ArtSake

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™

There’s a free, two-day artist professional development event at the Boston Public Library this weekend, called the Second Annual Massachusetts Artists Leadership & Entrepreneurship Conference. It’s open to artists of all disciplines. Here’s a link to this year’s schedule. It’s also a great opportunity to meet fellow artists and explore the art and architecture of the incomparable BPL – the first U.S. public library to lend books!

Speaking of art career development, the fascinating Mission Paradox arts marketing blog offers this intriguing bit of straight talk: when you decide to be an artist making a living wage, youre no longer just an artist you might be a fundraiser, marketer, and/or networker, too.

As a follow-up to our Obama and the arts post: Filmmaker Magazine blog shares producer Noah Harlan’s interesting supposition: something called section 181 from the bailout package (Editor’s note: Noah shares some more information about Section 181 in the Comments section) coupled with Obama’s plan to increase the capital gains rate for large investors has the potential to create a much more favorable climate for investing in independent film.

While we’re on tax plans: The Chronicle of Philanthropy posits that Obama’s plan to increase taxes on the wealthy could encourage more charitable donations. And taking that one step further, possibly more charitable donations to the arts…

Have you made a great film and need to get it seen? Perhaps what you need is a big box of film festival secrets. (Or, well, a website of them. And a book. Which you can read via the website.)

Technology in the Arts wants to remind you the wide-ranging potential Creative Commons licenses offer to artists.

A couple of recent interviews with Massachusetts artists in reputable rags: Needham artist Rachel Perry Welty (Drawing/Printmaking/Artist Books Fellow ’04) is profiled in the Boston Globe; Belmont novelist Leah Hager Cohen answers some stray questions from the New York Times book blog.

Bloomberg covers an ongoing and spirited discussion of whether women playwrights are getting their due portion of major productions. (In case you’re as late to this dialogue as I am, it all started with this provocative editorial by Theresa Rebeck.)

Image: Rachel Perry Welty, Detail of PRODUCT, a site-specific sculptural installation, J & J Global Design Headquarters, Chelsea, NY (2007 – ongoing), Laserprints and adhesive, 108 x 216 x 2 inches. Rachel’s work is on exhibit at the Lehman Art Center in North Andover, November 14-January 24.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

An handful of past MCC fellows/finalists recently got some nice (and free) publicity: Globe art critic Cate McQuaid had very good things to say about Sally Moore’s (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’07) exhibition Edge and Jane Marsching (Photography Finalist ’03), Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03), and Tanit Sakakini’s exhibition Figment’s Imagination.

Greg Cook pointed out this Chicago Tribune story of a local artist abroad. Boston’s Bren Bataclan spent October in the City of the Big Shoulders to trade paintings for the pledge that the recipient will “smile at strangers more often.” (The Trib, clearly an anti-smile establishment, punished him by calling him “Bret.”)

Speaking of giving away your work for free, literary agent Nathan Bransford asks: does it pay?

And does it pay for a city in revival to offer artist space for free? Fall River is about to test the theory. Artists can apply to take over empty storefronts, rent-free (they do pay utilities), in return for staying open to the public at designated times. The Herald News has the story.

As we approach election day, CultureGrrl makes a heartfelt plea to the next administration: end this long national nightmare and revive of National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowships for all disciplines!

Speaking of NEA, it’s rolling out a new program to support new plays, and the first group of selections and finalists have been announced. Congrats to Massachusetts artists Lydia Diamond and Anne Gottlieb – both created works named as finalists.

The literary blog The Millions probes how a settlement between Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers could pave the way for major changes in book publishing. Most notably, out-of-print or impossible-to-find literature could be made available in digital versions or through print-on-demand technology.

Anyone out there know a William Young, formerly (and maybe still?) of Winchester? Authorities are trying to find him: they’ve found the George Benjamin Luks painting somebody pinched from him 37 years ago!

At HubArts, Joel Brown explores how an abandoned state mental hospital in Danvers has inspired hyperbolically creepy pastels by a Massachusetts artist.

Artists in the Berkshires can pick up marketing and business strategies in small business seminar for artists in Pittsfield.

Image: Jane Marsching, MCCALL GLACIER (2006), large-scale lightjet print. Jane’s digital prints are exhibited in Figments Imagination at Miller Block Gallery, through December 12.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

At Kino-Eye are nifty photos from the Berwick Research Institute’s recent Artist Encampment on Bumpkin Island. Ten groups of artists embarked to the Boston Harbor island with only the art supplies on their backs to “homestead” and adapt their creative ideas over five days. Berwick’s website called the project “part residency, part survivalist experiment, and fully impressionable, malleable, speculative and reflective.”

Recently, the Mellon Foundation announced it has awarded $10 million in organizational grants to support new plays. I’m amused by Culture Monster’s take on the announcement: “(With) state arts budgets being slashed as though they were screaming victims in a horror movie, every donated dollar helps.” Alas, no Massachusetts institutions were granted, but Massachusetts playwrights have been supported by some of the funded orgs recently, Sundance Institute named Kirsten Greenidge a Time Warner Storytelling Fellow, the Playwrights Center is currently hosting Monica Raymond as one of its Jerome Fellows, and Steppenwolf Theater Company produced Melinda Lopez’s play Sonya Flew in the 2006/07 season.

The theater world being an opinionated sort of place, it shouldn’t surprise you that not everyone was thrilled by Mellon’s move.

It appears that the worlds of Massachusetts photographer Sage Sohier are nearly perfect in the eyes of the We Can’t Paint photography blog.

Sly as ever, Alex Ross riffs on the intersection between contemporary composers and presidential politics, at The Rest Is Noise. (Don’t miss the YouTube clip; strictly on aesthetic, nonpartisan terms, the original jazz score accompanying Sarah Palin’s interview is too brilliant to miss.) Speaking of politics, the Globe’s Off the Shelf book blog shares how three publishers (including two from Massachusetts) are getting directly involved in campaign donations.

Good job, The Healing Arts: New Pathways to Health! The 2006 documentary was honored with a “Best of the Festival” award from the Focus Film Festival. And also, good job to director Benjamin Mayer, and also to Vermont Arts Exchange, who produced. Oh, and good job to us (MCC). Cuz we co-produced. So, an inclusive good job.

Rejoicing in fifth anniversary-hood, Chicks Make Flicks screens The Axe in the Attic, which takes documentary filmmakers Lucia Small and Ed Pincus on a 60-day road trip from New England to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thursday, October 30, 7 PM at MIT (77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge Room 6-120).

Exploring the indie film experience a little further… a California cinematographer discusses creative shooting and lighting decisions for an ultra-cheap indie shoot. (Props to the Filmmaker Magazine blog for linking to this first.)

Any arts administrators out there? Andrew Taylor has composed your theme song.

The old writing workshop chestnut “that’s dated” fails to hold up under poet and editor Elisa Gabbert’s scrutiny, at the Ploughshares blog.

(Did you catch the acrostic? Yipeee!!)

Image: Andrew Neumann, HAL (VERTICAL CONVERSATION) (2001), wood, motor, micro-processor, camera, LCD screen, 36 in x 12 in x 8 in. Andrew, a 2003 Sculpture/Installation finalist, exhibits kinetic sculptures in “The Last Picture Show” at AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media in Boston, October 24-December 13. Opening reception Friday, October 24, 6 PM, artist talk Saturday, December 13, 3:30 PM.

Powered by Bookmarkify™