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 were very pleased to see Ri Anderson (Photography Finalist ’07) and Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) among those chosen by Dana Faconti, Editor and Publisher of Blind Spot magazine, to be included in the Photographic Resource Center in Boston’s inaugural Juried Publication. An image and contact info for both artists will be published in a special insert in PRC’s fall newsletter, with a circulation of nearly 2,000. Another bit of good news: Ordinary Lives, a monograph of Rania’s work, is being published this month.
The winners of the Artadia Awards 2009 Boston were announced, and among them are Claire Beckett (Photography Fellow ’07), Ambreen Butt (Drawing Finalist ’04), and Eric Gottesman (Photography Fellow ’09), all of whom received awards of $3,000. Artists Caleb Cole and Raul Gonzalez also received $3,000, and Amie Siegel and Joe Zane received $15,000. Congratulations!
Sandra Allen (Drawing Fellow ’08) has a solo show of works on paper at Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston. The show, which runs through October 17, will have a reception Friday, September 11, 5:307:30 PM.
An interview with Kristin Bock (Poetry Fellow ’06) and an essay on her poetry collection Cloisters has appeared on Poem of the Week. Kristin reads at the Cornelia Street Caf in New York City on September 21 as part of the New York Quarterly Reading Series.
Andrew Bujalski’s (Film & Video Fellow ’03) most recent film, Beeswax, opens at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre on Friday, September 18. The film has gotten great reviews in The New York Times and Salon.com.
Alicia Casilio, Sara Casilio, Kelly Casilio, and Cary Wolinsky Sculpture/Installation Fellows ’09) discuss the origins of their collective TRIIIBE and the art performance that comes with being identical triplets, in an interview with Jason Landry in issue 113 of Big RED and Shiny.
Fabric paintings and a new wallpiece by Candice Smith Corby (Painting Fellow ’08) are included in the show Women’s Work…? at the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at the Bristol Community College in Fall River, MA. The show runs September 10-October 15, with an opening reception on Thursday, September 10, 6-8 PM.
Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ’06) let us know that his Boston gallery has moved from Charles St. to “a wonderful, bright space in the South End Gallery District.” For more information, check out Gurari Collections.
Patrick Ryan Frank (Poetry Fellow ’06) was among the finalists for the DIAGRAM 2009 Chapbook Contest.
D.M. Gordon (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) let us know that The Fourth World, a small volume of her poems, will be crafted as a letterpress edition by Adastra Press and published, in a limited run, in February. She also has a new website: www.dmgordon.com.
Frannie Lindsay (Poetry Fellow ’06) joins Sabra Loomis for an evening of poetry at Porter Square Books in Cambridge on Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 7:00 PM. Frannie recently won the Washington Prize for her collection Mayweed, which will be published January 2010.
Sandy Litchfield’s (Painting Fellow ’06) show Broken Appeal for Balance, a solo exhibition of paintings, is in the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Herter Art Gallery September 10-October 9, 2009.
Melinda Lopez’s (Playwriting Fellow ’03) play Caroline in Jersey premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in August. Lea Thompson (of Back to the Future fame) played the titular character and said in an iBerkshires feature, “It’s a beautiful story When I was offered the part, I felt it would be an honor to do it.” You can see images of the production here.
Juan Mandelbaum’s (Film & Video Finalist ’07) documentary Our Disappeared premieres on Independent Lens on PBS, on September 21, 2009 (check local listings). It screens on Boston’s WGBX Channel 44 on Sunday, September 27 at 9 PM.
Mary O’Donoghue’s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’06) short story “A.P.” will be published in Literary Imagination in spring 2010 (previously, Mary’s story “Sweetchat” was in the same journal). In spring 2009, poems and an essay appeared in the anthology The Watchful Heart: a New Generation of Irish Poets (Salmon Poetry). A novel chapter will appear in AGNI in fall of this year, and her novel will be published by The Lilliput Press (Dublin, Ireland) in spring of 2010, appearing in the UK and the US shortly thereafter. Recent readings include the Boston Athenaeum Poetry Series (May 2009) and the American Conference of Irish Studies in Galway, Ireland (June 2009).
Monica Raymond’s (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) poem “Of the Forest of Ash” is being staged by Chicago-based director Cat Hardy for Caffeine Theater’s (Chicago) Dylan Thomas cabaret on September 9th.
Rishi Reddi (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04) joins HarperCollins editor Rakesh Satyal and debut novelist Ru Freeman for a Writers on Writing panel sponsored by Grub Street in Boston. The panelists will talk about writing that draws from one’s ethnic and cultural background. The free panel takes place on Monday, September 14th, 7-9pm, Grub Street HQ, 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.
Alison Safford (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03) is among the artists in Pulling Back the Curtain at Axiom Gallery in Jamaica Plain. From the Axiom site: “Simultaneously arousing wonder, curiosity and some sort of sentiment, the artists in Pulling Back the Curtain explore ideas of perception, layers of clandestine meaning and the uncertainty of nostalgic emotion.” The show runs through Sunday, September 27, with a reception September 11, 6-9 PM.
In July, Jeff Daniel Silva’s (Film & Video Finalist ’09) documentary, Balkan Rhapsodies, screened at the 2009 RAI film festival in Leeds, UK (Royal Anthropological Institute) and garnered the Basil Wright Film Prize for “a film in the ethnographic tradition, in the interest of furthering a concern for humanity in order to acknowledge the evocative faculty of film as a way of communicating their concern to others.” The prize gives particular emphasis to innovative styles or forms of filmmaking. Detailed info about the film can be found at Documentary Educational Resources.
Scott Wheeler’s (Music Composition Fellow ’05) composition The Gold Standard will be performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP): Charles Blandy tenor, David Kravitz baritone, Gil Rose conductor. The performance, part of an evening called Voice of America, takes place on September 25, 2009, 8:30 PM, at Distler Hall, Tufts University, in Medford.
Dara Wier (Poetry Fellow ’00) will read on September 24, 7 PM, in the University of Massachusetts Amherst Memorial Hall, in conjunction with the just-published Selected Poems, from Wave Books.
Placeless Space: prints and drawings by Nina Wishnok (Drawing Fellow ’06) will be on exhibition at the Montserrat College of Art Carol Schlosburg Alumni Gallery in Beverly, MA, through September 19, 2009.
Yu-Wen Wu’s (Painting Fellow ’04) exhibition Suspended, a Song Cycle, part of the NEW ENGLAND CURRENTS Series, shows at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham September 13, 2009 – October 25, 2009.
Opening Reception Saturday, September 12, 2009, 6-8 PM.
Past Fellows Notes
Aug. 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
Apr. 2009
Mar. 2009
Feb. 2009
Jan. 2009
Dec. 2008
Nov. 2008
Oct. 2008
Sep. 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: Ambreen Butt, UNTITLED from the portfolio DIRTY PRETTY (2008), Lithograph, etching, silkscreen, 17 x 15 inches; TRIIIBE, PAINT BY NUMBERS; Ri Anderson, MATCHING CUTS (2005), c-print, 40 in x 30 in; Nina Wishnok, SPACE EGGS (2007), Woodblock print, 21 in x 9 in.