News and Notes from MCC Artist Fellows
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 and beyond.
We recently heard from Jonathan Schwartz (Film & Video Fellow ’09), who shared an interesting detail: when he showed his film nothing is over nothing in the New York Film Festival’s Views from the Avant-Garde program, he shared the schedule with fellow 2009 Fellows Rebecca Meyers and Abraham Ravett. Compliments to the program’s curator for good taste!
Kim Adrian’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) essay “Questionnaire for My Grandfather,” an excerpt from her memoir-in-progress, will appear in the Winter 2009 issue of the Gettysburg Review.
Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) is self-publishing, as he puts it, “a freaky little chapbook,” and he’s doing a reading/discussion/on-site book printing of This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, on Wednesday, December 2, 7 PM, at Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge. Read our recent ArtSake post for more details.
Claire Beckett’s (Photography Fellow ’07) photography will be shown at Miami Art Basel, in the FoCi Art Fair. It’s part of a Mass College of Art + Design alumni exhibition, running December 1-December 6.
Ambreen Butt (Drawing Finalist ’04) is in the exhibition Pretty Tough: Contemporary Storytelling through January 3, 2010 at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT.
Kurt Cole Eidsvig (Poetry Fellow ’04) was selected by the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program to participate in the Arts Writers Workshops, which gives practicing writers the opportunity to strengthen their work through one-on-one consultations with leading art critics. Congratulations!
Laura Harrington (Playwriting/New Theater Works ’97, ’05) wrote the lyrics for the song “Let There Be Joy,” (music: Roger Ames). It will be performed as part of Take Joy at the Strathmore Performing Arts Center in Silver Springs, MD, on Friday, December 18, 2009 at 8:00 PM.
In the Art21 blog, Eirik Johnson (Photography Fellow ’09) recently discussed his ongoing photographic exploration of humanity’s impact on the environment. Eirik’s solo exhibition Sawdust Mountain is on display at the Henry Art Gallery of the University of Washington through January 31, 2010.
Niho Kozuru’s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) cast rubber sculptures are currently on view at Arden Gallery on Newbury Street in Boston. You can’t miss her red sculpture in the front window!
According to the Carroll and Sons Gallery site, Sandy Litchfield (Painting Fellow ’06) recently installed a site-specific drawing, Up Castle Rock, in the lobby of Archstone Avenir apartments, 101 Canal Street, Boston.
Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) will have a solo exhibition of photographs, called Ordinary Lives, at Gallery Kayafas in Boston. The show runs December 3 through January 13. There will be an opening reception for Ordinary Lives and a book signing for Rania’s monograph of the same name on December 4, 5:30-8 PM.
Liz Nofziger’s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) singular voice as a multimedia artist will be on display in two exhibitions this month. Tocsin, a nonnarrative multimedia installation in the Engine 40 building of East Boston, can be viewed December 5 through December 20, with an opening reception Saturday, December 12, 3-6 PM. Along regular viewing hours, the exhibit it on view by appointment through January 3 (more info). Liz will also be among the artists in Supergirl!, a video art show at NEXUS in Philadelphia. The included videos explore heroines that redefine and re-evaluate the constructions of both girlhood and heroism. Liz’s video is TV Dinner (2003), which combines a 1980s exercise video with a 1950s McDonalds commercial. The show runs December 10, 2009 through January 31, 2010.
Mary O’Malley (Drawing Fellow ’06) is among the artists participating in the Boston Drawing Project’s 10th Anniversary Show at Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston from December 2-20, 2009. The opening reception is Friday, December 4, 5:30 to 8:00 PM.
The Film Posse, Inc, aka Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry (Film & Video Fellows ’07), received a $15,000 grant from the New York Community Trust for their film on playwright Lorraine Hansberry.
Alisia Waller’s (Choreography Fellow ’08) And So No Sin Performance Troupe will perform Dancing the Beast: A Gathering of Dancers, Heroes & Other Beautiful Monsters on December 4 & 5 at 8 PM, and on December 6 at 5 PM, at Mobius in Boston. The performance, Alisia’s first full evening of choreographic work, will feature “dark faerie tales, graceful beasts and dance both complex and comedic.” Read Alisia’s essay on her choreography and creative process on ArtSake.
Cary Wolinsky, who is a member of TRIIIBE (Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09) along with along with Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio, has a solo show at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset. The show, called Fiber of Life, features Cary’s photographs of textiles from a tapestry of world cultures. It runs through December 23 in the center’s Bankcroft Gallery. Read a great profile of the exhibit in the Boston Globe (written, incidentally, by past Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist Robert Knox).
Past Fellows Notes
Nov. 2009
Oct. 2009
Sep. 2009
Aug. 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
Apr. 2009
Mar. 2009
Feb. 2009
Jan. 2009
Dec. 2008
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: Still from NOTHING IS OVER NOTHING, a film by Jonathan Schwartz (2008); Cover art for THIS WON’T TAKE BUT A MINUTE, HONEY by Steve Almond, illustration by Brian Stauffer; Niho Kozuru, LIQUID SUNSHINE: MINI TOWER II (2008) cast rubber 12×7.5×7.5 in; Mary O’Malley, UNTITLED #4 (2005), ink on paper, 19×25 1/2 in.