Welcome
by Brian Goslow
Ten years ago, I received a phone call asking me if I’d be interested in being the copy editor for a new arts magazine that was that was due to go to press later that month; little did I suspect I’d soon become its managing editor, fully immersing myself in the entire New England region’s arts scene and, 60 issues later, finding myself pulling together our greatest number of stories ever for artscope’s 10th anniversary
issue.
Looking back at that “Premier Issue,” whose cover featured “Jamaican Art in Boston,” there are three writers who have been with us throughout our first decade — James Foritano, Franklin W. Liu and Greg Morell. Many more of our staff members have been with us for five-plus years, a sign of their dedication to supporting the region’s visual artists. As we’ve done with past anniversary issues, we’ve asked our contributors to select a series of artists they feel are worthy of special recognition; that’s resulted in the “10 for Our 10th” feature that opens the second half of this issue.
Last May, we were honored to be accepted for the Magazine Section of Art Basel Switzerland; subsequently,
we were invited to participate in Art Basel Miami Beach, putting our publication in front of some of the art world’s most enthusiastic buyers, collectors and followers — and in doing so, bringing a wide cross-section of New England’s artists to an international audience. We’ll be back in Basel this June.
We’ve sponsored many New England events, including Montserrat College of Art’s Annual Auction Party — this year’s event, “Artrageous! 30” takes place on April 2 — and The Umbrella Community Arts Center of Concord’s own “Artrageous” gala event that will be held on May 7. We’ve also recently partnered with the Arlington International Film Festival in advance of this year’s event, which comes to Massachusetts from October 27 through 30.
Among the most memorable highlights of the past decade, for me, has been jurying the New England Collective IV show for Boston’s Galatea Fine Arts in 2013 with publisher Kaveh Mojtabai. We had traveled to Newtown, Connecticut earlier that year for the opening of the Healing Newtown exhibition that displayed the hundreds of works that had been sent to support the community from around the United States a short two months after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Joanne Mattera’s International Encaustics Conference in Provincetown always provides invaluable information in terms of the marketing of art and the chance to see the work of and meet many of the artists we’ve covered in the past in one setting.
As we’ve “aged,” so have the number of requests we receive for coverage, and we’ve expanded our offerings to include an array of online options. Our popular email blast!s compiled by Lacey Daley and Rhiannon Leigh plus the artscopemagazine.com zine section feature additional exhibition, artist and theater reviews, and there are regular social media postings on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, all of which are pulled together in one place through the Artscope app. Art enthusiasts and collectors worldwide are able to get each new issue digitally as soon as it’s available through Apple Newsstand in the App Store.
For Mojtabai, meeting and working with artists, connecting with them at gallery and museum openings and open studio events, watching their creative growth, both personally and professionally, and starting an Artscope Collection with many of those artists have been among the rewards of publishing this magazine. In turn, it’s the artists of New England who have been our biggest supporters, sharing our issues and social media posts with their friends and encouraging the galleries and museums they work with as well as other artists to work and to advertise with us. This has been invaluable in our reaching the 10-year mark, and we appreciate your support more than you can know.
We’ve been honored to have been asked to jury shows at the Copley Society of Art, Newburyport Art Association, Galatea Fine Arts, Andover Artists Guild, Gallery Seven, and the Milton Art Center, and we’ve had the opportunity to work with gallery, academic and museum directors to get a greater understanding of the work they exhibit to allow us to promote it at the highest capacity, resulting in, as Benjamin Franklin once said, “an important exchange of information.” We look to continue to build on the foundations of those relationships.
A special thanks to those who’ve supported us through most, if not all, of our decade-long existence, not just
financially, but through their many hours of talks on the behind-the-scenes aspects of their businesses so that we would have a greater understanding of the industry: Berta Walker, Chris McCarthy of PAAM, Margaret Bodell, Rick Fleury, Lesley University, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Newport Art Museum, South Shore Art Center, Robert Klein Gallery, Whistler House Museum of Art, Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy, Montserrat College of Art, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Attleboro Arts Museum, The MIT Press, Johniene Papandreas, Andrew DeVries, Marilyn Kalish, Ed Oates (RISD Professor Emeritus), Russ Gerard of Gurari Collections, Solomon’s Collection and Fine Rugs, interior designer Philip Hugh Smith, Fuller Craft Museum, Al Coletti of Le Colson Jewelers, Steve Syverson of Van Gogh’s Gear as well as the Lowell arts community and the New Art Center in Newton.
One of our main One of our main missions as a magazine is to help develop the next generation of art critics, reviewers and writers — as well as gallery assistants, curators and, one day, owners. We’re proud to have seen our interns continue with us as well as go on to positions at the Huffington Post, Art21, Boise Public Radio, The Boston Globe and Abigail Ogilvy Gallery.
Production of each artscope is a labor-intensive process, in great part due to our cutting our deadline close enough so that we can review shows that open just prior to our going to press. Media development associate and designer Vanessa Boucher and copy editor Anne Daley put in Herculean efforts each issue, and our account executive, Gail Newcomb, is invaluable in allowing us to prosper. And, I can’t say enough about Kaveh Mojtabai’s dedication and investment to providing New England’s visual and performing artists with an outlet for their work.
It’s an amazing journey, the next chapter of which begins the day after this issue hits the streets…
Brian Goslow, Managing Editor
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