Welcome to the September/October 2024 issue of Artscope Magazine, one in which we look at venues and organizations that have overcome challenges to their existence over the past several years and are celebrating anniversaries thanks to their dedicated directors and volunteers.
Visiting Littleton, New Hampshire in pre-Covid times, I was always impressed at how promotional material for events 20 miles away at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, seemed to be everywhere, making the important role it played in the culture of the entire Northeast Kingdom region clear. However, as the case has been for many of the New England art organizations, recent years haven’t been easy.
But, as summer arrived, it felt as though Catamount Arts had fully returned; artistic director Molly Stone alerted us to its Arts Grand (re) Opening on the solstice and its Levitt AMP St. Johnsbury Music Series held on Steve Huneck’s Dog Mountain was attracting growing crowds. Then, as July neared its end, two huge storms brought severe flooding that destroyed part of its hillside and the road in front of it.
Thanks to a herculean effort by the town of St. Johnsbury, the roads leading to Dog Mountain were quickly repaired and the concert series resumed in mid-August. This September and October, Catamount’s gallery receives a boost from members of the Boston Sculptors Gallery in the form of an exhibition called “Shift North.” It’ll provide a chance for more artists to discover Catamount Arts and St. Johnsbury and, for those in the area, the opportunity to network with some of Boston’s best sculptors. Marta Pauer-Tursi previews the show and the community that makes Catamount Arts a special destination.
It took me a while to realize why Madeleine Lord had been making seemingly endless cross-state drives to Edith Wharton’s The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts. As a New England Sculptors Association member, she was helping with the transition of SculptureNow, curated by Ann Jon for a quarter-century and of which Lord was a board member, to Sculpture at the Mount. Through talking with Jon and Susan Wissler, The Mount’s executive director, Lord explains how what could have been the instant loss of a longtime New England arts event was avoided through hard work, dedication and an institution that stepped up to preserve it.
Lord also shares her favorite pieces in the Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition at the Danforth Museum of Art at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts, that she visited several times for both its opening and series of artist talks.
When I learned that Carolyn Wirth, whom I had worked with in her role as director of the Hess Gallery at the now-shuttered Pine Manor College for several years, had joined the staff of ArtSpace Maynard as its administrative arts manager, I felt she would be a good person to tell the story of how the organization, which lost its nearly 100 studios and a gallery, and whose shows were amongst New England’s best, in 2021 after the town revoked its occupancy permit, has managed to reinvent itself and once again, slowly but surely, provide workspaces for its artists.
Two epic New England events are celebrating 25th birthdays this year.
The Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut is presenting its “25 Years of Monothon: Silver Anniversary Exhibition” prior to its annual Monothon auction and party fundraising event on October 26. Executive Director Kimberly Henrikson took me through the history of the event that begins with a series of intense five-hour work sessions attended by master artists and printmakers to create and produce monotypes that then help raise funds to cover the cost of the program, that also includes a “Youth Monothon” session for ages 11 through 19 on September 29.
As an artist based at the Kilburn Mill and who shows her work at the Judith Klein Art Gallery, Suzanne Volmer regularly finds herself in the middle of AHA! New Bedford’s monthly gatherings. For this issue, timed to coincide with its 25th anniversary celebration on September 12, Volmer talked to past and present directors to learn what has allowed AHA! to maintain itself as one of the region’s most consistent art parties.
Volmer also visited the Attleboro Arts Museum in advance of its annual partnership with the Attleboro Public Library to promote reading and raise awareness of the many non-profit social organizations in the area through the work on view in the museum’s “Here, I’ll Get that for You: Strokes of Kindness — In Art, In Life” exhibition in September.
Marjorie Kaye made two visits to the Southern Vermont Art Center to see and review its dozen-artist “Solos” exhibition. Elizabeth Michelman talked with Amy Wynne, Johnathan Derry and curator and artist Michele L’Heureux about their “No Mud, No Lotus” exhibition at the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, Massachusetts, while Chenoa Baker visited the Studio Feeler workspace of Western Massachusetts-based ceramicist Akilah Scharff-Teoh, whose work you can see this fall at Waterway Arts at Great Falls in Turner Falls Big Red Frame in Easthampton, both in Massachusetts.
Elayne Clift was intrigued by the work of Enrique Martínez Celaya after learning that it was inspired by poets and writers, most prominently, Robert Frost, as she herself teaches workshops on Ekphrastic writing. Clift traveled from her Brattleboro-area home to visit the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth to see and review “The Grief of Almost,” a moving exhibition of which she writes, “represents a cycle that begins with hope, ends in catastrophe and redemption, and starts again, demonstrating that a meaningful life becomes an iterative journey.”
Artscope’s worked with Ian Torney in his role as director of the Nesto Gallery at Milton Academy throughout our existence. In this issue, however, Linda Sutherland looks at his highly impressive portfolio as an artist and more specifically, his “365 Views of Mt. Washington Series” that’s on view through the end of September at the Hurricane Mountain Design Gallery in North Conway, New Hampshire.
Artscope has closely followed the careers of Nora Valdez and Gillian Christy; “Two Paths, Two Identities” brings their work together from September 13 through 29 at the Piano Craft Gallery in Boston, which you’ll be able to visit during the South End Open Studios Weekend on September 21 and 22. Claudia Fiks previews their show and introduces us to Tanzanian-born artist Abu Mwenye, who I’ve gotten to know at exhibitions in my home base in Worcester, Mass., and whose SoWa Artist Guild studio at 450 Harrison Ave. is always open to visitors during First Friday and SoWa Sundays.
That “we’re under surveillance” is no surprise, and while most of us take it as a given that everything’s accessible somewhere, J.M. Belmont explains how Marcus DeSieno‘s “Privacy is a Myth We Tell Ourselves to Sleep” exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography, that he calls “a meditation on the elimination of aloneness and confidentiality from modern society,” has turned that information into challenging, contemplative art.
Just as Class of 2028 was arriving on campus, I visited the Cantor Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross to see its just-opened“Blue Profundity: Contemporary Artists Revisit a Color” exhibition. Combining five known and new to the area artists, it’s a tribute to the knowledge and networking of gallery director and curator Lauren Szumita.
So, dig in and celebrate the vibrancy of New England’s visual and performing arts community with our end of summer, early autumn issue.
Brian Goslow, managing editor
bgoslow@artscopemagazine.com