about her screenplay Wonder Drug, which explores the DES drug disaster. Learn more about Caitlin’s advocacy efforts on the DES issue on her blog.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) is among the artists in New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft, a show organized by the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, now on exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Koji Nakano‘s (Music Composition Finalist ’11, ’09) Time Song III was performed by Del Sol String Quartet at Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC on February 19. Plus, a concert of his music was performed at the Kennedy Center on February 20.

Congratulations to Nancy K. Pearson (Poetry Finalist ’10), who won the 2010 Spoon River Poetry Review Editors’ Prize, selected by Jeanne Marie Beaumont.

Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04, ’10) will read from her story collection Cold Snap at McNally Jackson Books in New York City on Tuesday, March 8, 7:30 PM, and as part of the Southern Methodist University LitFest in Dallas, TX, March 24 -26, 2011.

Jendi Reiter (Poetry Fellow ’10) has fiction in the most recent issue of Newport Review.

Adam Schwartz (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) reads from his new novel A Stranger on the Planet at Wellesley Booksmith in Wellesley on Wednesday, March 2, 7 PM, and at Newtonville Books in Newton on Sunday, March 20, 2 PM (where he joins novelist William Lychack).

Vaughn Sills (Photography Fellow ’09) has a solo exhibition of photographs at the Trustman Gallery at Simmons College in Boston. The show, which runs March 21 – April 22, is in conjunction with Vaughn’s new book of photography Places For The Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens. There will be an opening reception, book signing, and artist talk on Thursday, March 24, 5-7 PM at the Trustman Gallery.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) was featured on Greater Boston on WGBH in conjunction with Rachel Perry Welty 24/7, her solo show that runs through April 24, 2011 at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln.

Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03) exhibits a series of prints called Holoplanktonica: an illustrated book of impressions, at ningyo editions. Deb created multi-layered monoprints by running thin forms of polyethylene plastic that she had manipulated repeatedly through the press. The works are inspired by The Drawing Center‘s 2004 show Ocean Flowers: Impressions from Nature, an exhibition of 19th century prints, color plates, imprints, cyanotypes, and early photograms of oceanic vegetation by artists and botanists alike. Holoplanktonica runs March 10–May 7, 2011, with an opening reception Thursday, March 10, 6-9 PM: an evening of “monotypes, woodcuts, sea shanties (complete with a 10 piece ukulele band), libations, and oceanic bliss.”

Leslie Williams (Poetry Fellow ’10) takes part in the Dire Literary Series on Friday, March 4, 8 PM, joining Marc Jampole and Debrah Morkun for a reading at Out of the Blue Art Gallery in Cambridge.

Nina Wishnok (Drawing/Printmaking/Artist Books Fellow ’06) has work in a Boston Printmakers members show, thINK at Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, through March 31, 2011.

Past Fellows Notes
Feb. 2011
Jan. 2011

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

Images: Brian Corey, NE BOUNDARY (2011), acrylic, ink, graphite on panel, 24×24 in; Martha Jane Bradford, HERMIONE (2010), digital drawing printed on canvas and assembled as wall hangings, 32×32 in; promotional image for CENTER OF GRAVITY, a play by Gregory Hischak, at Portland Stage Company; clip featuring Rachel Perry Welty on WGBH’s Greater Boston.

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The 2011 MCC Artist Fellowship awards have been announced for Music Composition, Playwriting, and Sculpture/Installation. Applications for the MCC’s Artist Fellowship Program were open to all eligible Massachusetts artists.

A total number of 416 eligible applications were received; 86 in Music Composition, 124 in Playwriting, and 207 in Sculpture/Installation. See a complete list of this year’s fellows and finalists.

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

Images: Elizabeth Alexander (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11), KEEPING UP APPEARANCES NO. 2 (2009), mixed media installation, variable dimensions; promotional image for PHOOLAN DEVI: THE BANDIT QUEEN by Shirish Korde (Music Composition Fellow ’11); Hannah Verlin (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11), BUSS (2010), Plastic tubes, glass beakers, cotton string, colored water, 16 ft high x 2 ft wide x 12 ft long (photos by Andy Pickering); Luke O’Sullivan (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11), LANDSCAPE XI (2008), screenprint on wood and steel, 51x41x82 in (photos by Tucker Houlihan).

