
Article Excerpts
Welcome
Welcome to our May/June issue, our kick-off to the summer season with a series of exhibitions we hope you’ll find road-trip worthy. This time around, we’re featuring an expanded number of wanderlusts, taking advantage of the knowledge and enthusiasm of our writers throughout New England to introduce you to parts of the region you may be unfamiliar with. Not only did I ask them to suggest art venues, but also to share their favorite coffee shops and restaurants to add ...Steampunk Springfield: Re-imagining and Industrial City
In 1862, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886) of Amherst, Mass., well-established today as one of the most important poets of the American Victorian era, published these enigmatic lines in an untitled poem: “They put me in the Closet — Because they liked me ‘still’ — Still! Could themself have peeped — And seen my Brain go round — They might as wise have lodged a Bird. For Treason — in the Pound.” Her literary forms, first printed without attribution in Springfield’s ...Objects in a Mirror
FREDERICO URIBE REFLECTS “I don’t have a drawing in my head, I have a feeling, and I build it,” said Columbia-born, Miami-based, internationally exhibiting Federico Uribe during a telephone interview describing his work methods. The starting point of his highly organized compositions is “mindfulness,” which he attempts to achieve during countless hours of meditation. The word “emotion” rises up often during conversation, as does the body-mind holistic concept where all the senses are united during creative play. The result of ...Fujiko Nakaya: Veil
BUILDING A HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG Since its completion in 1949, Philip Johnson’s Glass House has captured the views of the New Canaan property in carefully curated vignettes, much as a videographer might. While the building, with its minimal structure, geometry and proportion, ushered the nomenclature of the International Style into American residential architecture, people who spend a day or an evening at The Glass House experience it first-hand as a personal paean to the natural world. Some 60-plus ...Through the Trees
JANE DAHMEN TAKES A PEEK It’s been 10 years since Jane Dahmen moved to her home in the small seaside town of Newcastle, Maine — but she has yet to tire of the ocean, river and woods that serve as her daily backdrop. In fact, just the opposite: Her surroundings have inspired and enriched her work for the past decade. “Everywhere I walk, I see paintings,” said Dahmen. “It’s a very beautiful part of the world here.” It’s a part ...Gone Fishing: A Tribute to Our Industry
Berta Walker Gallery opens its 25th season on May 23 with the exhibition, “Going Fishing, A Tribute to Our Industry,” which was also the theme of its first opening. In 1989, