This brisk, fall weekend, November 2 and 3, from noon-6 p.m. is a perfect time to step into a piece of history and art at the Waltham Mills. Located at 144 and 289 Moody Street in Waltham, Massachusetts, the brick buildings used to house textile mills in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, but today houses the studios of over 85 artists in a community environment with a variety of art on each floor. Visitors can make their way across the wooden floorboards, observing the colorful paintings, drawings and sculptural pieces on the walls with sunlight flooding into the studios through the wall-sized windows. Speak to artists first-hand about their processes, inspirations and lives as creators. Take the old-style open elevator up to the third floor of 144 Moody Street, building 4, to enter Roberta Nigro Hall’s space in studio 3, where the white walls are filled with large … [Read more...] about WHERE ART IS MADE: WALTHAM OPEN STUDIOS NOVEMBER 2 AND 3
Visual Arts
ART IS HER WORLD AND THE WORLD IS HER ART: NATASHA STOPPEL
Natasha Stoppel’s thirst for travel and adventure seeps into her illustrative and whimsical ink drawings, watercolor pieces and wood-burned jewelry. Also known as Artist Explores the World on her blog and social media platforms, she tells small stories through her artworks of landscapes contained within animals, a collage of ink-drawn cats and cascading waterfalls painted on bamboo earrings. The places she has visited whether backpacking solo through Asia or exploring the canyons and mountains of the United States, are a part of her when she speaks. Her intense passion feeds her artwork, giving her compositions movement and life. As a New Hampshire native, Stoppel’s studio is located in Exeter’s Art Up Front Street, an inviting space for artists to practice their craft. Yet, Stoppel’s artistic roots spread further as she graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, … [Read more...] about ART IS HER WORLD AND THE WORLD IS HER ART: NATASHA STOPPEL
JUDY CHICAGO’S ACT OF PRESERVATION: FEMINIST ART ARCHIVES ONLINE AND IN WASHINGTON
On October 17, 80-year-old artist Judy Chicago launched a research portal preserving her archive of feminist art at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. The portal will serve to bridge collections of Chicago’s work located at Penn State University, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. , and Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library. Some background: In an early work, “The Dinner Party,” now based at the Brooklyn Museum, Chicago resurrected renowned women of the past and gave them a seat at the formerly men’s-only table. In the “Birth Project,” pieces of which now belong to several permanent museum, university and college collections, she treated the topic of birth from all angles, analyzing and commenting on the process. She dealt with the deaths of her first husband and father, in “Bigamy Hood,” part of her “Car Hood” series. In her … [Read more...] about JUDY CHICAGO’S ACT OF PRESERVATION: FEMINIST ART ARCHIVES ONLINE AND IN WASHINGTON
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: SOURCE OF DONORS’ WEALTH ROCKS THE ART WORLD
Pittsburgh’s Carnegie family, Maine’s Farnsworths and Arkansas’ Waltons founded museums to enlighten and educate the workers on their railroads and in their steel mills that produced and sold the goods that made their families wealthy, exposing them to the arts. Money from an inheritance earned through the Irish linen trade and investment in mining opportunities by her father, David Stewart, allowed Isabella Stewart Gardner to amass a fabulous art collection that became so large it needed its own museum. Subsequently, the owners of these private collections generously opened their doors to the public. The Morgans cleaned out their attic of treasures taken from colonial outposts to fill multiple large galleries comprising the decorative arts wing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. They donated Roman sculptures, casts taken from sculptures at Karnak, the Parthenon and Notre-Dame … [Read more...] about ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: SOURCE OF DONORS’ WEALTH ROCKS THE ART WORLD
COLOR FIELDS REVISITED: FLOOR VAN DE VELDE’S RHYTHMIC LIGHT BOXES AT SNHU
Floor van de Velde got inspiration for her light boxes — featured in her latest exhibition, “Variations on ColorFields,” which opens on November 8 at McIninch Art Gallery on the campus of Southern New Hampshire University, from a Rothko exhibition at the Harvard Art Museum. “The university decided to hang some of Rothko’s panels in a dining room,” she said. “The panels lost the majority of their pigment over the years and they were considered damaged beyond repair. But then the Harvard Museum decided to try to revive the color by using projected light. Most critics and curators were busy discussing whether this method was as reliable or effective as traditional art renovation techniques, but meanwhile it made for a fascinating show that played with notions of color and light. I found myself returning to the show several times and just sitting there enjoying the luminous color … [Read more...] about COLOR FIELDS REVISITED: FLOOR VAN DE VELDE’S RHYTHMIC LIGHT BOXES AT SNHU
ENCAUSTIC CROSSROADS: ADDRESSING ECOLOGICAL CONCERNS THROUGH WAX AT WSU
One of the highlights of any group exhibition opening reception is the taking of a photograph of all the participants together. When “Crossroads: 4 Perspectives,” opened on October 10 at the Mary Cosgrove Dolphin Gallery at Worcester State University, Patricia Gerkin was in Italy on a short vacation with her husband. A few days later, Debra Claffey would be in New Orleans attending Golden Paint’s Artist Educator Training Program, learning about their paints, grounds and mediums, Donna Hamil Talman in Marseille, France, and only Charyl Weissbach was at her normal workspace in Boston. The four make up the Elemental artist collaborative, the members of which first met through New England Wax, a group started in 2006 for New England artists working with wax. Finding a commonality, they set out to find opportunities for exhibitions for just the four of them. “We spent a good deal of time, … [Read more...] about ENCAUSTIC CROSSROADS: ADDRESSING ECOLOGICAL CONCERNS THROUGH WAX AT WSU