Can anything good or beautiful come out of a nasty, brutish war? The rape, murder and mayhem of the almost year-long war in Ukraine scarcely seems a place to look for goodness and creativity. But two Ukrainian icon artists, Oleksandr Klymenko and his wife, Sofia Atlantova, have managed to bring beauty out of brutality. Looking at the debris of war, they noticed that the wooden boxes that held ammunition look much like the wood backings on which icons have traditionally been painted for centuries. In the Ukrainian Orthodox Christian religion, a person’s creative act of painting images of the Virgin Mary (Theotokos), Jesus (Pantocrator) or the Saints is a religious observance or act of veneration. Any individual may make an “icon” to participate in this religious “act,” but naturally, some people are more adept at making beautiful or accurate images of Mary or Jesus than others. For … [Read more...] about BEAUTY OUT OF BRUTALITY

The age-old problem. Artist displacement is not new. It’s happened for decades, and it continues to the present day. It’s the age-old gentrification cycle: artists/creatives move into a run-down, undesirable, low-rent neighborhood. Through creating art, they bring more creatives to said neighborhood, which then attracts bars, restaurants, cafes, book and record stores, which then brings people to want to live among the valued neighborhood culture. Then property values go up, forcing the artists out. In Greater Boston, we’ve lost hundreds of artists, creative small businesses, live performance venues and the other businesses associated with the creative economy as neighborhoods turn over. It happened to Jamaica Plain, Central Square and Davis Square, and we’re in the throes of ittaking place in Union Square, Dorchester and Roxbury. We’ve lost many artist communities including Piano … [Read more...] about A RARE VICTORY FOR ARTISTS