ArtSake

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

November’s got some terrific stuff: Claire Beckett’s photos on DC buildings… TRIIIBE’s ongoing installation at Boston University… Eric Henry Sanders’s new play in New York. Read on.

On the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene blog, Steve Almond is entertainingly interviewed by Cam Terwilliger, in advance of Steve’s participation in the Somerville News Writers’ Festival, November 13, 2010, at the Center for the Arts at the Armory in Somerville. (Both Steve and Cam are 2008 Fellows in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction.) Here’s a sample of Steve discussing his recent, DIY self-publishing projects: “Of course, there’s a lot of schlepping involved. And some low-level humiliation. But that’s the life of a writer anyway these days.”

Diane Arvanites-Noya and Tommy Neblett (Choreography Fellows ’08, ’04), aka Prometheus Dance, are part of Dance and back again! A 19th Birthday Faculty Concert in the Julie Ince Thompson Theatre at The Dance Complex. New and renewed pieces by Prometheus Dance, The Prometheus Elders, and numerous other groups will be performed on Saturday, November 13, 8 PM and Sunday, November 14, 7 PM.

Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07) is one of the artists included in the 2010 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50. Also, her work will be on display during FotoWeek DC in the show 100 Portraits – 100 Photographers: Selections from the FlakPhoto.com Archive, curated by Andy Adams of FlakPhoto.com. This exhibition is part of the NightGallery series of projections on display from November 6-13, 2010, with a launch party at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on Friday, November 5. The images will be projected on exteriors of significant buildings across Washington, DC, including: Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design, Newseum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Red Cross, National Museum of the American Indian, Satellite Central (M Street – Georgetown) and the Human Rights Campaign buildings.

Liza Bingham (Painting Finalist ’10) is one of the over 80 artists exhibiting work in the 34th Annual Waltham Mills Open Studios, on Saturday, November 6 (12-6 PM) and Sunday, November 7 (12-5 PM).

Martha Jane Bradford (Drawing Fellow ’85) collaborated with Chantal Harvey to produce Acquarella: The Fable, digital/virtual art on view in the Air Tree Exhibit in the Madrid Pavilion of the World Expo in Shanghai, curated by Spanish curator and virtual arts leader Cristina García-Lasuén. Martha (Alizarin Goldflake in Second Life) produced, directed, and designed most of the virtual environment, while Chantal Harvey helmed the 3-D computer animation. Watch the clip with narration in English or Chinese. Also, Martha recently constructed Second Life sets for a real life play, The Winter Bear, which premiered in Anchorage October 29, 2010. Martha’s virtual, immersive art is integrated into the show’s the stage design (watch a video trailer). Find more information about the play The Winter Bear, a story of a troubled Athabascan teenager whose video game skills come in handy against a marauding Winter Bear. The play runs at Cyrano’s Off-Center Playhouse, Anchorage AK, Oct 29 – Nov 13. Read more about the project.

Sarah Braunstein (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04) was named as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 selections, recognizing five young fiction writers chosen by National Book Award Winners and Finalists. She’ll be formally honored at a celebration at powerHouse Arena in NYC on Monday, November 15, hosted by musician and author Rosanne Cash with music journalist Rob Sheffield as DJ. Sarah’s novel The Sweet Relief of Lost Children will be published by W.W. Norton in 2011.

Congratulations to Peter Brown (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06), whose short story collection A Bright Soothing Noise is published by University of North Texas Press this month. The book won the press’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction.

Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09), aka TRIIIBE, are turning Boston University’s massive 808 Gallery space into a site-specific installation. In Search of Eden will evolve as creators and observers participate in developing a present day version of the Garden of Eden. The installation will encompass photography, sculpture, painting and daily performances by the artists.

Lorraine Chapman (Choreography Fellow ’04) and her dance company join Contrapose Dance for an afternoon of dancing and dynamic work by Gianni Di Marco, Courtney Peix, and Lorraine Chapman. The event is on Sunday, November 14, 2:30 PM, Green Street Studios in Cambridge, MA. Among the works by Lorraine Chapman, The Company are “Pulp Tango,” the gold section from “Displaced Here Persons There,” and a new solo danced by Lorraine Chapman.

