By James Foritano It’s so important when a lecture is just over your head that there are pictures. Every time curator Judith Motzkin’s words sailed beyond my reach, I looked around at the works of the ten potters represented in this month-long show at Vessels and understood that she was talking about Romance. Not the small potatoes served up in cinema potboilers, where the gems are mostly ersatz and the heroes so muscle-bound that a daily walk to the gym is epic. No. Here are real pearls. Behind hand-polished surfaces, evanescent traces of combustible minerals and salts dance mystic skeins of color and form. The potters represented in “Smooth and Smoky” seek to re-discover the early days of pottery, when clay was baked in open fires without the decoration of glaze. The days when utility and simplicity were key concepts; but when, being human, potters worth their salt evolved signature … [Read more...] about Smooth and Smoky at Vessels Gallery, Boston

At the O’Neill Branch of the Cambridge Public Library by James Foritano CAMBRIDGE - Thank goodness for the nooks and corners of neighborhood branch libraries which, like the O’Neill, give shelter to local artists. This September, Irene Koronas, a member of the North Cambridge Artists Association (NOCA), holds forth with a solo show arrayed behind glass-enclosed shelves, push-pin friendly walls of the O’Neill’s vestibule, just steps from Mass. Ave. and Porter Square. It’s a quiet vision, but also relentless and restless. Colored marks that can only be identified as “squiggles” repeat endless tight coils; boomerang-shaped vectors face left and right, climbing in seething counterpoint towards a horizon just inches below the top of their rectangular paper fields — where they become fainter, but just as relentlessly themselves. I almost typed “feel” instead of “field,” since these marks … [Read more...] about Irene Koronas: Odd Little Books and Written Landscapes

by Brian Goslow The New England Sculptors Association has two shows currently on view in the region. The first, curated by L’Attitude Gallery owner Betty Bothereau at Bridgewater State University’s Maxwell Library in Bridgewater, Mass., features 60 works from over three-dozen artists in a wide variety of materials from traditional bronze, marble and wood to found objects and mixed media, and continues through October 15. The second, “Art in Nature,” is on the grounds of The Fells, the historic estate & gardens located on Lake Sunapee in Newbury, New Hampshire, and can be enjoyed daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through October 10. “Pavel Schmidt: Franz Kafka: Verschrieben & Verzeichnet — Written & Drawn” features 49 drawings by Schmidt, a painter, illustrator and installation artist from Switzerland, that explore Kafka’s creative process. Each work is complimented by a portion … [Read more...] about New England Sculptors At Bridgewater State, Schmidt Does Kafka At Harvard & RISD Alumni At South Shore Art Center