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

In February, our past awardees roll with rock book clubs, pack for Rome residencies, go walking (and dancing) in Memphis, and lots more.

Five MCC Artist Fellowship Program awardees in Painting, Vico Fabbris (Fellow ’06), Christopher Faust (Fellow ’10), Joel Janowitz (Fellow ’08), Laurie Kaplowitz (Finalist ’08), and Anne Neely (Finalist ’10) are in an exhibition at the Shipyard Gallery in Hingham, a satellite gallery of the South Shore Art Center. The exhibition runs through February 20, 2011 at 18 Shipyard Drive, next to the Hingham Beer Works. Read about the show in the Boston Globe.

Steve Almond‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) book Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life is the inaugural selection of the new Rock and Roll Book Club. Since the club, inspired by a love of books and rock and roll, reads and discusses books with a connection to rock, we can’t think of a better first selection that Steve’s ode to the pop music we love (even when we know we shouldn’t). Steve will join the group for a launch party on February 16 at The Enormous Room in Cambridge. Read about the Rock and Roll Book Club in Time Out Boston.

Claire Andrade-Watkins (Film & Video Fellow ’09) has organized a weekly program of screenings of rare archival 8mm, video about the Fox Point Cape Verdean community and the Cape Verdean Diaspora, presented by the Cape Verdean Student Organization at Brown University and the Fox Point Cape Verdean Project (which Claire directs). The series launches on Friday, February 18, 7 PM, at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Brown University, in Providence, RI. Admission is free, open to the public.

Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07) has a solo show opening this month at Carroll and Sons in Boston: You Are…, February 23-March 26, 2011, opening reception Friday, March 4, 5:30-7:30 PM. She’s also among the artists currently exhibiting in The Truth Is Not in the Mirror: Photography and a Constructed Identity at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, through May 22, 2011.

Nell Breyer (Choreography Fellow ’06) will give an illustrated lecture called Perceptions of Motion at the Observatory Room in Brooklyn, NY, on Friday, February 11, 8 PM. The lecture, which is presented by the Hollow Earth Society, will explore how we perceive motion, using art and science as lenses.

In late 2010, Janet Echelman (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) was awarded a prestigious, year-long residency at American Academy in Rome. She’s currently working on three sculptures to be featured in Terminal 2 at the San Francisco Airport (see a computer simulation of her recomposure zone in this New York Times article). What’s more, she’ll be presenting at TED2011 on March 1, 2011, as part of the Threads of Discovery series.

Christopher Frost (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) has a solo show at Boston Sculptors Gallery in the South End, February 9-March 13, 2011.

MASS MoCA will screen Michal Goldman‘s (Film & Video Fellow ’07) film At Home in Utopia, which tells the story of immigrant Jewish garment workers as they challenged social norms through the cooperatively owned and run United Workers Cooperative Colony, aka the “Coops.” The documentary, showing on Thursday, February 10, at 7:30 PM, is part of MASS MoCA’s “Power to the People” Series. Screened in Club B-10, followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker.

Michael Hoerman (Poetry Fellow ’04) will read on February 4 for Dire Literary Series at 106 Prospect Street, Cambridge, at 8 PM. Joining Michael are poets Carissa Halston and John Hodgen (Poetry Finalist ’00).

Masako Kamiya (Painting Fellow ’06, ’10) is part of two exhibitions opening this month. She’s among the artists in Extravagant Drawings at Dorsky Gallery in Long Island, NY, February 6-April 10, 2011, opening reception Sunday, February 6, 2011, 2-5 PM. Also, she, along with Rose Olson and other artists, is featured in Point of Departure at The Gallery Della – Piana in Wenham, MA. The show runs February 13-April 21, 2011, opening reception, Sunday, February 13, 3-5 PM.

Caroline Klocksiem‘s (Poetry Fellow ’08) chapbook, Circumstances of the House & Moon, was accepted for publication by Dancing Girl Press.

Kathryn Kulpa (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’10) has a new piece published in decomP magazine, “Soon, and for the Rest of Your Life.” Also, the Winter 2011 issue of Newport Review, which she edits, just made its online debut. The journal is now looking for submissions of poetry, prose and artwork for the Summer 2011 issue.

