Sitka approaches us from the back of Sitka Home Art Gallery, his Boston shop that recently relocated to 160 Newbury Street between Dartmouth and Exeter Streets. He’s a bluff, smiling, virile presence who shakes my hand, heartily announcing: “I’m a monster!” I look for reassurance towards Sitka’s wife and business manager, Helaine Gulergun, who hovers nearby smiling reassuringly and, then, to my own wife, Madeleine, who is always reassuring. Reassured, somewhat, I take the seat that Sitka is bringing and accept the glass of water he offers. Trusting, but interrogating my new sense of security, I run though my understanding of the different senses of the word monster: something unnaturally marvelous — a prodigy — of great size and ferocity. The last definition is somewhat unsettling, but on the other hand, my company is still smiling and, to boot, I’ve just scored a parking space … [Read more...] about A MAN OF MANY PLACES: SITKA’S HOME ART GALLERY MOVES UP ON NEWBURY STREET

It’s summer time! Time to toss starfish back in the water. Take a backroads bike ride. Go on an ice cream tour. And check out the amazing craft fairs around New England. There’s one you don’t want to miss — in Portland, Maine. It’s only one day, so you must plan on it. On Saturday, August 27 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (rain or shine), drop in on the annual Portland Fine Craft Show in the Free Street Parking Lot. Admission is free. The juried show features over 100 craft artists from Maine and the Northeast area exhibiting in basketry, ceramics, decorative and wearable fiber, furniture, glass, jewelry, metal, mixed media, paper, printmaking, stone and wood, as well as outreach booths featuring New England and Portland arts organizations, guilds and schools. And if you have time, check out the Portland Museum of Art, the waterfront boutiques, and specialty restaurants. It’s a fun day to … [Read more...] about A DAY OF UNIQUE CREATIVITY: PORTLAND FINE CRAFT SHOW BELONGS ON YOUR CALENDAR

This summer, Gary Marotta Fine Art will show four exhibitions that bring together vastly different worlds under one roof. The artwork of Cara De Angelis, which explores attention and sexual desire in the internet age; the photographs of Milton H. Greene, who captured the life of Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s; paintings by Laura Klimenchenko, abstract and ethereal works in oil and acrylic; and photography by Ruben Natal-San Miguel. Opening first is De Angelis and her study of X-rated human forms. According to her artist statement, she pulls models from anonymous images posted on the internet from people whose “hard-wired animal hunger for attention is groomed, fed, and becomes addictive.” “The behavior has always existed, but the vast amount of opportunities and easy access to an audience has not,” said De Angelis on the tendency for people to post indiscriminately on the internet. … [Read more...] about DE ANGELIS; EXPLICIT IMAGERY: THE BODY IS FAIR GAME AT GARY MAROTTA FINE ART

Bert Yarborough’s “Ecologies,” a solo exhibition at Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, are a set of bold manifestations of the internal landscape of the mind and soul through abstract and figurative renditions of the ritualized external natural world. He calls it “Ecologies” because “gathered together, the work creates that type of physical environment.” The paintings are dramatic and haunting. Gallery owner, Berta Walker said, as we sat in Yarborough’s warehouse studio in Truro, covered with art from table to wall, “I keep coming back to them. They’re stimulating; they ask you to ask questions. They move me. The more I look, the more I see the interconnections between the works.” She added, “I love color — and Bert’s colors, his maroon cloud there, the red which anchors that painting, resonate with our chakras.” Yarborough talks about liquidity, the fluidity in his works (as … [Read more...] about DRAMATIC AND HAUNTING: BERT YARBOROUGH’S BOLD PAINTINGS AT BERTA WALKER

Having been a regular visitor to the Shelburne Museum since the mid-1980s, it did not surprise me that on its 75th anniversary, the Museum’s focus show would be one called “Eyesight and Insight: Lens on American Art.” Over the years, the Museum has stayed true to the founder Electra Havemeyer Webb’s vision and at the same time adapted that vision to the rapidly changing world that diversity, technology and social/political interaction have brought to the art world. “Eyesight and Insight,” curated by Katie Wood Kirchhoff and Carolyn Bauer, covers art, artifacts and curiosities. It does so via paintings, prints and photographs by artists from Peale to Eakins to Duane Michaels and Cindy Sherman. The subject is the eyeglass – that lens through which we see the world, both as a physical phenomenon and as a way of perceiving and interpreting what we see. More specifically, this exhibit is … [Read more...] about STAYING TRUE TO ITS VISION: THE SHELBURNE CELEBRATES ITS 75TH ANNIVERSARY