ArtSake

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

SIX past and current MCC Artist Fellows were selected to be among nine finalists for the 2010 James and Audrey Foster Prize, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s biennial award and exhibition program for Boston-area artists. Eirik Johnson (Photography Fellow ‘09), Fred H. C. Liang (Painting Fellow ‘04, ‘08), Rebecca Meyers (Film & Video Fellow ‘09), Matt Rich (Painting Fellow ‘10), Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ‘10), and Steve Tourlentes (Photography Fellow ‘05), along with Robert de Saint Phalle, Daniela Rivera, and Amie Siegel, will participate in an exhibition at the ICA that opens Sept. 22, 2010, and continues through Jan. 30, 2011. The winner of the prize will be announced in January 2011.

Three MCC Fellows are featured in the show 1X1 at Gallery Kayafas in Boston. The show, curated by Gregory Mencoff (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘05, ‘09), includes work by Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ‘10) and Pat Shannon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09) along with Nancy Cusack and John Schulz. It runs March 4-April 10, 2010, with receptions on First Fridays: March 5 and April 2, 5:30-8 PM.

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 on exhibit March 26 - April 25, 2010, opening reception, Friday, March 26, 6-8 PM.

Speaking of Claire Beckett… kudos to Claire and Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ‘09): both are included in the Humble Arts Foundation’s 31 Women in Art Photography, which is on exhibit at Affirmation Arts in NYC, March 6-April 10, 2010, opening reception: Saturday, March 6, 6–9 PM.

This month, Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08) has a number of Boston-area readings and appearances in advance of the April release his new book Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. On Friday, March 12, he’ll be the host of Grub Street’s Grub Gone… Blue, a night of reading from writers’ “blue” periods. On Thursday, March 18, he’ll join Steven Beeber at the Art Institute of Boston (check back at Steve’s website for details). On Tuesday, March 23, he’ll join Keith Morris at Porter Square Books in Cambridge. Then on April 16, his voice by now limbered up and the mic cleared of sibilance, he’ll visit the Brattle Theatre (hosted by Harvard Bookstore) for a musical celebration of his new book, an ode/confessional for the musical superfan in all of us. Tickets on sale now. In other auspicious Almond news: his story “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched” has been selected by Richard Russo to appear in The Best American Short Stories 2010. Can I humbly request a “Woo hoo?”

Alissa Cardone (Choreography Finalist ‘02, ‘06, ‘08) and Kinodance will perform their new work “Fuse” on March 5 as part of the 12th biennial Arts and Technology Symposium at Connecticut College.

Ralf Yusuf Gawlick (Music Composition Fellow ‘09) let us know that on March 17 at 8 pm in Gasson Hall, Boston College, the Hawthorne String Quartet will perform his Berlin Suite. The piece, performed here as a concert suite, was commissioned by the German Embassy and Boston College for the film documentary “Writing on the Wall: Remembering the Berlin Wall” celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Admission is free. At 7 PM, there is a reception to celebrate the release of Solo and Chamber Works, Ralf Yusuf Gawlick, from Musica Omnia. Also, don’t miss the premiere of Kinderkreuzzug, Ralf’s 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, 3:00 PM Trinity Episcopal, Concord. The cantata, which adapts 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.

Masako Kamiya (Painting Fellow ‘06, ‘10) has a solo exhibition, Outspoken: Masako Kamiya, 2002-2010 at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, March 17 - May 16 2010. Artist’s Reception: Saturday, March 20, 6-8PM. Artist’s Talk: Wednesday, March 17, noon & Sunday, April 11, 3PM. (The talks are free for museum members or with paid admission to the museum.) Read more about the show (and about Masako) on ArtSake.

Adam Lampton (Photography Finalist ‘07) has a solo show at Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston, Nothing Serious Can Happen Here: Photographs from Macao by Adam Lampton. The show runs through March 27, 2010.

Todd McKie (Painting Finalist ‘08) has been awarded a Residency Fellowship to Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil. Twenty-five artists were selected from among more than 500 candidates from 19 different countries. Todd will be there for two months in 2011. You can see recent work by Todd at Gallery NAGA in Boston this May 2010. A book about a collaborative project done with David Caras is to be published to coincide with the exhibition.

