Let’s take a summer road-trip and explore Milton, one of Boston’s quietest, prettiest, oldest and most historic garden suburbs to see a sampling of its art and architecture. For lunch or supper, there are several new restaurants in town for a take-out picnic to enjoy at the historic Eustis Estate, or take in a leisurely lunch with a glass of wine at three new restaurants on Adams Street. Over the past few years, Milton, which shares a border with Boston, has experienced a Renaissance for dining and viewing art and is well worth trip via Route 93-south. Arriving at 1424 Canton Avenue, one discovers the fabulous gatehouse and gardens leading to the 80-acre Eustis Estate. The Eustis mansion is a splendid, rough-hewn Victorian stone structure built by William Eustis for his wife and family. It is decorative in style, massive in size, and designed to impress wealthy Bostonians on their … [Read more...] about MILTON: A RENAISSANCE TOWN
July/August 2018
PAST PERFECT?: FRUITLANDS HONORS ITS ROOTS
Nestled in one of the most idyllic landscapes of New England, the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts (a short drive off of Route 2) is currently presenting diverse offerings in recognition of its past as the utopian community established by idealists of the New England Transcendentalist Movement, and its present affiliation, as of 2016, with The Trustees of Reservations, the largest conservation and preservation organization in Massachusetts. In the summer of 1843, preeminent adherents of the Transcendental Movement in nearby Concord, Massachusetts — Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane — founded Fruitlands as a “New Eden,” an experiment in communal living that aspired to help Fruitlands’ inhabitants achieve their highest potential and thereby to inspire positive change in society. This was to be accomplished by an ascetic lifestyle — vegan diet, temperance for all, farming by … [Read more...] about PAST PERFECT?: FRUITLANDS HONORS ITS ROOTS
MAINE’S MINI-MECCA: CONTEMPORARY ON THE COAST
I was the victim of a studio flood in Northampton, Massachusetts. The sewer drain next to the back door of my basement studio plugged and I was inundated with a nasty slurry of fetid water that infected my costumes, my library and anything under two and half feet in height. I was not looking forward to reliving the disaster as I headed to Tom Burckhardt’s “Studio Flood,” one of four exhibitions currently on view on at Rockland’s Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA). However, much to my surprise, I was enthralled. This is a true miracle of cardboard construction in amazing detail. Creatively clever, smartly humorous, this artist’s topsy-turvy phantasmagoria of mind-bending detail is a delicious take on devastation. You cannot help but smile at its conceit. Every nook and cranny is filled with carefully crafted ephemera, all executed with exacting detail. Paint brushes, tubes of … [Read more...] about MAINE’S MINI-MECCA: CONTEMPORARY ON THE COAST
WATERCOLOR WONDERS: 7TH ANNUAL GREEN MOUNTAIN SHOW
The big, red, high-drive barn at Lareau Farm, standing at the edge of fields and against a backdrop of forested hillside, offers about as iconic a Vermont landscape as you can find. The 1895 barn has the clean, elegant lines and proportions of its genre. Inside, its rustic beams, rough boards and soaring hayloft speak to its working past. This landmark barn, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is home to the Green Mountain Watercolor Exhibition (GMWE). With a recent superb restoration, the barn has fabulous gallery space with high quality lighting, ample walls that provide rich but not distracting surfaces, and lots of atmosphere. The Seventh Annual Green Mountain Watercolor Exhibition opened in the Big Red Barn Gallery at Lareau Farm in Waitsfield, Vermont on June 17 and runs through July 28. This year’s exhibition features 96 watercolor paintings by artists from … [Read more...] about WATERCOLOR WONDERS: 7TH ANNUAL GREEN MOUNTAIN SHOW
MAKING CONNECTIONS
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle The first International Sculpture Symposium was organized by Karl Prantl, with help from Friedrich Czagan and Heinrich Deutsch, in 1959 at the St. Margarethen Quarry in Austria. The artists gathered to produce permanent public artworks from local stone, a dynamic that would provide the model for many symposia to follow. New Hampshire is carrying on the tradition with two symposia every year: one in Nashua and one in Brookline. The Nashua International Sculpture Symposium is an annual community event designed to “elevate the awareness and appreciation of public art.” Nashua is the only city in the United States that hosts an annual international sculpture symposium, and 2018 marks their 11th year. This event was inspired by Meri Goyette, a major arts supporter who … [Read more...] about MAKING CONNECTIONS
NYC DANCE PROJECT: BREATHTAKING MOMENTS IN TIME
With a single click, a moment in time can be captured forever. It’s extraordinary, really, when you think about it. Occasions, places, and historical events are preserved by the internal mechanisms of a camera — and the skill and passion of the photographer — providing us with something our own eyes may not see. The click of a shutter can capture something so slight as the breath of a dancer. Speaking on the art of the performance, the late legendary dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham once said, “You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscript to store away, no paintings to hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that fleeting moment when you feel alive.” Ken Browar and Deborah Ory have given us, and the dancers they photograph, something to hold on to. They are the founders of NYC Dance Project, which features a … [Read more...] about NYC DANCE PROJECT: BREATHTAKING MOMENTS IN TIME