Regie Gibson (Poetry Fellow ’10) will emcee the literary feast A Taste of Grub, a November 5 fundraiser for Grub Street, a writers’ service organization based in Boston. Regie has plenty of experience behind a microphone; he’s a former Poetry Slam National Champion.

Jane Gillooly (Film & Video Fellow ’07) will be a guest at EventWorks SIM (Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design) on Thursday, November 4, 2010, at 7:30 PM when her documentary Today the Hawk Takes One Chick has a free screening.

Cathy Jacobowitz‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’10) short story “You Made Me Leave My Happy Home” (drawn from her novel Melly Mockingbird) will be published in the Santa Monica Review spring or fall of 2011.

Congratulations to Liza Johnson (Film & Video Finalist ’07), who won the prestigious Rappaport Prize from the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. The prize is a $25,000 award to an individual artist, “an investment in both an individual and the broader community.”

Dawn Lane (Choreography Fellow ’10) was recently invited by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival to a Creative Development Residency to develop a new work, one potato, two potato. The work uses aspects of Irish culture and history as a metaphor for exploring excess, loss & insufficiency. Joined by dancers Lorimer Burns, Jane Goodrich, Susannah Millonzi and Leslie Nelson, Dawn spent a productive week in October in the Doris Duke Theatre that culminated in an informal showing of the work in progress on October 15.

Scott Listfield (Painting Finalist ’10) was selected as the creator of this year’s First Night Boston button. The design will be unveiled this month.

Tara L. Masih‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’96) story collection, Where the Dog Star Never Glows, was announced as a finalist in the USA Book News Best Books 2010 Awards, short story category. Read Tara discussing Three Stages in the book’s development on ArtSake.

Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) was selected for inclusion in the 2010 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50.

Rachel Mello (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo exhibition on paintings, prints, and collages at Club Passim in Cambridge. The exhibition runs November 15, 2010-January 3, 2011. Additionally, she has two pieces in the Nave Gallery’s Our Town exhibit, featuring works of and about Somerville, MA. Opening November 18, Rachel’s work will be included in Plenty at 13FOREST in Arlington. It’s the annual small works holiday show (gift ideas, anyone?).

Eric Henry Sanders’s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) play Reservoir will have its world premiere at The Drilling CompaNY Theatre in New York, running November 4 -24th, 2010. An earlier draft of the play helped Eric win an MCC fellowship, and you can read about its development (as well as hear an excerpt performed by Company One) on ArtSake.

Leslie Sills (Crafts Fellow ’95) created a sculptural teapot, called High Tea, that is among the works included in The Teapot Redefined. The exhibition of sculptural teapots ran at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge through Oct. 31. High Tea was inspired by Leslie’s artist residency this past summer at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, which borders a sheep farm in Newcastle, Maine.

Ron Spalletta (Poetry Finalist ’10) had a poem featured in Slate this summer, selected by poetry editor Robert Pinsky (hear Ron reading “Blank Villanelle”). Also, check out a great article about Ron in the Harvard Gazette, highlighting his dual careers as an award-winning poet and a Harvard Medical School manager.

Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) has a solo photographic exhibition, Lost in My Life, at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York. The work is a series of photographs in which the artist herself is immersed in an environment of flattened cereal boxes, bread tags, twist ties, and other miscellaneous leftovers of modern consumption. Lost in My Life runs November 4-December 23, 2010, with an opening reception November 4, 6-8 PM.

Leslie Williams‘s (Poetry Fellow ’10) new poetry collection Success of the Seed Plants has been published by Bellday Books. The book won the 2010 Bellday Books Prize.

Kevin Young (Poetry Fellow ’10) has poetry featured in the Best American Poetry 2010 anthology.

Jeff Zimbalist’s (Film & Video Fellow ’05) documentary The Two Escobars is being released in San Francisco this month, is currently running in New York, and will have an LA release next week. The film recently received a glowing review by The Onion’s AV Club (and those discerning hipsters are tough to impress!). The highly lauded documentary will be released on DVD Blu Ray this month.