This month, work by Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09) can be experienced both locally and in NYC, and through numerous senses. Her sculptural art, recently featured at the Sarah Doyle Gallery at Brown University, is now on exhibit in 185th Annual Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, National Academy Museum, New York, NY, through June 8, 2010. Furthermore, she’s in a group show called Transformations in the Jewett Gallery at Wellesley College, March 3-April 4, with an opening reception March 4, 5-6 PM. Then on March 14, at 3 PM, the Axis Ensemble will perform her sculptures (not a typo) at the Lily Pad in Inman Square, Cambridge. Nathalie creates her fascinating sculptures using weather data; for this project, she’s translating the weather data into musical scores, then using the score as a starting point for her sculpture. MEANWHILE, the score itself goes to musicians (enter the Axis Ensemble), and voila, you have “Hurricane Noel,” a performance and sculpture interpreting the same weather. We have it on good authority that the sculpture will be in attendance at the concert.

Stephen Mishol (Painting Fellow ‘08) has three paintings and four drawings in Tek’tanik at the Aferro Gallery in Newark, NJ. The show runs from March 13 - April 24.

Eric Henry Sanders (Playwriting Fellow ‘09) will have a workshop reading of his play Woyzeck: Homecoming at The Drilling Company in NYC in March. Then in April, his short play Dead Duck will be part of the Back to Back Director’s Project, starting April 21, 2010 at Available Potential Enterprises.

Past Fellows Notes
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: Eirik Johnson, THE ROAD TO FORKS, WASHINGTON (2006), archival pigment print, 24×30 in; Cover art for SOLO AND CHAMBER WORKS, RALF YUSUF GAWLICK (Musica Omnia 2010); Stephen Mishol, PUSH (2007) Vinyl paint on paper, 20×25 3/4 in.

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Vincent Sferrazza, a self-taught artist who lives and works in Boston, has an exhibit of his drawings and paintings at The New England College Gallery.

Vincent creates his portraits from from life. However, he’ll also employ the use of sketches, drawings, and occasionally photographs. Each paintings will go through a remarkable metamorphosis as his brushmarks emerge into distinctive portraits.

Of late, says Sferrazza, “I have been trying to incorporate these unintentional figures or landscapes, hoping for at least a resolution worth saving if not the elusive finished product.”

Paintings and Drawings by Vincent Sferrazza is on exhibit at the New England College Gallery through March 5, 2010. Gallery hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Weekends are by appointment.

The Gallery is located on Main Street in Henniker, New Hampshire, adjacent to the Colleges Administration Building. For more information, call The Gallery at 603-428-2329. Admission is free.

Vincent has been represented by Nielsen Gallery for 14 years. To contact Vincent Sferrazza directly, email at vincentsf@comcast.net.

Image credit: All paintings and drawings by Vincent Sferrazza.

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Congratutions to Sand T on her 2009 New England Art Award victory as the People’s Choice for Best Standout Work by a Local Artist in a Group Show as organized by the New England Journal of Aesthetic Research. ArtSake recently caught up with artist Sand T and she has graciously agreed to let us take a peek in her studio and talk to us about her work.

The primary intention of this body of non-objective work is to create a simple visual experience utilizing the basic elements of dot, line, color, surface and light. I feel the pieces suggest concepts of time, concentration, and the meditative energies of motion. The reductive aesthetic in my work is an overlapping of decidedly contrary visual elements: fluidity vs. structural, opacity vs. transparency, and formalistic vs. introspective.

I use a combination of UV resistant industrial epoxy resin, graphite, and paint on archival tempered clayboard or acrylic glass panels. The lines are drawn using graphite in varying weights and grades. Resin droplets are placed on the final surface one at a time. The placement of these two elements is sometimes improvised, sometimes planned until a “visual plane” emerges.

Though my process is time consuming and labor intensive, working with resin and acrylic glass provides a balance of structure and chaos that is fulfilling to me. It challenges my affinity for problem solving, material sensitivity, time management and organizational skills. Lighting plays an important role in the presentation of my work for it maximizes the viewing experience. When the viewer moves from one side to another of the artwork, they will see a sequence of reflections in the work. Clearly, there is more to be mined from the work when seen in person.

A huge challenge for viewers is to not touch the work. The physical properties of these tactile art objects fill viewers with an almost irresistible urge to touch them. The glistening, shining surfaces give them an appearance of being wet with beaded water.

