EPPRIDGE’S TIMELESS LOOK AT THE FAB FOUR by Brian Goslow Danbury, Connecticut - It was, inarguably, one of those moments in which everything changed. On February 9, 1964, The Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, setting Beatlemania into full gear and sparking a cultural shift that still echoes today. Photojournalist Bill Eppridge documented the Fab Four’s first tour of the United States for Life magazine, taking “Three thousand images on 90 rolls of film” — only four of which ended up being printed in the publication at the time. “Bill was in the Life magazine offices early on the day that the Beatles were scheduled to arrive at JFK Airport,” said Eppridge’s wife, Adrienne Aurichio. “The director of photography, Dick Pollard, saw Bill and asked him if he wanted to shoot their arrival. It was not planned as a six-day assignment. Bill turned it into … [Read more...] about SIX DAYS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
Visual Arts
FEELING BLUE IN VERMONT
TOM FELS’ CYANOTYPES by Arlene Distler Brattleboro, Vermont - To view Tom Fels’ cyanotypes this January at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts (MGFA) is to enter a magic kingdom, a secret world of trees and leaves revealed by alchemy. The process of cyanotype goes back to the mid 1800s. Then, and well into the 20th century, it was primarily used to make “blueprints” of notes and diagrams. The origin of the nomer is obvious — cyano- types are made by the application of light-sensitive chemicals to paper or fabric. These chemicals, ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, give a deep blue hue to the paper. The color is equivalent to Prussian blue in painting. The first use of cyanotypes as art, as an esthetic phenomenon in its own right, is credited to Anna Atkins, who created cyanotype “photograms” of seaweed. Because of her work with cyanotypes, Atkins is … [Read more...] about FEELING BLUE IN VERMONT
A Medium For Social Change
INTERNATIONAL POSTERS AT LAMONT by Linda Chestney Exeter, New Hampshire - It’s a fine art to be pithy while at the same time capturing your activist message in an image. That is the goal of “Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age 2001-2012,” the exhibi- tion that will be gracing the walls this January and February at Lamont Gallery on the Phillips Exeter Academy campus. Curated by Elizabeth Resnick, professor and chair of graphic design at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, the show features 122 posters by artists and designers from around the world who present powerful visual statements addressing pressing social, political, economic and environmental concerns — issues ranging from global warming and freedom of expression to equality, poverty, terrorism and so many more. DISSENT MADE VISIBLE Resnick considers posters … [Read more...] about A Medium For Social Change
ALT CLAY AT PINE MANOR
THREE ARTISTS SHAPE THEIR VISIONS by Elizabeth Michelman Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts - Clay has always served as a carrier of culture, from creation myths and cookery to architecture, painting, sculpture and writing. Three sculptors currently exhibiting hand-built clay structures at Pine Manor College have adapted this medium to their contemporary idiom. Each one experiments to fulfill her individual aesthetic, expressive and communicative goals. Pursuing a woman-centered vision of birth, death and eroticism, Ellen Schön creates objects that exude desirability. Her centered vessels are typically rounded or lobed, with the largest dimension under 24 inches. They call forth in either sex the primal wish to be suckled at the breast and enveloped in the womb. Their profiles allude to many organic forms — pods, fruits, fungi and feminine mysteries. Despite their controlled … [Read more...] about ALT CLAY AT PINE MANOR
New And Improved at Smith College Museum of Art
Making Artwork More Accessible at Smith by John Paul Stapleton Northampton, Mass. - From the new Whitney Museum of American Art building in New York City to our semi-local Peabody Essex Museum expansion project, renovations seemed to be the hot decision for 2015. The Smith College Museum of Art joined this league with their four-year renovation project that was of officially completed this past fall. Margi Caplan, the museum’s membership and marketing director, showed me around the museum to point out what has changed in their two-phase project. In addition to updated lighting and the removal of the main exhibition gallery’s staircase, the whole observer experience has changed. “We thought about museum methodology and pedagogy,” Caplan said. “The museum’s collection works well, but wasn’t up to date. As a teaching museum, what we wanted to do was make the work … [Read more...] about New And Improved at Smith College Museum of Art
Put Me In, Coach
HIGH-FLYING MURALS AT NEW ART CENTER by James Foritano Newton, Mass. - January and February are ordinarily months of cabin fever, when walls close in — unless, of course, you’re the kind of athlete who sees sport in snow and ice. For enthusiasts of the “great indoors,” as more and more I count myself, there are always walls begging to be inscribed, emblazoned with intuitions of the heart and soul. Skeptical? Suffering under the illusion that art is for artists and walls are no place to be leaving the untutored effusions of an amateur? Relax. You have The New Art Center in Newton’s Holzwasser Gallery — a modest space of about 300 square feet with walls that soar to an 18-foot- high ceiling — and the sanction of a young program that encourages anyone and everyone with a yen to team up with like-minded participants and, under expert but gentle coaching, make your … [Read more...] about Put Me In, Coach