Past Fellows Notes
Oct. 2010
Sept. 2010
Aug. 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
Apr. 2010
Mar. 2010
Feb. 2010
Jan. 2010

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

Images: poster for RESERVOIR by Eric Henry Sanders, produced by The Drilling CompaNY; still from a trailer for THE WINTER BEAR, with virtual environments designed by Martha Jane Bradford; still from THE TRAVELERS CABARET by Lorraine Chapman; Scott Listfield, GRAND CANYON (2008), Oil on canvas, 24×48 in; Rachel Perry Welty, LOST IN MY LIFE (BOXES) (2010), Pigment Print, represented by Yancy Richardson Gallery.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

This post is a pictorial tour of some of the exceptional stuff past fellows/finalists from MCC’s Artist Fellowships Program are currently up to.

1. Reimagined tea pots. Leslie Sills (Crafts Fellow ’95) created the above work, called HIGH TEA. The sculptural teapot is among the works included in The Teapot Redefined, an exhibition of sculptural teapots at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge (through Oct. 31). The work was inspired by Leslie’s artist residency this past summer at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, which borders a sheep farm in Newcastle, Maine.

2. National film releases. Jeff Zimbalist’s (Film & Video Fellow ’05) documentary The Two Escobars is being released in San Francisco this month, is currently running in New York, and will have an LA release next week. The film recently received a glowing review by The Onion’s AV Club (and those discerning hipsters are tough to impress!).

3. Chinese World Expos. Martha Jane Bradford (Drawing Fellow ’85) collaborated with Chantal Harvey to produce Acquarella: The Fable, digital/virtual art on view in the Air Tree Exhibit in the Madrid Pavilion of the World Expo in Shanghai, curated by Spanish curator and virtual arts leader Cristina García-Lasuén. Martha (Alizarin Goldflake in Second Life) produced, directed, and designed most of the virtual environment, while Chantal Harvey helmed the 3-D computer animation. Watch the clip with narration in English or Chinese.

4. Literary/culinary benefit events. Former Poetry Slam National Champion Regie Gibson (Poetry Fellow ’10) will emcee the literary feast A Taste of Grub, a November 5 fundraiser for Grub Street, a writers’ service organization based in Boston.

5. Edens-in-progress. TRIIIBE (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09), the artists collective of Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio and photographer Cary Wolinsky, is turning Boston University’s massive 808 Gallery space into a site-specific installation. In Search of Eden will evolve as creators and observers participate in developing a present day version of the Garden of Eden. If you’re in search of art that’s visually arresting, socially engaged, and possessed of a truly unique vision, then traveler, I think I know where to find your paradise.

6. Collaborative, two-part installations. Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) and Linda Price-Sneddon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’01) have created a multi-media installation showing at two different art venues. Part one of That Which Changes That Which Stays the Same shows at the Villa Victoria in Boston through November 3, 2010. Part two shows at the Essex Art Center in Lawrence through December 8, with an Artists’ Talk Wednesday, November 17, 7-8 PM. The artists’ collaboration is itself the result of a collaboration (woah, meta) between Villa Victoria and Essex Art Center, called Exchange.

For more exceptional stuff, check out Fellows Notes.

Images: Leslie Sills, HIGH TEA (front and side view), ceramic; still from THE TWO ESCOBARS by Jeff and Michael Zimbalist; still from ACQUARELLA by Martha Jane Bradford and Chantal Harvey; Regie Gibson; promotional image for A Taste of Grub; TRIIIBE, FINE; installation view of THAT WHICH CHANGES THAT WHICH STAYS THE SAME by Liz Nofziger and Linda Price-Sneddon.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Perhaps you’ve heard of TED, that confluence of creative super-brains in technology, entertainment, and design? TED Talks at the annual conference have included “ideas worth spreading” from Steven Hawking and Al Gore as well as local innovators Tod Machover and Dan Ellsey from the groundbreaking Hyperscore music project (watch the video above) and Boston Philharmonic Conductor Benjamin Zander. TED has collected those talks in an online catalog – a kind of embeddable Bible for the “groundbreaking genius” sect.