Photographing this series of work is a challenge for me. The glossy surface and the intricate visual details innate in my art objects are hard to capture with any accuracy. The source, brightness and angle of the lighting changes the appearance of the object. These fine details are usually not noticeable or distinctive in any image reproductions. Since accurate reproduction is very difficult, I invite interested persons to view the original creations at my studio or art exhibit. What could be more satisfying than being able to appreciate a piece of original work of art up close in person?

So with that said, I would like to invite you to a reception to be held at Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery in Bristol Community College in Fall River on Thursday, March 11, 2010, from 6-8pm. This joint exhibition, Linear, is curated by Kathleen Hancock and features the works by three regional artists. Exhibition Dates: March 11 - April 7, 2010. For more info, please visit Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery’s Web site. To learn more about my work, please visit my Web site.

Image credit: All images courtesy of Sand T. Image captions: Image 1, 2 and 3: In progress… I am getting ready these panels for my show at Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery this March-April. Panels’ dimensions: 42×42x3.5”and 46×46 x3.5”. Image 4: Packing time. Image 5 and 6 : Work on display in my open storage in Malden, Massachusetts.

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The Danforth Museum of Art will be exhibiting Outspoken, an exhibition of gouache paintings by 2010 Massachusetts Cultural Council Painting Fellow Masako Kamiya. On view in the Museum’s main galleries from March 17-May 16, 2010, the exhibit will feature a survey of work from 2002 until the present time.

The works of Masako Kamiya have a lot to say for themselves. Columns of paint rise up, bristling with energy. Dots of color vibrate, forcing the eye to dive beneath the rough, uneven surface to consider painting in an entirely different way. “Pointillism is the first thing people think of when they see my work,” Kamiya admits, but she challenges viewers to go beyond scientific ideas about color theory or optical mixing of paint. “A point is very different from a dot,” she observes. “And my paintings start with dots.”

As a student, Kamiya tried “everything.” She enjoyed a long apprenticeship that explored the flexibility of oil to create landscapes, and loved the expressive works of Constable and Turner. However, she eventually realized that for her the most memorable element in those paintings was the sun or moon. Inexplicably attracted to the quality of that round shape, she found that her dot paintings evolved from there.

“Mark making is important,” says Kamiya. “Dots not only make individual marks, but also make a shape that is clear and simple.” Kamiya brought minimal dot shapes together to become a larger thing, and as her paintings evolved, her brushes got smaller and smaller. She came to rely upon the fast drying quality of gouache as a material that would support the accumulation of color. Gradually, she began using paint to construct miniature towers—variegated points of light that serve to record a painter’s experience of setting down the mark.

“Painting is like breathing,” she says. “It’s pretty much what I do everyday.” A self possessed and clear sighted vision allows her to admire—and remain dispassionately separate from—the scientific impulse that inspired Seurat; the ironic use of comic book imagery that defines Lichtenstein; or the pixilated break down of image in the work of Chuck Close. She can consider the dot paintings of the Australian Aborigines, or the neurotically obsessive dot works of fellow country woman Yayoi Kusama, and still know that she is coming from a different place. “My inspiration comes from the paint itself,” Kamiya observes. “It comes from the process of making the work, the kind of conversation I will have as each particular painting evolves.”

Since 2001, she has worked to build up surface through an accumulation of dots. Most recently she has left areas of space unpainted to reveal the natural grain of the wood panel in contrast to her painted dots. Her 2010 painting Trace, reveals her determination to sometimes “not paint.” The conversation that has always been so important “is now happening between the area painted and the area not painted. I now find that each mark is more intensely considered.”

In her examination of artist statements culled from four sequential volumes of New American Painting, linguist Karen Sullivan examined how artists use language as a metaphor to discuss their relationship to their work. Specifically citing Kamiya’s statement, and her use of the word “dialogue,” Sullivan observes that abstract artists tend to speak with their materials, while representational artists are more likely to speak to the viewers. Both kinds of artists use words such as language, vocabulary or conversation in writing about their work, but they use these words differently. Like other abstract artists, Masako Kamiya speaks about conversing with her material.