Caitlin McCarthy (Playwriting Finalist ’11) is interviewed on WCVB-TV Boston’s Chronicle, on Friday, February 18, 2011, about her screenplay Wonder Drug, which explores the DES drug disaster. She’ll also discuss efforts, advocacy, and personal history with the case. The program coincides with the 40th anniversary of the DES cancer link discovery at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital. Find details on The Boston Channel or watch the program after it airs on the Chronicle HD Archives.

Gary Metras (Poetry Fellow ’84) was profiled in and is the cover photograph for the National Education Association’s magazine for retired members, The Active Life, Nov. 2010 issue, with a focus on retired teachers who are published writers. Also, Gary has a poetry reading this month, on Friday, February 18, 2011, 7 PM, at Amherst Books in Amherst, Mass.

Nathalie Miebach‘s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) installation Changing Waters will be on exhibit at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton through September 25, 2011. There will be an opening reception on February 27, 2-5 PM, and an artist talk on March 27. Also, Nathalie will conduct an intensive, week-long sculptural weaving workshop at the museum March 8-12. Elsewhere in the state, she has a solo show called Musical Scores and Sculptures at the Anderson Gallery at Bridgewater State Univeristy. The show runs Feb 14 – March 11, with an opening reception Thursday, February 17, at 4:45 PM.

Pan Morigan (Music Composition Fellow ’07) just released an album of new original songs called Wild Blue. Pan will perform at a CD release concert on Friday, February 11, 2011, 8 PM, at the Helen Hills Chapel at Smith College in Northampton. Pan will also join another past MCC fellow, Andrea Hairston (Playwriting/New Theater Works Fellow ’03), in a series of events combining narrative and music, taking place across the United States to promote Andrea’s novel Redwood and Wildfire.

Koji Nakano‘s (Music Composition Finalist ’09) Ancient Songs was recently performed by Soprano Stacey Fraser at Chapman University and at the University of California at San Diego, and another performance is planned at the Hong Kong Arts Centre on March 6, 2011. On February 20, 2011, Fraser will premiere Arigatoo, an aria from Koji Nakano’s second opera Spiritual Forest, as part of a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. In addition, she will give the Taiwan Premiere of the same aria at the Taipei National Concert Hall on March 1, 2011.

Jendi Reiter (Poetry Fellow ’10) was runner-up for the 2010 Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction.

Matt Rich (Painting Fellow ’10) was among the artists selected by the editors of New American Paintings as 11 to watch.

Adam Schwartz (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) will have an event celebrating his book A Stranger on the Planet at Wellesley College (where he teaches), on February 4, 2011. Also, he joins poet Dan Chaisson for a reading at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, on February 9,  at 7 PM. Read a terrific review of Adam’s novel in the Boston Globe.

Carolyn Webb (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’82) will have a solo exhibit of sculpture and prints at Spheris Gallery in Hanover, NH. The show runs February 19-March 22, 2011.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) has a solo exhibition at deCordova Sculpture Park + Museum in Lincoln, called Rachel Perry Welty 24/7. The show runs through April 24, with an opening on February 5, 2011. Read a Q&A with Rachel in the Boston Globe.

Judith Wombwell (Choreography Fellow ’10) choreographed a piece called Integral for Project: Motion in Memphis, TN. The piece will be part of a performance at Evergreen Theatre in Memphis, February 18-20, 2011. Judith’s company Deadfall Dance will perform their piece Grass as part of the concert. Read an article about the rehearsal process for Integral.

Kevin Young (Poetry Fellow ’10) reads from his new book, Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, on Monday, February 7, 7 PM. Read a primer on the books of Kevin Young on the Porter Square Books blog.

Past Fellows Notes
Jan. 2011

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

Images: Laurie Kaplowitz, LUSTRE (2006), Acrylic on canvas, 46×42 in; Chris Frost, RED CASTLE (2008) concrete patio blocks, 7x11x12 feet; CD cover for WILD BLUE by Pan Morigan; Promotional image for Deadfall Dance.

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Today’s glimpse from our gallery of past fellows/finalists: a sample of Mimi Rabson‘s (Music Composition Fellow ’03) composition for power trio, led by her own electric violin. It’s a mesmerizing blend of noise-rock, jazz, and electro-acoustic.

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

From the looks of it, the new year will be rich with great art!

Peter Brown (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06) reads from his new short story collection A Bright Soothing Noise at Brookline Booksmith, on Tuesday, January 11, 7 PM. The collection, which won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, is about characters struggling to realize their own pieces of the American dream.

Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky aka TRIIIBE (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09) have their New York City debut in a show at DODGE Gallery, January 8 – February 13, 2011.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ’08) is the new director of the Advanced Seminar at The Frost Place, a poets’ residency and educational center in New Hampshire.

Beth Galston (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’84) unveils a new public art project this month, Serpentine Fence. Three years in the making, this permanent sculpture is a 120-foot-long serpentine fence made of stainless steel and translucent purple metal mesh, with special lights at night. The project has involved a collaboration between the City of Boston Parks Department, JP Centre/South Main Streets, Ray Dunetz Landscape Architecture, Solutions in Metal (Fabricator), Ron Marini (Contractor), and the artist, supported by grants from The Browne Fund.

In April 2010, Ralf Yusuf Gawlick (Music Composition Fellow ’09) premiered Kinderkreuzzug, a large-scale work for children’s voices and small chamber ensemble (read an ArtSake post about the work). Musica Omnia has released a CD of the powerful cantata, which adapts Bertolt Brecht’s extraordinary poem about a group of orphaned children on a crusade to find a land of peace.

Michael Hoerman (Poetry Fellow ’04) will read on February 4 for Dire Literary Series at 106 Prospect Street, Cambridge, at 8 p.m. Joining Michael are poets Carissa Halston and John Hodgen.

Eric Hofbauer (Music Composition Fellow ’09) was recently featured in an interview/solo set on BBC’s Jazz on 3 radio show. In it, he played several pieces from his American Fear solo recording.

Congratulations to Sharon Howell (Poetry Fellow ’10), who recently learned that her poetry collection has been accepted for publication by Pressed Wafer Press – details to come!

Jan Johnson (Drawing Fellow ’10) is one of the artists exhibiting in A woman’s work is never done, at the A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. The show, curated by Susanne Altmann, includes work by women from throughout the country (and world). The art focuses on diverse artistic approaches and blends “the personally meaningful with a close and objective eye toward cultural observation” (read more). The show runs at January 5-January 30, 2011. See images of the exhibition on A.I.R. Gallery’s Facebook page.

Caroline Klocksiem‘s (Poetry Fellow ’08) poem No cracked earth was recently featured in the poetry journal Leveler. Also, two of her poems appear in Super Arrow, issue three.

Jane D. Marsching‘s (Photography Finalist ’03) work Ice Out an edition of 5 “hybrid prints,” is on exhibit at Ningyo Editions in Watertown, through January 15, 2011. The work draws on wind data during “ice out” days (90% melt of pond ice), using data drawn today via specially created software (co-written with Matthew Shanley) and from Thoreau’s 1847 almanac. This piece includes a video with choreographer/dancer Sarah Baumert.

Todd McKie (Painting Finalist ’08) has a solo exhibition of collages and of paintings on found wooden panels at Victoria Munroe Fine Art in Boston, January 13 – February 26, 2011.

Rachel Mello (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo show of cut-silhouette paintings, wood-block prints, and print collages at Club Passim/Veggie Planet in Cambridge, MA. The show runs through January 21.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) has a solo show opening this month at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton. Changing Waters is the largest installation Nathalie has build so far, a 27-foot long wall piece and four 10-foot long sculptures. The installation looks at the interaction between ocean and weather systems in the Gulf of Maine, integrating both data from off-shore buoys and weather stations as well as some of the rich fishing history. It’s fantastical, theatrical and numerical. The installation will be on exhibit January 15, 2011 – September 25, 2011, with an opening reception February 27, 2011, 2-5 PM.