And, just as the Biblical Shem begot Arphaxad, so has TED begot something with an “x” in its name. Coincidence? Yes, I think it is, probably. But the point is, TED led to TEDx.

What’s TEDx? It’s local communities designing and organizing their own independent, TED-like events. And the next TEDx event is about to happen in Boston.

TEDxBoston takes place Thursday, July 29, 2010, 10 AM to 6 PM. Among the events speakers are arts and technology writer Scott Kirsner, designer and Poe story illustrator Eric Mongeon, dance crew Static Noyze, Artists for Humanity founder/director Susan Rodgerson, percussionist Marcus Santos, Boston Latin School senior and erhu player Muhan Zhang, and Sapir Ng, the architect behind the fascinating Tremont Underground Theatre Space concept.

Read about all the 2010 speakers and the pre-conference events. Then go invent something radical, like an ice cream-making hat powered by brainwaves!

Powered by Bookmarkify™

June 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Powered by Bookmarkify™

If you are in the Worcester area this weekend, be sure to check out the exhibition Alchemy: Art + Science which runs through Sunday, April 11th at Clark University’s Schiltkamp Gallery. The artists and scientists involved in this exhibition have created some pretty far out work. Here’s a tasty sampling of some of what you can see: optical illusions, kinetic sculptures, mathematical diagrams of sacred geometries, symbiosis between science and warfare, and MORE.

Artists and scientists in the show:
Grace DeGennaro, ME
Gary Duehr, Somerville, MA
Phyllis Ewen, Somerville, MA
Audrey Goldstein, Newton, MA
Gregory Gomez, Newton, MA
David Hibbett, Worcester, MA
Ayumi Ishii, Central Falls, RI
Oren Kalus, New Paltz, NY
David Lang, Wayland, MA
Jennifer Langhammer, Vineyard Haven, MA
Rachel Loischild, Worcester, MA
Anna Mazzarella, Worcester, MA
Soi Shin, Cambridge, MA
Fletcher Smith, Easthampton, MA
Rhonda Smith, Boston, MA
Naoe Suzuki, Waltham, MA
Marilu Swett, Boston, MA
Rachael Wren, Brooklyn, NY

Clark University, Schiltkamp Gallery/Traina Center for the Arts
92 Downing Street, Worcester, MA
Exhibition runs through April 11, 2010
Gallery Hours: Friday 9-5, Saturday 12-5, Sunday 12-9
Questions: Elli Crocker, Associate Professor and Gallery Director at 508-793-8818

Image credit: Rhonda Smith, Fractal Pile-up, pencil on paper, 14″ X 5”. Fractal Pile-up is a confluence in imagery of thoughts on water movement and its endless fractal iterations. Go here to learn what a fractal is.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

April 2010

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

Three MCC Fellows/Finalists are featured in an exhibition of Artadia Boston’s recent awardees at the Mills Gallery in the Boston Center for the Arts. Work by Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07), Ambreen Butt (Drawing Finalist ’10), and Eric Gottesman (Photography Fellow ’09), along with that of Caleb Cole, Raúl González, Amie Siegel and Joe Zane, will be on exhibit through April 25, 2010.

Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) visits the Brattle Theatre (hosted by Harvard Bookstore) on Friday, April 16 for a musical celebration of his new book, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, an ode/confessional for the musical superfan in all of us.

Congratulations to S. Bear Bergman (Playwriting Fellow ’05). Bear’s essay collection The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You is a finalist for a 2010 Lambda Literary Award.

David Binder’s (Photography Fellow ’01) documentary Calling My Children is screening at the Sacramento International Film Festival on April 19. The film recently screened at the Bermuda International Film Festival on March 24.

Martha Jane Bradford (Drawing Fellow ’85) is creating an exciting educational exhibit for the Cahners ComputerPlace at the Museum of Science, Boston, on digital and virtual art. The exhibit, an immersive installation with sound and video projections that emulate the environments Martha creates in Second Life, will further visitors’ understanding of digital images and of making virtual art. You can find more information, as well as a video tour of Martha’s Second Life creations, on her blog. Incidentally, the Museum is currently accepting applications for a Technical Designer Internship for this exhibit.

Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky, aka TRIIIBE (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09) will have a solo show at Gallery Kayafas in Boston, April 15-May 29, 2010. Dates to know: Saturday, April 17, opening reception, 6-9 PM; Friday, April 30, Crime Night, 6-9 PM; First Friday, May 7, Multiples Night (for look-alikes and like-a-looking), 6-9 PM; Friday, May 28, Last Chance!, 6-9 PM.

Michael Downing (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’08) wrote an essay for Huffington Post about his experience as an “embedded reporter” in the healthcare debate.

Kurt Cole Eidsvig (Poetry Fellow ’04) is taking part in x/o: a visual/sound/spoke word installation on Saturday, April 24, 7 PM, at the Fort Point Theatre Channel, Fort Point, Boston. The free event, created by Kurt, Martin Cockroft, and Brendan Murray uses art, sound, poetry, and projected imagery for a 90-minute performance on opposites, building blocks, and the relationships between things. The event will include the premiere of X-and-O.com, an Internet installation created by Eidsvig, Murray, and Claude Keswani.

Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ’06) will have a solo exhibition of watercolors and works on paper, called Floralies, at Gurari Collections in Boston. The exhibition continues Vico’s exploration of the precariousness of the natural world through invented botanicals. The exhibition runs April 2 through May 2, 2010, with an opening reception April 2, 6-9 PM.

Ralf Yusuf Gawlick (Music Composition Fellow ’09) will premiere Kinderkreuzzug, his dramatic cantata for children’s voices and small chamber ensemble, on Saturday, April 10, 7:30 PM, at St. Ignatius, Chestnut Hill and again on Sunday, April 11, 3 PM Trinity Episcopal, Concord. The cantata, which takes as its source material Bertolt Brecht’s extraordinary and grim anti-war poetry, will be performed by two New England choirs and a German boys choir sponsored to fly to the region specifically for this piece. The choirs will record the cantata for the label Musica Omnia. Read more about Ralf and Kinderkreuzzug in an ArtSake profile.

Congratulations to D.M. Gordon (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08), who won first place the Glimmer Train Short Story for New Writers Prize!

Liza Johnson (Film & Video Finalist ’03, ’07) has won a Cinereach Grant for her film Return, which follows a female soldier home from a tour of duty.

Masako Kamiya (Painting Fellow ’06, ’10) has a solo show at Gallery NAGA in Boston: “Masako Kamiya: New Work 2009-2010,” running April 3-May 1, with an artist reception on April 2 (6-8 PM) and an artist talk on April 10, 2 PM. The show is presented in conjunction with the mid-career retrospective of Masako’s work at the Danforth Museum of Art, Masako Kamiya Outspoken: 2002-2010, through May 16.

Yanick Lapuh (Painting Fellow ’10) is among the local artists whose work will light up a gallery at the Boston Children’s Museum with “their yellowy best.” The Yellow Show will run April 22-June 20, 2010.

Melinda Lopez’s (Playwriting Fellow ’03) play From Orchids to Octopi: an Evolutionary Love Story runs at Central Square Theatre through May 2, 2010. The play was commissioned by the National Institutes of Health to celebrate the 150th anniversary of “On the Origin of Species.” From Orchids to Octopi is a project of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT – Underground Railway Theater’s science theater initiative with MIT. Read an interview with Melinda on ArtSake.

Julie Mallozzi (Film & Video Finalist ’07) wrote a fascinating essay on The Public Humanist, a blog of Mass Humanities, about her documentary-in-progress Lalita.

It won’t be your average artist talk when Jane D. Marsching (Photography Finalist ’03) presents 7 Stories & a Dance: Feeling Data at Upgrade! Boston on April 6, 7-9 PM, at MIT-ACT. Jane will “weave together an evening of storytelling, dancing, and conversation as part of her talk about recent projects that seek to translate abstract climate data and depressing climate news into sensory experiences.”

