Beard & Weil Makes It Clear by J. Fatima Martins Upon entering the Beard & Weil Galleries, we’re immediately affected by the hypnotic fairy-power of clear glass. The first installation in “Theories of the Earth” is a three-dimensional still-life menagerie of transparent objects arranged cohesively to appear haphazard and jumbled on and underneath a long, rectangular, seven-legged painted white table. The entire thing projects a cold, alien world; it’s unsettling, yet completing, as if we’ve been transported into a magical dinner party, frozen at a precise moment. The table is laid with fragile glass vessels, bowls, plates and cups of various sizes and densities; two crystalclear, tall, tropical glass trees — ancient cycadophyta — flank each side, and an assortment of messy glass foliage is tossed throughout. There are glass fabrics and other drapery, a loaf of glass … [Read more...] about What On Earth?

Welcome by Brian Goslow Ten years ago, I received a phone call asking me if I’d be interested in being the copy editor for a new arts magazine that was that was due to go to press later that month; little did I suspect I’d soon become its managing editor, fully immersing myself in the entire New England region’s arts scene and, 60 issues later, finding myself pulling together our greatest number of stories ever for artscope’s 10th anniversary issue. Looking back at that “Premier Issue,” whose cover featured “Jamaican Art in Boston,” there are three writers who have been with us throughout our first decade — James Foritano, Franklin W. Liu and Greg Morell. Many more of our staff members have been with us for five-plus years, a sign of their dedication to supporting the region’s visual artists. As we’ve done with past anniversary issues, we’ve asked our contributors to … [Read more...] about Welcome, March/April 2016