ArtSake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Powered by Bookmarkify™

It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving. Shopping malls are abuzz. And so are the arts! (In a much different way but, still.) Here are some interesting links from around the art-o-webs.

For artists of all disciplines
Last week, the National Endowment for the Arts held the Cultural Workforce Forum, a daylong discussion of how art works as part of the real economy. An archive version of the event, with video and slideshows, is now online.

At North Shore Art Throb (which, by the way, you should read if you make, enjoy, or are in any way curious about the art scene in the North Shore region), Dinah Cardin has a thoughtful post on online arts writing and where it’s headed.

Film
The documentary film The Way We Get By, featured on our blog here, received an IFP and Fledgling Fund Grant for Outreach and Community Engagement. Up top, TWWGB!

At the Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery in Charlestown, a group of Massachusetts filmmakers will screen film & video works as part of Art Gone Green, an arts program exploring environmental issues. On Tuesday, December 1, 2009, at 6:30 PM in the A300 Lounge, there will be a screening of short films by eight filmmakers, including Kristin Alexander, Tim Geers, and Michael Sheridan. On Friday, December 4, 6:00 PM, is a screening of Talking to the Wall: The Story of an American Bargain. The film, by Western Mass. filmmaker Steve Alves, takes a critical look at the effects of chain stores on communities. Both events are free.

Writing
In the Porter Square Books blog, Cambridge author Matthew Pearl discusses why his book reading events include surprisingly little reading from his books. (And he shares details, some historical, some imagined, of Charles Dickens’s reading at the Tremont Temple in Boston).

Sadly, bidding is closed, but check out the original postcards from Grub Street’s Postcard Auction. The Boston-based writers’ service organization sent 29 blank postcards to writers and auctioned off the resulting creations. I especially like the slogan on Pagan Kennedy’s card: “Drink the Kool-Aid of your own invention. Write.”

On the Valley Poetry blog, Allegra Mira looks at seven female poets who light her way as she considers her future on poetry (one is recent MCC Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow D.M. Gordon!).

In the WomenArts blog, Northampton novelist Susan Stinson writes movingly about the ways the arts have sustained her in hard times.

Twenty-five years ago, when I was in college, my father warned me that a livelihood as an artist would be hard to come by, especially for a woman. I spent the next couple of decades throwing everything I had into making the strongest art I could, working around practical constraints – like jobs—as necessary. Now, four published books and one wandering manuscript later, during a year in which individual, national and global economies are all shaky, I’m facing the unpleasantly specific realities of being close to fifty and far from financial stability. My father was right.

He was right, but so was I.

Read the full post.

Performing arts
The Explore Boston Theatre blog features a host of voices from the theater community with its lively Proust Questionnaire. Example question/answer… Q: “Which historical figure do you most identify with?”
A: “Scheherazade and Bugs Bunny.” (from writer/performer John Kuntz).

Berkshire Creative notes that the American Airlines in-flight magazine profiles playwright Julianne Hiam as a way to highlight the creative heritage of her region: the bucolic (and artistically prolific) Berkshire Hills.

Visual arts
In the Boston Globe, there’s a great description of photographer Cary Wolinsky’s solo show Fiber of Life, at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset. MCC connections: Cary is a member of the artists collective TRIIIBE along with Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio; TRIIIBE received an Artist Fellowship in Sculpture/Installation in 2009. Also, the article is written by Robert Knox, a past finalist in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction. (For other fellows/finalists news, read our monthly Fellows Notes).

Finally, Boston Handmade opens its Downtown Gallery in Boston’s Downtown Crossing today. The gallery features handmade work of artists and artisans - a great way to de-Black Friday your artistic consciousness.

Image: Matthew Rich, WALL (2006), mdf, latex paint 25×34x1.5 in.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

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.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

On Tuesday in the US of A, the word following “President” peacefully changed hands from a monosyllabic last name to a rhyming, trisyllablic one, and thus we have transitioned from the Era of Art Made with Bush as President to the Era of Art Made with Obama as President.

