Welcome to our 14th Anniversary issue! Since 2006 it’s been our goal to promote the artists, galleries and museums of New England with the hope that our coverage leads to increased attendance at exhibitions and sales with the long-term outlook that we’re all in this together and those we assist will reciprocate in supporting our mission. Looking back at our premier issue (March/April 2006), the cover of which highlighted “Jamaican Art in Boston” and featured stories on “Random Acts of ...

The Massachusetts College of Art & Design’s newly-minted MassArt Art Museum, branded as MAAM, offers audiences contemporary art immersion for free along Boston’s museum mile. Roughly the size of a boutique hotel, it presents art programming Kunsthalle style. As the product of a major architectural remodel, MAAM greets the public on the footprint of MassArt’s Paine and Bakalar Galleries. Its three inaugural exhibitions feature an eyeful of world-class installations to celebrate its emergence as a museum. “When visitors enter the ...

When it seems that environmental protections are increasingly scaled back, even as we speed towards the point of no return, it is not unusual for so many artists to focus on the beautiful and wild things of this world, or to meditate on nostalgia for the past and their anxiety for the future. In the Cambridge Art Association’s annual Members Prize Show, many have done just that. This year’s show is larger than ever, with works by almost 60 artists ...

No “bad art” to be seen in the Duxbury Art Association “Winter Juried Show!” Juried art exhibitions are a visual treat because of the diversity of topics, media and surprises. American artists, both professional and amateur, are exceptionally skilled due to the high quality of art classes offered by schools, museums, art associations and private teachers. The 85 artworks, selected from among 600, are exemplars of this high quality. Once again, curator Craig Bloodgood has installed the diverse works in ...

The Greek aphorism “Know thyself” has been attributed to numerous ancient Greek sages, but probably most often to Socrates and Plato. In more recent history, such luminaries as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Samuel Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others have incorporated it into various dissertations of their work on self-examination and the exploration of wisdom. Westbrook, Maine (near Portland), encaustic artist, Dietlind Vander Schaaf, has followed her own path and adopted the enlightened understanding the sages embrace — totally in her own ...

A pair of ravaged pewter sculptures resembling hieroglyphs flank the window in the Groton School’s Brodigan Gallery on the site map for its upcoming “In a State of Becoming” exhibition of work by Boston-based metalsmith and sculptor Venetia Dale. Both are the height of a fireplug — one rotund, the other a spiky “X.” They reach upwards like toddlers asking to be picked up. “Between: Kitchen-Aid Mixer,” together with wall-mounted pewter castings of other Styrofoam packing inserts, comprise Dale’s “Between” ...

In East Boston, we cannot escape our connection to the water. Even surrounded by buildings, a glance in one direction or another leads you directly to the harbor. Entering the ClipArt Gallery at the newly developed Clippership Wharf, the smell of the ocean on the wind joins you, and panoramic windows offer glimpses of the harbor. Through “Water: Medium & Mirror,” an eclectic and fascinating collection of works by New England artists, curator Stephanie Arnett of the Atlantic Works Gallery ...

Birds chirp, piano strings make new sounds, a human voice honors nature, drawers reveal surprises. Experienced together in a small, innovative exhibition called “Art of Sound” at the Spruce Peak Arts Gallery in Stowe, Vermont, four artists share their dedication to sound as an art form. Gallery curator Kelly Holt, an artist herself, explained what drew her to mount the unusual exhibition. “The richness of sound is often hard to perceive. And yet there is beauty in creative ways of ...

As its artist prospectus had called for artwork to “celebrate the unexpected beauty of winter and the promise of spring,” taking a train trip whose tracks traveled alongside woods, streams and hills was the perfect preparation to review the Copley Society of Art’s 2020 winter members’ show, “Full Spectrum.” One of the first works I was pulled towards was “Waiting for Spring,” a sharp watercolor painting by Kara Bigda. I had to move right up to it to confirm it ...

In the first survey of its vast photographic collection that covers roughly a quarter of its collection and spans close to 120 years, the Williams College Museum of Art’s current “Landmarks” exhibition is a powerful showcase of images that follow four themes: “landmark events, buildings as landmarks, landmark features of specific environments and landmark impressions” that celebrate some of the world’s biggest achievements during that time period along with bringing some of its grandest challenges and catastrophes to the forefront ...

Primaries for the national election punctuate politics in the United States with rhetoric ranging from how to reach for the brass ring of prosperity to stumping on national and global policy issues. In this climate, Attleboro Arts Museum director Mim Fawcett said that 75 percent of artwork that she is seeing from artists involves social commentary. That commentary has prompted “Take a Stand: Voices of the New England Sculptors Association.” From April 9 through May 8, the show will weigh ...

The ancient Greeks spoke of eight kinds of love: Eros (sexual love), Philia (friendship), Storge (love of kin and children), Ludus (playful love or flirtation), Mania (obsessiveness), Pragma (mature love), Philautia (love of self) and Agape (unconditional or spiritual love). But there are many kinds of love, some seemingly noble: empathy, generosity, love of country, love of the home, and of nature and culture. And there are forms of love that dip into the traditionally sinful: for example, the desire ...

Indigenous art has long existed under the radar at Yale University, with its thousands of artworks and cultural and sacred items residing in disparate collections scattered throughout the campus. “Objects have been displayed in glass cabinets or tucked away in storage, in wooden drawers and steel cabinets, with catalogue numbers scrawled across their birch bark, river cane and hide,” the curators write in introducing “Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art,” a compelling exhibition that draws ...

If you were alive in the ‘70s and if you were drawn into the wave of protest for change taking place then, you remember the often-heard admonition from then Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver: “There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem.” Those words and others’ call to action compelled a generation to get off the sidelines and get involved in bringing ...

“Archives of Consciousness: Six Cuban Artists,” an exhibition that captures the complexity of Cuba in the post-Soviet era, is a runaway hit at the Fairfield University Art Museum, and a must-see for people who’ve long been enthralled by the island’s mythology. The 52 works on display have been lent by Old Greenwich attorneys Terri and Steven Certilman, who have built a large collection of Cuban art over the course of what has amounted to a near-40-year cultural love affair. If ...

There’s no way to distinguish how many years passed make a specific time period history. In “Present Histories Redefined,” history lies within the last two calendar years. The photographs of Feda Eid, Jonathan Mark Jackson and Joanna Tam document the everchanging stories of the present, focusing on marginalized voices. Curated by Jessica Burko, photography as “Power Art” is showcased at Lesley University’s VanDernoot Gallery by the Photographic Research Center. Feda Eid’s photography brings an immediate sense of familiarity, depicting a ...

One might wonder: where do the owners of private jets collect art? Well, in New York City, of course! There was an exclusive VIP Post- Modern and Modern art exhibition held this past October in the new neighborhood of Hudson Yards. Dubbed a “millionaire’s playground,” this gorgeous artful exhibition was a part of the Premier Plate event and took place in order to raise funds for medical research (the Wendy English Breast Cancer Research) and to end hunger (Heavenly Harvest). ...

Art in 2020 is increasingly the domain of the young, with millennials, Gen Xers, Generation Y and Z inaugurating change in museums. These visitors have little time to walk around art museums, so demand that art be clearly organized. In the Instagram age, when messages are quickly read, with words summarized, connections must be quickly and clearly made, so boredom does not set in, and the message is read before the next text or newest artist comes in. We are ...