Welcome Statement, July/August 2016 by Brian Goslow I always compare the final week of production for our upcoming issue to landing an airplane safely, as it becomes a frantic race against our deadline while I track down missing images and stories and wait for copy on shows that opened days before we go to press — all with the goal of having our new issue waiting for you at First Friday activities around the New England region during each odd-numbered ...

Debbie Nadolney, Art Market Provincetown by Brian Goslow Earlier this year, Art Market Provincetown (AMP) moved to a new location in the beloved art colony’s East End (it first opened its doors in 2012). Artscope managing editor Brian Goslow visited the gallery on two occasions this spring and exchanged follow-up questions via email with gallery director/curator Debbie Nadolney about the relocation, the start of the 2016 season, her gallery’s intense, high-quality schedule and how she attracts new potential buyers for ...

CMCA Gets a Fresh Start by Eric J. Taubert Maine has tendrils. They reach out across the country and twist in intertwined curlicues around the globe. They’re tendrils of culture, influence, business, skill, notoriety and creativity. Oftentimes they’re not easy to see, until a few of them spiral together into something more organized and the root system is revealed. This is exactly what’s happening right now at the brand new Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) facility in Rockland. The ...

Man vs. Nature at Hall Art by Elizabeth Michelman For Victorian critic John Ruskin, the “sublime” described an aesthetic experience of awe and magnificence accompanied by subjective and even violent emotion. Guest curator Joel Sternfeld, a photographer and videographer teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, re-visits this concept in “Landscapes After Ruskin,” selecting from over 6,000 works of post-World War II art in the collections of the Hall family and Hall Art Foundation. Quaintly staged in the buildings of a former ...

NH Craftsmen Keep it Interesting by Linda Chestney Experts like to talk about how often people change careers during their lifetime. This figure usually ranges between three and seven times, according to the United States Department of Labor. (The number of job changes tends to average around 12.) So it’s fascinating to learn that artists/artisans seriously skew that number downward. The extremely accomplished, award-winning, fine craftspeople I interviewed for this article have decades of experience in their work — anywhere ...

CCMOA’s Summer of Storytelling by Brian Goslow If you grew up in New England in the 1950s and ‘60s, one of summer’s most memorable experiences was a journey to Storyland Cape Cod, a magical village that stirred many a child’s imagination. This summer, a modern version will arise at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, thanks to Susan Danton, owner and director of Miller White Fine Arts on Route 134 in South Dennis, Mass., who has playfully crafted “At the ...

Eileen Myles at Schoolhouse by Brian Goslow Eileen Myles is always busy. Since last fall’s publication of “I Must Be Living Twice:New and Selected Poems 1975-2014” (Ecco), she’s been featured in The New York Times T Magazine (“The Poet Idolized by a New Generation of Feminists”); had the audio version of her 1994 breakthrough autobiographical novel “Chelsea Girls” released; flown to New Zealand, Australia and England for a series of readings and put out “Aloha/irish trees,” a record of new ...

Members Shine in Summer by Greg Morell Sometimes the stars align for an arts group. Such was the case for the venerable Ogunquit Art Association, currently celebrating seven decades of painters and sculptors drawing inspiration from the dramatic coastline of southern Maine. In the founding years of the organization, the collective of artists was bequeathed the largesse of the Ogunquit Playhouse — a very desirable parcel of Perkins Cove real estate in which to build their home. They then secured ...

Bigger is Better by J. Fatima Martins With cheeky intelligence, witty bravado, and a balance of innocence and sensuality, Silver Circle Art Center presents “Big Chicks,” a collaborative exhibition — featuring the contemporary traditionalist painter Alecia Underhill and the expressive and diverse sculptor, painter and illustrator Jean-Paul Jacquet — that addresses the contentious meaning of the word “chick.” In a preview of the show, Silver Circle noted, “After all, some people like chickens, some people like chicks.” Jacquet, who is ...

An Unlikely Partnership Makes Sense by Don Wilkinson The New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (NBWNHP) is a 16-acre urban park spread over thirteen city blocks, many of them cobblestoned, and is part of the National Park Service (NPS). In 2014, the NBWNHP approached the New Bedford Art Museum/Artworks! (NBAM/AW!) to invite it to participate in the centennial anniversary celebration of the NPS. It was decided that the museum would host an exhibition of works by the famed 19th century ...

Cassandra Klos' Abductees by Emily Avery-Miller "Photos or it didn't happen." Cassandra Klos, a 25-year-old fine art photographer from Boston, calls that mantra into question by following it to its next logical step. If there are photos, did it happen? And what was “it,” exactly? In Klos’s “The Abductees,” on view at The Griffin Museum of Photography this summer, “it” appears to be an encounter with another kind. The story seems to start with “U.S Route 3 II,” as a ...

The Trustees' Public Art Initiative by Meredith Cutler World’s End … The Old Manse … names that ring of landmarks on a fictional map. Look at a map of Massachusetts, and you’ll discover that these are very real destinations. Located in seaside Hingham and historic Concord, respectively, World’s End and The Old Manse are just two of 116 properties managed by the not-for-profit conservation and preservation group, The Trustees of Reservations. In celebration of 125 years of land conservancy and ...