So, this roundup is going to be all about the inauguration, our president, and of course, the nation of art (and to celebrate, I’ve re-posted fiber artist Adrienne Sloane’s “Inaugural Necklace and Bracelet,” above).

Speaking of the inauguration, The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research has a pictorial review of the event. (Always intriguing to see an artist’s photo-journalistic choices.)

Berkshire Creative reports on striking similarities between the inauguration and… Tanglewood.

One difference: Tanglewood is generally warmer. But it was an icy day for a classical music, so can you blame the quartet for pre-taping their performance?

At Slog (of Seattle’s The Stranger), Jen Graves delves into the tradition (since Reagan, anyway) of borrowing an esteemed painting to hang in Statuary Hall during the inaugural luncheon. (Check out Obama’s choice.)

Remember that petition advocating for a Secretary of Arts? CultureGrrl isn’t convinced a Culture Czar is what we really need. Others, like Big RED & Shiny’s Matthew Nash, are not necessarily against the idea, so long as the post would be effectively used.

The LA Times Culture Monster blog speculates that Chicago attorney Michael Dorf is the front-runner to be the new NEA head. Also at Culture Monster, Mark Swed says “we have reason to believe we have an arts president” (but he’d do well to get a bit artier).

Part two from Arlene Goldfarb’s exploration of what a new WPA for artists might mean. Great stuff! (Part one is here.)

And finally: playwright Theresa Rebeck loved loved loved everything about the inauguration… well, except for the art.

Anyway, being an artist at Obama’s inauguration is the quintessential tough act, and I do salute those musicians and writers. But I would like to take this moment to publicly endorse Art. Art is great. At its best it engages the intellect and challenges the spirit; it connects us across history and reminds us of our humanity. I think we should all just remember that, as long as we’re taking the time these days to think about fixing the planet.

And at the next inauguration maybe Steve Colbert could write the poem.

(For the record, I thought Elizabeth Alexander’s poem [c/o Poets.org had a graceful power - though I bet I’d enjoy Colbert’s inaugural artistry, too.)

Image: Adrienne Sloane, INAUGURAL NECKLACE AND BRACELET (2008)

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Not sure how closely the tongue and the cheek are aligned in this one, but in the music blog of the UK’s Guardian, Steven Wells argues that the guitar needs to go the way of the gamer: lose the strings in favor of Guitar Hero-esque buttons. “Why are they still making guitars with ‘real’ strings that are difficult and boring to learn how to play and really make your fingers hurt?” he asks. “What is the point? Do we still slaughter our own cows? Dig our own wells? Work in the turnip fields for 18 hours a day, six days a week? No. Buttons have proven themselves to be much easier and more efficient.” Predictably, there are lots of, um, dissenting opinions expressed in the comments section.

The Berkshire Creative blog quotes the New York Times, noting a neat-o bright side to the nation’s economic crumminess: sales by independent craft artists are up.

Speaking of craft artists, in the Boston Handmade blog, Nancy Rosetta shares an experience that no doubt happens all the time but doesn’t always command the spotlight: artists commissioning other artists.

Two items film & video artists should check out at the always-intriguing New England Film site: first is the announcement of an online film festival, running from September 1, 2009 through October 16, 2009, of films under 30 minutes. Look for an official call for entries to be announced this month. What’s more, Lynn Tryba shares insight she gained at a recent workshop on raising money for your film, with fundraising guru Morrie Warshawski.

At Gasp!, writer Laura Axelrod shares candid, clear-eyed testimony about how her career pursuits as a writer sank her into debt. I love this post for challenging the notion that if you don’t make risky investments (i.e. max out your credit cards) now, you’re somehow not giving yourself a vote a confidence in your eventual success as an artist.

The NewsHour Art Beat blog shares a weekly poem, American Sublime… which just so happens to be by Elizabeth Alexander, the poet commissioned to write for President-elect Obama’s inaugural ceremony.

