ArtSake

At ecoTheater, a fascinating blog about environmentally sustainable approaches to theater, Mike Lawler worries about the carbon footprint of traveling throughout the country to work with different theater companies. He introduces the quagmire in a discussion with an often-traveling sound designer and continues the conversation here and here.

At the Public Humanist, blog of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, filmmaker Larry Hott discusses how the goals of funders can affect what documentaries get made.

Our sibling blog Keepers of Tradition calls our attention to Club Passim’s Iguana Fund, a professional and artistic development opportunity for musicians.

Want to tick off writer Erika Dreifus in a writing workshop? Do this.

At Soho the Dog, Boston composer, pianist, and conductor Matthew Guerrieri points out that the craters of the planet Mercury share names with great artists in history, including composers.

As a post-post-script to our Alternative Deliveries ramble and its post-ramble, here a couple of the discussions about presenting your own work that are flaring up around the web-o-sphere.

• Playwright Gary Garrison encourages playwrights to produce their own work
• Reb Livingston hilariously, irreverently writes about adventures in DIY poetry, such as publishing your own poetry book for $500 and how she made all her publishing dreams came true with her first collaborative chapbook and anthology
• Scott Kirsner argues that creative forms of distribution – including making the film available on your own website – should go hand in hand with its participation in film festivals

Image: Rob Dobson, BASKET #143 (2004), Salvaged materials, 13 in. x 15 3/4 in. x 15 in.

Art critic Sebastian Smee had a warm review of Keepers of Tradition: Art and Folk Heritage in Massachusetts, in Friday’s Boston Globe. The show is curated by state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg and runs at the National Heritage Museum through February 8, 2009.

From the review:

The show begins… with a dazzling costume from Boston’s Caribbean Carnival made by Tamara Shillingford. The festival, held at the end of August, is rooted in Mardi Gras and, according to band leader Errol A. Phillip, the kind of celebrations that took place “when slavery was abolished. You’re giving praise for freedom.”
…
In a similar vein - but emerging from a completely different tradition - the show includes three tin men made by retired sheet-metal workers William Walsh, Glenn Walker, Daniel Hardy, and Richard Clarke. Tin men appear in another local festival with deep roots, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and they are traditionally a way for metal workers to advertise the products of their trade, recruit apprentices, and display union pride. The three here were made especially for this show. “We are the only trade that takes a flat metal stock from the mill and rolls it, forms it and fabricates it,” says Walsh.
…
(The exhibit is) one part of a much bigger project, which includes Holtzberg’s great catalog essay (it explains the stories behind the various objects in some depth) and, beyond both the show and the catalog, a great deal of valuable documentation, which can only help in the attempt to keep these traditions alive and the effects of too much TV at bay.

Read the full review.

Image: Tin Men, Metalwork, occupational tradition (2007), Sheet Metal Workers International Assn., Boston, Massachusetts, Copper, galvanized iron, stainless steel, 63 3/4 x 28 3/4 x 17 in. each. Courtesy of Sheet Metal Workers Local 17. Photography by Jason Dowdle.

It’s true. They have feelings. Often of the colorful and interesting variety. Here are a few that are circulating the computer tubes.

What can I, the individual artist, do to improve my discipline (and world, such as it is)? At Parabasis, Isaac Butler ardently argues that Personal Virtue (a concept usually discussed in reference to global warming) can and should apply to individual artists. Butler talks about theater artists, specifically, but I think his conclusions are universal to all disciplines: be a better artist and an engaged advocate.

At Extra Criticum, a blog of commentary on the performing arts by “those who do” (as they put it), Rolando Teco has some colorful feelings about “bottom-feeders” - groups that trick eager artists into dropping cash for supposed career advancements.

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker writes about fears that the boom in art fairs could threaten the future of art galleries as we know them.

Writer, professor, and arts enthusiast Jill Dolan passionately implores that university programs stoke, rather than dissipate, the excitement of being a “theater geek.”

Keepers of Tradition (blog of the state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg), shares one man’s heartfelt devotion to the traditional art of letterpress printing. Don’t miss the terrific video clip by builder, designer, and all-around maker-of-things Chuck Kraemer.

Feel like selling some art but don’t feel like making any? You could just stick some price tags to some things.

Image: Cynthia Consentino, SELF-PORTRAIT WITH GUN (2005), earthenware clay, oils, wax, 37 in. x 15 1/2 in. x 22 in.

Here’s a new blog to add to your feed: Keepers of Tradition.

It’s a blog about traditional arts in Massachusetts by state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg, and I vigorously and with lots of enthusiastic verbal flourishes recommend you make a habit of reading it. (And not only because Maggie sits catty-corner from me at the Massachusetts Cultural Council offices.)

It’s part celebration of traditional arts in Massachusetts and part web journal of Maggie’s truly fascinating work as state folklorist. Maggie travels throughout the state chronicling and archiving folk art traditions passed on and sustained by our individual artists and communities. (Some of you may already know about the current exhibition that work produced: Keepers of Tradition: Art and Folk Heritage in Massachusetts, at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington through February 8, 2009.) The blog shares more of that fieldwork, such as the post below, an exploration of Boston’s Caribbean Carnival – which starts today!

Caribbean Kings and Queens in Dorchester

This Thursday, August 21, marks the opening of Boston’s Caribbean Carnival - a Trinidadian style extravaganza now in its 35th year. I attended this annual festival for the first time in 2003. Four years later I was offered a prime seat in the judges’ viewing station, where I shot this photo of Shirley Shillingford. She is a member of the Trinidad and Tobago Social Club, which is one of 9 area mas (masquerading) bands that compete each year.

A succession of bands march their way down a 21-block parade route, ending up at Franklin Park. The King and Queen costumes are spectacular and they are followed by sections of exuberant dancing masqueraders. Be prepared for loud calypso music, the smell of jerk chicken, and vendors selling trinkets from Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, and a number of other West Indies islands. Many in the Caribbean cultural community live for carnival. More than 600,00 people attend carnival, though most Bostonians have no idea this event takes place each year. Art critic Greg Cook previewed the event in the Boston Phoenix last week. It would be nice to have additional press coverage for a change.

Images: Shirley Shillingford wearing Fruit Cocktail, 2007, photo by Maggie Holtzberg; Soca and Associates band members, 2007, photo by Maggie Holtzberg.

At 88,  Jeanne Fallier’s nimble fingers and talented eyes have produced hundreds of magnificent hooked rugs and soft sculptures.

See what The Lowell Sun has to say about her work.

Photo of Jeanne Fallier and beaver rug by Maggie Holtzberg.
Photo of hooked turkey by Jason Dowdle

The 2008 Artist Fellowships in Choreography, Drawing, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, Painting, Poetry, and Traditional Arts have been announced.

MCC’s Artist Fellowships are anonymously judged and provide unrestricted grants (currently $7,500) to individual artists in recognition of artistic excellece. The program, which has existed in this state, in one form or another, since 1974, had more applications this cycle than in any other year this decade.

Here’s a full list of this year’s fellows/finalists and panelists. You can see examples of their work at the Gallery at MCC.

Image: Sandra Cohen’s “Kathleen Told Everyone How She Was Saved” (detail), acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 24,” 2007

What happens when you combine a copper cow weathervane, a Wampanoag twined basket, a Vejigante en Estilo de Ponce (Puerto Rican Carnival Figure), and a piece of Armenian needle lace?

If you answer a Buchel installation, you’re wrong. It’s a magnificent exhibition of living traditions that are hidden from the mainstream.

To see for yourself, check out the free exhibition of Folk Art at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington. To see what awaits you in Lexington, check out the work online.

Greg Cook has a terrific review of the show in The Boston Phoenix. For more info you can read about it Yankee Magazine, Art Blog Comments, listen to Massachusetts Art on WBUR radio, or watch the Greater Boston segment with our very own state folklorist, Maggie Holtzberg.

And since Folklore fieldwork is an ongoing process of discovery, if you know of an ethnic, musical, craft or dance tradition in Massachusetts that Maggie may not be aware of, she hopes you will let her know.

Marian Ives , Weather Vane, Metalwork, 2007, 53 x 39 ¾ x 15 ½ in., Collection of the Artist. Photo by Jason Dowdle.

Almas Boghosian making needle lace, 2001. Photo by Kathleen Condon.

Julia Marden , Quiver, 2005 and Food Storage Basket, 1998, Wampanoag twined basketry, Natural linen twine, Quiver: 3 1/2 in. diam. x 22 1/2 in. Basket: 11 x 7 1/2 diam. at base, Collection of Mashantukcet Pequot Museum. Photo by Jason Dowdle.