Showcasing Connections and Contrasts by J. Fatima Martins Sumo wrestling. It’s a sport. It’s a performance. And it’s art, explored in a three-part — photograph, video and sculpture relief painting — installation by Jocelyn Foye in “The South County Invitational.”. In “Sumo Wrestling Performance,Torrance Art Museum, CA” Foye uses sumo as source material to dialogue about the power of the body. The work is a documention and reinterpretation of an actual event, showing and exploring the movement, power and structure ...

From Ship to Shore to Newbury Street by Molly Hamill “Ship to Shore,” the 2016 juried summer members’ show at the Copley Society of Art, brings a plethora of vibrant work to their Newbury Street gallery. Juried by Austen Bailly, curator of American Art at the Peabody Essex Museum, the show includes over 30 works in a wide range of style, medium and technique. The paintings, photography and monotypes Bailly selected are a wispy, summery collection of landscapes, seascapes and ...

The Walshes in Williamstown by Elizabeth Michelman In most advanced art museums, it’s almost unthinkable to present an exhibition without resorting to curatorial explanations. Language is deemed essential to orient the viewer to historical information and current critical jargon. Without it, Lisa Dorin, deputy director of curatorial affairs at the Williams College Museum of Art, could hardly impart knowledge about today’s art and artistic legacy to culture-hungry college students. But she gamely rolled with the punches when Dan and Lexa ...

WAM Exhibit is the Cat's Meow by Brian Goslow “Meow: A Cat-inspired Exhibition” is the kind of show many museums have been presenting of late that utilizes a theme aimed at attracting a larger cross-section of potential visitors — and with rare exception, who doesn’t like cats? While my wife wondered why the Worcester Art Museum didn’t try to secure Roy Lichtenstein’s “Laughing Cat,” early Andy Warhol feline favorites “25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy,” “So Happy” or ...

Mother/Daughter Mandle in Newport by Suzanne Volmer “Of Water and Bone,” a mother and daughter exhibit created collaboratively by Gayle Wells Mandle and Julia Barnes Mandle, presents itself as a conceptual umbrella and makes a cohesive statement that communicates a composite view of the artists’ individual and shared perspectives based upon their experiences. The artists’ aesthetics have gravitational pull toward process charged with cultural awareness and investigatory layering of content worth contemplating, especially in an election year. Gayle explores global ...

Charting Weir's Artistic Evolution by Kristin Nord Julian Alden Weir’s art was shaped, according to collector Duncan Phillips, by a “reticent idealism,” while at the same time reflecting a wide-ranging, inquiring mind. “Home is the starting place,” said Weir, and for four decades he made this “quiet little house among the rocks,” now the Weir Farm National Historic Site, one of two main summer homes. After marriage into the Baker family in Windham, he split his summer months between the ...

An Annual Toast to the Coast by Kristin Nord The “Visions of Land and Sea” exhibition at Susan Powell Fine Art Gallery, an annual affair now in its 13th incarnation, has become as eagerly awaited as that annual first swim or cookout on the beach. The Madison, Conn., business has become a must–go place for contemporary art for home owners and businesses, offering its “Whole House Art” for the new art collector, as well as working closely with individual and ...

The Magical Art of Eric Carle by John P. Stapleton As an artist with close to household name status from his children’s books, it’s not a surprise that Eric Carle would be putting so much of his family into his images. At the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, they’ve got a new exhibit called “Hide and Seek” that sheds light on the little family references he’s hidden in various pieces. “Easter Eggs,” as they’re called, are ...

Gloria King Merritt's Happy Accident by Taryn Plumb It basically started out as a fluke. Four years ago, a tendon snapped in Gloria King Merritt’s thumb (the result of a 40-year-old injury). Her hand had to be rewired; she couldn’t do the simplest things, like fasten buttons or tie her shoes. Her doctors told her that in order to get her dexterity back, she should repetitively make quarter-inch marks with a pencil on a pad. That got old pretty quickly; ...

Attleboro's National Juried Show by James Foritano Vibrant, funny, elegant, profound. Overall a deeply heartening and enlivening display of talent for a summer afternoon in Attleboro — or for anytime, anywhere. That’s “Patterns,” the Attleboro Arts Museum’s annual national juried exhibition whose call for art sought work in all mediums, sizes and concepts that related to, or included, a pattern: “Consider zebra stripes, the family tartan, flight patterns, nautilus shell curves, quilts, breathing patterns, a strand of pearls, dress patterns, ...

Art as a World Power by Nancy Nesvet Exciting, innovative, confrontational art covered six halls and exhibition spaces at ArtBasel, the world’s biggest art fair, held in Basel, Switzerland from June 11-19, and artscope was there. Over 200 galleries showed work by contemporary, practicing artists in every art form, along with work by earlier artists. The Parcours sector included performance and site-specific installations around the medieval Cathedral Square; the Liste art fair exhibited young artists’ work, and the Volta art ...

by Brian Goslow The National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) Massachusetts Chapter is presenting two exhibitions this summer: “Continuum: Tradition Meets Innovation,” continuing through August 6 at Fountain Street Fine Art, 59 Fountain St., Framingham, Mass., and “Breaking Ground,” featuring 55 works by 46 artists, running through September 16 at the Walter J. Manninen Center for the Arts at Endicott College, 376 Hale St., Beverly, Mass. NAWA was founded in 1889 as a not-for-profit organization of professional women in fine ...