I’ve heard/read numerous whisperings, besprent about the web and artists’ teeming brains, about whether a new Works Progress Administration (WPA) for artists could emerge under an Obama administration. In an intriguing post, Arlene Goldbarb envisions what an Obama-administration arts WPA might actually look like.

Speaking of art and gov’t: have you heard about the online petition to persuade President-elect Obama to create a Secretary of the Arts cabinet post? (The idea purportedly originated with musician Quincy Jones.) Parabasis, a theater, arts, and politics blog that approaches topics with a blend of smarts and humor, takes the idea of a federal-level arts czar a step further by asking, “Why do we need one?” and coming up with some fascinating answers.

Think for a moment about the way science is funded by the government. Science is funded by all sorts of different agencies and quasi-gov’t entities. You have the NIH, the Army Corps of Engineers, NASA, the NSF etc. and so forth. Some of it is very practical and has to do with societal needs, some of it is basic/pure scientific research. Who funds what might surprise you (did you know that the bulk of prostate cancer research is done by the army not by the NIH?).

Something similar could be done for the arts, thus freeing up the NEA and State Arts Councils to do what they were originally designed to do: fund the creation of art, be the Pure Research arm.

Read the post.

Image: Debra Weisberg (Drawing Fellow ‘08), CONSTRUCTED DRAWING #2, (2007), black and white tape on paper, 78 in x 81 in x 1 in. Debra’s work shows as part of “New Works on Paper” at OH+T Gallery, through January 31.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Sitting in our dark rooms, snowed in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Fiber artist Adrienne Sloane sent us the above image of jewelry depicted (in an unfinished form) in her recent Studio Views. It’s called the Inaugural Necklace and Bracelet (and if anyone can get them into the First Lady-elect’s hands, let us know!).

Speaking of -elects… via Modern Art Notes is the news that former Whitney and SFMOMA director David Ross has posted on Twitter ten arts policy recommendations for the new administration. Included are “1. Support and sign bill giving artists tax incentives for donating their work to museums… 2. Create a new public work program for artists and writers… 8. Consider the creation of a cabinet-level post for culture.”

Now I know it’s not a race. But the Commonwealth’s very own Ploughshares is totally number one yeah wooo hooo! when it comes to Pushcart nominations for literary journals.

At the Boston Handmade blog is an update on their storefront at Downtown Crossing. Anyone surprised to hear that the gallery of lovingly and inventively created handmade goods by local artists and artisans is, in short, hopping?

In the Mass Humanities Public Humanist blog, art historian Jack Cheng explores how “I could do that” isn’t necessarily a slam against a piece of art.

In the unlikely event that whoever stole Ariel Kotker’s hand-sculpted nail from her Northampton Center for the Arts show is also an ArtSake reader: return it, Mr/Ms. Naughty. Seriously, that was not cool. To say nothing of the time it took to create, this piece of art any work of art - deserves more respect than that.

A filmmaker who took part in the The Content + Intent Documentary Institute at MASS MoCA shares how the residency shaped her efforts to build a grassroots audience for her film. (Incidentally, the residency is a five-day workshop to help documentary filmmakers enhance the community engagement and impact of their films-in-process.The next one is in March ‘09.)

The publishers of Play: A Journal of Plays have created an online magazine to accompany it, called Device. Notably, playwright/MacArthur Genius Sarah Ruhl has contributed a series of short essays on topics like “On the Loss of Sword Fights” & “And what of gut-roiling aesthetic hatred?”

From our sibling blog, Keepers of Tradition, comes the fantastic news that the Keepers of Tradition exhibition of Massachusetts art and folk heritage at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington has been extended through June ‘09!

Via Our Daily RED: a panel has recommended Harvard University expand it’s commitment to the arts. Was Marjorie Garber’s op-ed about universities becoming society’s great patrons of the arts prophetic?