Anne Neely (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo show of paintings called Waterlines at the Danforth Museum in Framingham. The show runs through May 16. Anne will give an artist talk on May 9 at 3 PM.

Mary O’Malley (Drawing Fellow ’06) has a solo show, called Super Natural, at Sam Lee Gallery in LA, through May 13.

Jim Peters (Painting Fellow ’08) is among the artists in an artSTRAND exhibition at Fort Point’s FP3 Gallery. Jim Peters’ mixed media piece of oil on canvas, photo and glass, “Blue Bath,” is part of a new series of works done in Paris and Provincetown and is inspired by French poetry and fiction. The show runs through April 30.

Monica Raymond (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) will be participating in the Cambridge Poetry Festival in Jill Rhone Park (Lafayette Square, Cambridge, corner of Main and Columbia). The festival runs 12-5 PM on Sunday, April 18.

Evelyn Rydz (Drawing Fellow ’10) was featured on the website Artist a Day.

Vaughn Sills (Photography Fellow ’09) is among the artists in Shoot’n Southern: Women Photographers, Past and Present, at Mobile Museum of Art April 30 – July 18, 2010. The show will feature photographs from Vaughan’s series “Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens.”

Peter Snoad (Playwriting Fellow ’09) has two short plays, The Greening of Bridget Kelly and My Name is Art, in the “American Bytes” series by Liminal Space Productions at the New Wimbledon Studio in Wimbledon, London, UK. There will be four performances the week of April 5, 2010. My Name is Art will also be produced by Edgemar Theater Group in Santa Monica, CA April 23-May 16 as part of their “Acts on the Edge” series. And two of Peter’s other short plays are being staged this month: Apple Pie by the Boca Raton Theatre Guild in Boca Raton, FL April 23-25; and Resistance by Actors’ Refuge Repertory Theatre in Boston April 23-24.

Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz (Drawing Finalist ’06) was recently featured in The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College’s Five from Around exhibition.

Jeff Warmouth’s (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’05) solo exhibition, Food Court, was recently featured at UMASS Lowell’s University Gallery (closing April 2, 2010). The show consisted of three video installations — two of them interactive food stands that battle for your media-starved attention: JeffuBurger and the brand new Il Jeffuria Pizza. For a sense of what a JeffuBurger entails, visit Jeff’s website.

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

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

Image: TRIIIBE, PAINT BY NUMBERS, 50×42 in; images from FLORALIES by Vico Fabbris; Anne Neely, SURPRISE (2009) Oil on linen, 45×60 in (photo by Clements/Howcroft).

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Here’s an interesting and informative article about creating a work-in-progress webcast. The piece is written by Jaki Levy, a New Media Consultant and Founder of Arrow Root Media. Be sure to check out the webcasts he has created with Misnomer Dance Theater.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Listen up artists and arts & cultural organizations: help may be on the way. From redesigning a website to setting up a wireless network, tech-savvy volunteers are waiting to lend a helping hand. Idealist and Mozilla will be hosting Mozilla Service Week, September 14 – 21, to pair thousands of volunteers with nonprofit organizations that need some tech help.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

The environment for media arts makers is, to put it mildly, in a state of change. So many ideas are in play, so many words abuzz – sustainability, monetization, community-building, to name a few – that this month’s NAMAC (the National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture) biennial conference at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel (April 26-29) couldn’t come at a better time. It’s a chance for media arts groups, artists, and creative thinkers to share ideas and make connections. (Learn about it, register, and/or see a full schedule, here. Online registration ends Friday, Aug. 21.)

Organizers of the conference (called CommonWealth) are looking for volunteers to help keep its many gears in motion. By working ten hours, volunteers will get free registration to the entire conference. From conference assistant Mira Simon: “We will need volunteers starting on August 26 (Wednesday) and ending on August 29 (Saturday). Any interested individuals can contact me with a resume and a list of times that they will not want to volunteer.”

If you’re interested, be specific about times you can’t volunteer; organizers will assume you’re available anytime you don’t specify.

And if you do volunteer and/or participate in the conference, let us know your impressions!

Powered by Bookmarkify™