Koji Nakano (Music Composition Finalist ’09) has had a fortuitous run since receiving his MCC award. In 2011, in conjunction with a University of California/Davis lecture, his work Ancient Songs will be performed at Chapman University (Jan. 14), University of California at San Diego (Jan. 20), and the Hong Kong Arts Centre (March 6). In 2010, Mr. Nakano received a MetLife Creative Connections Grant from Meet The Composer to support the premiere of Time Song III: Reincarnation “The Birth of a Spirits” at the Pacific Rim Music Festival. It was subsequently performed in Seoul, Korea, and Taipei, Taiwan. Two film/music collaborations with filmmaker Tiffany Doesken premiered in 2010: Unspoken Voices-Unbroken Spirits for Audio Visual at the 2010 ISCM World New Music Days in Sydney, Australia, and Looking at a Dancing Apsara through Rectangular Prisms at the Interactive Creative Forum. In the fall of 2010, the multi-media concert Music, Dance and Film: Innovation and Tradition in the Works of Koji Nakano was presented as part of the Annual Music and Performing Arts at Burapha University in Bangsaen, Thailand (see image above). Also in 2010, Mr. Nakano received a residency fellowship from the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, an ASCAPlus Award, and the White Flowers Residency for Composers from Yaddo. In the fall of 2009, Ensemble Reconsil Vienna gave the world premiere of his Scattered Clouds/Dramatic Sky as part of Composers Forum in Mittersill (recorded on CD KOFOMI #14 from Ein_Klang Records).

Monica Raymond‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) essay Notes on “Collateral Damage Noted” (about Mobius member Tom Plsek‘s sound meditation commemorating Iraqi civilian deaths in the current war) was published at qarrtsiluni.com in December. Also, her poem Dreaming the World was a prize winner in Old Father William’s Frabjous and Curious Poetry contest for poems influenced by Lewis Carroll, sponsored by Caffeine Theater in Chicago.

Anna Ross (Poetry Finalist ’10) has poetry in the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of the journal Barrow Street.

Eric Henry Sanders‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) play Reservoir had its world premiere at The Drilling CompaNY Theatre in New York, November 4 -24th, 2010 – read a terrific review in the New York Times. The run has been so successful that it’s been extended for an additional eight shows: January 6-16, 2011. You can read about the play’s development (as well as hear an excerpt performed by Company One) on ArtSake.

Adam Schwartz (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’10) reads from his new novel A Stranger on the Planet (an excerpt of which won him an MCC fellowship) at Brookline Booksmith on Thursday, January 27, at 7 PM. Next month, he joins poet Dan Chaisson for a reading at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Wednesday, February 9, 7 PM.

In The Guardian, Annie Proulx gives Salvatore Scibona‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06) The End a great review, calling it “an outstanding work in all the right ways.”

Peter Snoad‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) new full-length farce, Identity Crisis, winner of the 2010 New Play Festival at Centre Stage in Greenville, South Carolina, will receive a workshop production there from January 13-22. Also this month, his short play My Name Is Art will run at the Short and Sweet Festival in Sydney, Australia (January 5-February 20). Recently, his play The Greening of Bridget Kelly was performed at the Roy Arias Studios in Manhattan by 3 Road Productions as part of its “Blood Bond” series of new plays.

Julia Story (Poetry Finalist ’10), who recently won the John C. Zacharis First Book Award for her prose poetry collection Post Moxie, is entertainingly interviewed on the Ploughshares blog by another past MCC awardee, Simeon Berry (Poetry Fellow ’06).

Cam Terwilliger (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) was recently named the Associate Fiction Editor at West Branch, and his short story “The Kingdom” was a finalist for Narrative‘s “People Under 30″ contest.

Daniel Tobin (Poetry Finalist ’10) reads from his new poetry collection Belated Heavens at Brookline Booksmith on Tuesday, January 25 at 7 PM.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) will have a solo exhibition at deCordova Sculpture Park + Museum in Lincoln, called Rachel Perry Welty 24/7. A 68-page fully illustrated catalogue/artist book has been created in conjunction with the show, which runs January 29 – April 24 with an opening on February 5, 2011. By the way, Rachel recently had a solo show of work at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York, which received a nice blurb in The New Yorker.

Jeff Zimbalist‘s (Film & Video Fellow ’05) much-lauded documentary The Two Escobars just received another laud: it was named Best Documentary of 2010 by Sports Illustrated!

Past Fellows Notes

Dec. 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: Image from a portrait concert of work by Koji Nakano as part of the Annual Music and Performing Arts Festival at Burapha University in Thailand on November 17, 2010; CD cover image for KINDERKREUZZUG by Ralf Gawlick (Musica Omnia 2010); Todd McKie, FRUIT BOWL (2007), flashe on canvas, 40×30 in, photo by Bill Kipp; poster for IDENTITY CRISIS, a play by Peter Snoad, performed by Centre Stage Theatre; cover art for BELATED HEAVENS by Daniel Tobin (Four Way Books, 2010).

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