And finally, in St. Paul, MN, they’re doing a version of A Christmas Carol in Klingon (with English subtitles). “Scrooge has no honor, nor any courage. Can three ghosts help him to become the true warrior he ought to be in time to save Tiny Tim from a horrible fate?” goes the plug. I found it via playwright Adam Szymkowicz’s blog in a post titled “what we have in MN.” And I’m saying: why don’t we have this in MA? Get on it, local Klingon Assault Groups!

Image: Adrienne Sloane, INAUGURAL NECKLACE AND BRACELET (2008)

Powered by Bookmarkify™

It’s deadline day for our Artist Fellowships applications (Fri, Dec. 5). Which means: not so much time for blogging today. But interesting stuff is still happening all over the wonder-ific web-o-sphere, and here’s some of it:

Elizabeth Graver, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow from 2006 (and terrific writer and mind), gives Paper Cuts (the NY Times book blog) some tantalizing details about her next writing project.

HubArts reports on an effort to score some Berklee profs the gig to perform at President-elect Obama’s inauguration.

Innovative theater director Anne Bogart ponders how snapping cellphone pictures in art museums reveals a society that consumes, rather than engages, its art.

The Independent Film Festival of Boston announced Dec. 31 as the deadline in their call for entries for films, including narrative and documentary features, short films, animated, experimental, horror, and GLBT interest works. More info at the Filmmakers Workshop page (a resource of the Center for Independent Documentary).

New England Film explores the LEF Foundation’s recent changes in its Moving Image Fund.

Berkshire artists who want to buy homes but also want homebuyer training have the perfect confluence of their wants in these meetings at Berkshire Bank in Pittsfield. From Assets for Artists.

Congratulations to Boston poet Henri Cole, who recently received a 2009 NEA Fellowship in Poetry.

Good stuff from our fellows/finalists
Ben Berman (Poetry Fellow ‘08) has received a Pushcart Prize nomination from The Raintown Review.

Julie Mallozzi (Film & Video Finalist ‘07) has announced the launch of 60.30.1, an 11-site installation over three campuses of Harvard University. The light installation commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Julie is the project’s artistic director, and the official launch is at 5pm on Monday, December 8 outside Widener Library (Harvard Yard, Cambridge).

Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ‘07) speaks as part of an artist talk with the 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize Finalists at ICA Boston, on Sunday, December 7, 1 PM.

More Fellows Notes.

And finally: GalleyCat created and posted a video interview with Joan Wickersham (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08), conducted at the National Book Awards ceremony (her memoir The Suicide Index was a finalist for the award). It’s fascinating insight into her writing process.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Boston Handmade, a group of Boston-area artists, artisans, and craftspeople who (totally apropos of their name) handmake their stuff, have been invited to open up shop in an empty storefront in Downtown Crossing! Well done, Boston Redevelopment Authority, well done indeed.

Magnum Photos blog has advice for emerging photographers, from like a stadium-full of established photographers. (Seriously, a ton of photographers offer advice - there’s gotta be something useful in there somewhere, right?)

Not sure how I feel about the cutting up of books (even so artfully), but this site featuring book sculptures is pretty cool. Makes me think of Sherrill Hunnibell’s (Drawing Fellow ‘04) altered books (such as the one above) and Mag Harries’ (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘03) book chairs.

On his blog The Writing Life x3, Massachusetts playwright and writer Patrick Gabridge shares impressions of a recent theater symposium in Boston. “I was struck over and over again how much we all want to work together better,” he writes, positing that a theater scene could greatly benefit from more reflection on just-concluded projects, learning from the successes and mistakes of the collaborative process.

Mirror Up to Nature has a perceptive post on how the current economic climate could (let’s choose to emphasize the word could) be a rife environment for attacks on government arts funding.

Fair use and copyright issues for artists are trickier than ever, what with this age of hyper-connected doo-daddery (also known as the Internet). Gallery owner Edward Winkleman goes over some recent fair use and copyrights cases concerning artists.

The LA Times book blog Jacket Copy covers Concord, Mass. author-turned-philanthropic-publisher Stona Fitch and his decision to give away his book Give and Take with the caveat that the receiver then gives to charity (and in a whole ‘nother layer of meta, the plot of the book involves a modern Robin Hood type).