It’s the sincerity of this discourse that makes Kamiya unique. Spare and eloquent, her paintings are inviting—asking viewers to go beneath their rough surface to experience mark making activity for themselves. They contain none of the cold formalism found in some abstraction. Instead, Kamiya’s works are full of feeling. “I can be very emotional,” she admits. “But even within this suppressed language, I can be expressive.”

Japanese born Masako Kamiya grew up in Chiba, a suburb just south of Tokyo. As a child she loved art and enjoyed the intensity and number of art classes provided by her school. From an early age, she wanted to become a painter. After studying briefly in Canada, she came to the United States and received her BFA from the Montserrat College of Art in 1997, followed by an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1999. Soon after graduation, her work met with critical success, and has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, Art in America, and featured in two editions of New American Paintings. In 2004 she received a grant from the St. Botolph Foundation and in 2006 was recognized by the International Association of Art Critics for presenting the Best Gallery Show of an Emerging Artist in New England. She has twice received Massachusetts Cultural Council Painting Fellow Awards in 2006 and 2010, and currently lives and works in Boston. Teaching painting at the Montserrat College of Art, her alma mater, it is her goal “not to simply tell students what may make their art work better, but to demonstrate how to think and work as an artist.”

Outspoken: Masako Kamiya, 2002-2010
Danforth Museum of Art
Exhibition: March 17-May 16, 2010
Artist’s reception: Saturday, March 20, from 6-8 p.m.
Artist’s talk: March 17 at 12 noon and April 11 at 3 p.m.
Museum hours: Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 12 noon to 5 pm. Friday and Saturday 10 am to 5 pm.

A concurrent exhibit, Masako Kamiya: New Paintings, will be at Gallery NAGA, 67 Newbury Street, Boston, MA from April 3-May 1, 2010. THe opening reception is Friday, April 2 from 6-8 pm, and a gallery talk by Masako on Saturday, April 10 at 2 pm.

Image credit: Monologue, 2010, gouache/paper, 20 x 16 inches; Duet, 2010, gouache/paper, 20 x 16 inches; Primal, 2010, gouache/paper, 20 x 16 inches. All works courtesy of the artist and Gallery NAGA, Boston.

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ArSake has been thinking a lot about the economy lately and how artists navigate their current economic realities. Artist Tabitha Vevers’ monetary policy is to take this subject straight on through her painting.

Tabitha Vevers: Value Added

Artist’s Statement:
With so much talk about the ups and downs of the economy, I began to wonder if I could take matters into my own hands, adding value to US currency by painting on it. In what quickly became addictive, I began painting on singles, and eventually worked my way through twos, fives, and tens, all the way to one hundred dollar bills. In Sally Hemings, the imagined eye of Jefferson’s lover gazes out from a two-dollar bill. In the Nest Egg paintings, broken eggshells and gold leaf echo the oval shape that once framed the portraits of US statesmen. These paintings are, in a sense, collaborations with the various Treasury Secretaries, such as Hank Paulson and Larry Summers, whose signatures adorn the currency. The work raises issues about art and commerce: is a painting on a $100 bill worth more than one on a $5 bill? Is the value of an art object in the artist’s work or the paper it is painted on? Is the currency worth more or less now that it can no longer be spent?

By purchasing this work, the collector becomes part of the Value Added series itself by establishing that the value of a work of art is greater than the materials used to create it. It is my hope that viewers will encourage their congressmen to support the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, which “amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow artists to deduct the fair market value of their work, rather than just the costs of the materials, when they make charitable contributions.” http://museums-now.blogspot.com/2009/04/advocate-let-artists-get-tax-deductions.html

Eden Series + Value Added by Tabitha Vevers, as well as work by Rama Rejman and Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz is currently on display at the Art Institute of Boston Gallery at University Hall, (Lesley University/Porter Exchange Building), 1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA.
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 11 from 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: February 4 – March 6, 2010
Gallery Hours: Tues + Wed 12-5pm, Thurs 3-8pm, Fri + Sat 12-5pm

It’s All About the Hamiltons: The 2nd Artists’ Roundtable, sponsored by ARTmorpheus/BCA, will will take place on Wednesday, February 10, from 5:30 to 7:30pm in the Cyclorama, at the Boston Center for the Arts.

These free of charge roundtables provide artists with the opportunity to talk about their professional needs and exchange resources. In addition, each month features a guest presenter. Their co-sponsor for this month’s Roundtable is the Massachusetts Society of CPAs and Susan Dupuis, an income tax consultant and an attorney who will answer your recordkeeping and tax questions.

