Worcester, MA - The College of the Holy Cross is hosting a two-part exhibition featuring and celebrating artwork created over the past two decades at three pioneering California-based programs for artists with disabilities. “Create” gathers together work made at Creatively Explored (San Francisco), the Creative Growth Art Center (Oakland) and National Institute for Art and Disabilities Art Center (Richmond). Artist and educator Florence Ludins-Katz and psychiatrist Elias Katz developed the programs in the 1970s using methodology that combines access to group studio and professional work practices and provides artists with disabilities an inroad to the broader arts community. In whole, the show features 135 pieces by 20 artists, leading to it being spread over two calendar periods: the first runs through October 6 while the second takes place from October 22 through December 8 at the … [Read more...] about Capsule Preview: Create at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery
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A Night on the Neck at Rocky Neck Art Colony
By Rosemary Chandler GLOUCESTER, MA- On August 2, I had the good fortune to find myself at the Rocky Neck Art Colony for their monthly “Nights on the Neck,” during which galleries keep their doors open late into the evening and local musicians take to the streets, where they play for throngs of art enthusiasts in their move from one gallery reception to the next. Although rain showers had been forecasted, it turned out to be one of those amazing New England summer nights, where the temperature miraculously drops and the humidity vanishes at the end of a long, hot day. It was exactly the right kind of evening to visit the Neck. Especially notable were Judith Goetemann, owner of Goetemann Gallery, who is moving in a new direction in her artwork through the introduction of bolder and brighter colors in her batik and silk dye painting; and E.J. Lefavour, who is adding stunning … [Read more...] about A Night on the Neck at Rocky Neck Art Colony
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s “Coriolanus” at Boston Common
By James Foritano The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company under the stars plays “Coriolanus,” at Parkman Bandstand on the Boston Common through August 12, with appropriate sound and fury. Coriolanus, the dark hero of this Shakespearian tragedy was himself born under the star of Mars, the Roman god of war. He is a shaggy alpha wolf – who comes alive wherever, whenever and however Rome’s vast empire is being threatened – need ‘recruits with strong death wish’? Coriolanus is your man! Trouble is, this eminent Roman warrior is nowise at home with the messy complications of a republic, where the demands of the citizens require tending to. “Coriolanus” opens with a food riot. Grain is running scarce and the enraged populace is demanding that the aristocrats open up the corn stores and share the superfluity with their hungry bellies. Coriolanus is like: “What???” To him, these raggedy, … [Read more...] about Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s “Coriolanus” at Boston Common
F.U.D.G.E. at the Arsenal Center for the Arts
By James Foritano The F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company has struck again! This time with a rousing production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice classic musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” The passions of greed, jealousy, despair, hatred, hypocrisy, overweening pride etc. are universal and in this production, all dance and song, illustrated with verve and ensemble precision. We’ve all, if only briefly, been the apple of someone’s eye; we’ve all, hopefully, been gifted at some time in our lives with a token of esteem that we’ve flaunted proudly and thereby enjoyed full-throated admiration, as well as duly virulent jealousy. When Joseph’s doting dad, Jacob, a full-bearded patriarch, gifts his favorite son with a “technicolor dreamcoat,” he not only swells Joseph with pride but plants a seed of jealousy in Joseph’s brothers that grows violent. Joseph’s brothers, … [Read more...] about F.U.D.G.E. at the Arsenal Center for the Arts
Free, Creative, Interactive. The FIGMENT Festival is coming to Boston.
By Barbara Bausch artscope’s Barbara Bausch, who is also a dancer, will be a participant at this year’s FIGMENT Festival, which will be held this weekend in Boston, where she’s been living since April. Here she describes her expectations for her first FIGMENT Festival. Three weeks ago, I had never heard of the FIGMENT Festival. Then, while dancing on the street in front of Cambridge City Hall, I met a woman in a pink tutu who told me that, under the name Denise Awesome, she aerobicizes people all over the city. “Call me and we’ll do it together,” she said. One week ago, I finally got in touch with her. She immediately asked me if I would like to join her in an aerobic and dance performance at the FIGMENT Festival. I said yes, and started to read about what FIGMENT is. “Everything is meant to be played with,” writes Brad Cohen in Arts & Architecture. “If FIGMENT were a … [Read more...] about Free, Creative, Interactive. The FIGMENT Festival is coming to Boston.
“Walk Into My Heart”: An Installation by Deborah Bohnert
By James Foritano On the first Saturday of the summer of ’12, I walked into an affair of the heart with other invitees dressed in the requested white. It was not my first such affair — I’m no stick in the mud — but the first with a specific address: 78 Front Street, Marblehead. And it was, I have to say, a total immersion. I had met Deborah Bohnert before in her studio, but then it was strictly artist to art reporter since I was writing up her recent exhibit at the Simmons College gallery. You can imagine me as all ink-stained, bowed over my clipboard and interested only in the cold, if intriguing facts. This was very different. Walking off the cobblestones of Marblehead’s picturesque harbor, I met Ms. Bohnert as a hostess, warmly welcoming and bidding me to walk into a capacious heart she’s been assembling for years from her own paintings, photographs and sculptures as well as a … [Read more...] about “Walk Into My Heart”: An Installation by Deborah Bohnert