An interesting craft question posed at Practicing Writing: in historical fiction, should the words be spelled as we spell them now, or should the spelling reflect the period?

In The Art Newspaper, Roland Augustine has an opinion piece stating that artists should be able to deduct a fair market value in their taxes when they donate works of art. Currently, art collectors can, but artists can only deduct cost of materials. (Incidentally, this very change is part of President-elect Barack Obama’s arts policy, so there is reason to hope.)

Speaking of… Best American Poetry is sponsoring a contest for the best Inaugural ode.

And finally, GalleyCat covers last night’s National Book Awards ceremony. Sadly, neither Salvatore Scibona (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘06) nor Joan Wickersham (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ‘08), finalists both, walked away with shiny new awards (I’m assuming they’re shiny), but the blog quotes Salvatore’s publisher at Greywolf, Fiona McRae, as being sure that Salvatore will have many more award nights ahead of him. I still wish he and Joan had won, but, as David Mehegan says in the Globe’s Off the Shelf blog, “You’re all champs in our book.”

Incidentally, check out this video interview with Salvatore on GalleyCat (Salvatore speaks about halfway in, after Candace Bushnell and the awards director). Asked how he as an artist, already to some extent resigned to a not-rich life, reacts to the Wall Street crisis, he says that when “everybody who’s rich suddenly gets poor, we feel like we’ve come up in the world!”

See, ask an artist, and everybody wins.

Image: Sherrill Hunnibell, COMING FIRST (2001), mixed media altered book, 7 in x 9 in x 1 in

Powered by Bookmarkify™

For anyone who…

… could use some space and support for their choreographic art: Green Street Studios in Cambridge is accepting applications (due 12/12) to their Emerging Choreographers Program. The program fosters new work by giving six choreographers 40 hours of rehearsal space between Feb. and May ‘09 and by matching them with a Mentor/Choreographer. This round’s mentors are Anna Myer and Martha Mason (check out the tributes to Martha in the comments section of our post on Martha’s late, great Snappy Dance Theatre). March onward to the Green Street Studios website for more info.

… hankers for some great CNF*: Robin Hemley, the director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at University of Iowa (and a recent panelist in our Artist Fellowships Program), let us know he’s got an ongoing column in McSweeney’s Internet Tendancy, called Dispatches from Manila.

… will be in New York City this weekend: check out Jane Gillooly’s (Film & Video Fellow ‘07) stunning documentary Today the Hawk Takes One Chick at its New York premiere screening, part of the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival on November 15, 6 PM.

… lives/makes stuff in the Berkshires: you all have some great art blogs at your disposal. Both Berkshire Creative and the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center feature opportunities and news of interest for Western Mass. artists. Check ‘em out and add ‘em to your feed (and while you’re at it, see what’s doing on the MASS MoCA Blog).

… wants to beam with Massachusetts pride: Geoff Edgers reports that four Massachusetts artists have received $50,000 United States Artists fellowships Le Thi Diem Thuy of Northampton (Literature), Ann Carlson of Boston and Dianne Walker of Mattapan (Dance), and J. Meejin Yoon of Boston (Architecture and Design).

… needs some encouragement to create your literary art: write or die. What more needs be said? (It’s a web application to promote creative writing, from the lab of a diabolical sort named Dr. Wicked… when the writing stops, there are dire consequences.)

… has irrational fantasies about the new administration creating a new WPA Federal Theatre: at Extra Criticum, Rolando Teco does, too.

… wants to smile: following up on our guest post by Bren Bataclan, a Chicagoan named Susan shares her own personal experience with Bren Bataclan’s Smile Project.

Image: Still from String Beings by Snappy Dance Theatre. Premiered at the Virginia Wimberly Theater, June 2007. Images are by MIT scientist and New Media artist, Jonathan Bachrach. Photos by Allison Evans.

* What the cool kids are calling “creative nonfiction.”

Powered by Bookmarkify™