This roundtable follows their two-session Basic Finance for Artists workshop, which will conclude on Monday, Feb 8. There is no pre-requisite attendance or knowledge for attending the Roundtables. The only thing they request is that if you plan to attend on Feb 10th, please RSVP to beer@artmorpheus.org to ensure adequate seating and consider bringing an edible item to share.

It’s All About the Washingtons: If you’re interested in further honing your business finance knowledge, you may also be interested in registering for and attending Business Finance and Accounting Basics, at the Copley Square main branch of the Boston Public Library on March 23, from 6-8pm. There is no charge for this program. For more information, contact the Boston Regional Office & Minority Business Center at 617-287-7750 or register online.

Image credit: Tabitha Vevers’ VALUE ADDED: Watching II (after Hank Paulson) © 2009 oil on US currency

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Artist Zsuzsanna Szegedi is not afraid to get her hands dirty. She was the 2009 artist-in-residence at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, spending many a day outside making work in response to nature. She has an upcoming show at Framingham State College, so we here at ArtSake asked her to tell us about her work.

Trees. To me they are a reminder of human existence; Rootedness, aging, strength, posture, vulnerability, isolation and longevity to name a few. Somehow we manage to hold our complexity together – this truly fascinates me. Although my original attraction to these formations was purely visual it has evolved deeper into conceptual explorations. Lately I’m drawn to the idea of absence. This concept, in part, recently led my work to extend onto the exhibit walls on a larger scale. Applied directly to the wall, the graphite tree drawings are temporary installations emphasizing their lack of longevity.

This exhibit features paintings recently created during my artist-in-residence at the Fruitlands Museum. The large-scale graphite drawing is part of my most recent process experiments.

Roots & Branches: Paintings by Zsuzsanna Szegedi and Sculpture by Vivian Pratt features several of her new paintings including works recently created during her artist-in-residence at Fruitlands Museum along with a large-scale drawing installation.

Mazmanian Gallery at Framingham State College
The exhibit runs through February 18, 2010
Opening Reception: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 from 4:00 - 6:30 PM
Artist talk starting at 4:00 PM

Gallery hours:
M-F, 8:30 AM-5:00 PM
Mazmanian Art Gallery
D. Justin McCarthy College Center 3rd Floor
(look for the building at the church street lot)

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It’s December in New England. So put on your hat and gloves and get ready to shovel through some winter artist opportunites.

Call for Artists: Downtown Crossing Holiday Market through December 30. The Holiday Market at Downtown Crossing 2009 is a fully tented, bazaar-style, seasonal market for the public to enjoy access to artists, artisans and specialty food retailers during the busy holiday shopping season. Applications will be juried on a rolling basis as they are received. The number of artists in each media category will be limited. 28 spaces in total will be available for each week.
Deadline: December 11, 2009

Call to Photographers: The New Orleans Photo Alliance is seeking contemporary photographs that explore questions about the American Dream. The juror is Dr. Deborah Willis, chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography.
Deadline: December 14, 2009

The Writers’ Room of Boston, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides affordable, quiet, and secure workspace in downtown Boston for area writers, is now accepting applications for four fellowships for 2010. The fellowships award use of the Writers’ Room to Boston Area residents at no cost for one year. Residencies will begin in February 2010.
Deadline: Submissions due December 31, 2009.

LA GALERÍA at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in Boston’s South End and Essex Art Center in Lawrence, MA have a call to artists for their collaborative juried exhibition project Exchange, to be mounted simultaneously in each art center in the Fall of 2010. Designed to unite diverse communities of artists and audiences, Exchange encourages visual artists working in innumerable mediums to approach the concept of Exchange in just as many ways. The Call to Artists is open to artists at any stage of their career. Go here for detailed application instructions.
Deadline: March 15, 2010

Image Credit: Photograph of Stone stairs at Ward’s Pond in Jamaica Plain, MA by Leon H. Abdalian, Feb. 21, 1931. 6.5×8.5 glass negative. From the collection of the Boston Public Library.

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It’s been a while since we’ve rounded up assorted arts splendors from throughout our fair land (so there’s a lot to round up!). Here’s the latest miscellany.

Veterans Day Arts

The Way We Get By, a documentary about a devoted group of troop greeters in Bangor, Maine (featured on ArtSake) will have its PBS premiere on POV tomorrow night (Nov. 11, 2009). Check local listings to see this moving film, developed in part during a WGBH filmmakers residency.

Krzysztof Wodiczko will be In Conversation with Veterans on Wednesday, November 11 at 6:30 pm at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. The Veterans Day talk will feature the artist, veterans, and an Iraqi citizen discussing the collaborative process behind the new work …OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project. Free tickets available first-come, first-served for veterans with military ID; more ticket info here.

From elsewhere in the blogosphere
Congratulations to Small Beer Press of Easthampton, which recently won a World Fantasy Award.

Interested in using Facebook to network as a professional artist? Writer Mitali Perkins offers five what-not-to-do’s in Facebook networking, such as: don’t be too humble to create a “fan” page (’cause we all would totally fan you).

While we’re on a “five things” kick: on the Valley Poetry blog, Allegra Mira serves up five ways to get involved in your local poetry scene.

MCC artists being great
The Somerville News Writers Festival takes place this Saturday, November 14, and includes past MCC Artist Fellows Steve Almond and Richard Hoffman among a host of talented authors. A daytime bookfair and evening readings are among the happenings at the spiffily renovated Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville.

From one weapons-depository-turned-arts-venue to another… at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, past Painting Fellow Ilana Manolson will be in conversation with author Allegra Goodman in Text and Context, a free event about craft, the creative process, and the surprising links between different disciplines, on Monday, November 16, 7 PM.

World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, winner of an MCC Commonwealth Award, was among those named to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (putting him in the company of Forest Whitaker, Edward Norton, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Teresa Heinz).

Check out the Public Humanist blog of Mass Humanities, where past Film & Video Finalist Julie Mallozzi talks movingly about the relationship between a filmmaker and her subject:

My late colleague Dick Rogers used to tell students, “The true subject of all documentary is the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject.” … I think this statement speaks to the deeper truths that are recorded besides “content” when the world is converted into media. What is the power dynamic between filmmaker and subject? What are their understandings of each other’s motivations to participate? How deeply do they know each other?

Read the full post. Incidentally, Angkor Dance, the troop featured in Julie’s film Monkey Dance, has been numerously awarded by the MCC, and performs this Sunday, November 15, 3 PM at UMass Amherst, along with a screening of Julie’s film.

To read about other goings-on featuring past MCC Fellows/Finalists, check out Fellows Notes.

Images/media: promo for THE WAY WE GET on POV; video clip of Krzysztof Wodiczko talking about his work for This World & Nearer Ones, the first edition of PLOT, a new public art quadrennial, produced and presented by Creative Time.

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The above video was sent our way by artists involved with Second Nature, currently on exhibit at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.

The show, recently explored on ArtSake, features art of the natural world, by Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ‘06), Susan Lyman, Michael Mazur, and Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09).

‘ course, there’s no substitute for seeing the work in person, but this clip (shot and edited by Bill Warner) offers a lively sample of the art and artists. (I especially dig the piano music based on Nathalie’s weather patterns.)

Second Nature is on view at PAAM through November 29.

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The above image by Aimee Belanger and the three below are among the many works on display this weekend (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1) at the South Boston Open Studios. The event is free to the public, rain or shine, noon to 6pm each day. Public transportation is easy - take the Red Line to Broadway and walk east, or take the #7 City Point bus from South Station to Elkins St. Artists working in watercolors, video, fabric, and just about everything in between are showing at The Distillery, King Terminal, and Norman Crump Studio.

Did we mention how much we like open studios? They’ve got a real win-win thing going on. They’re good opportunities for artists to meet directly with art-loving folks who might be interested in purchasing their work, and they provide those same art-loving folks with a unique view of the lives of working artists.

Anyway, more work from Southie:

If you’re interested in attending/getting involved in a future open studios, we have a *full listing of Massachusetts open studios on ArtistLink.org.

Images: Work by Aimee Belenger (studio #210 W), Scott Chasse (#412 W), Dan McCole (#201B M), and Kenji Nakayama (#209 M). All artists are showing work at The Distillery this weekend.

* If we’re missing any, let us know.

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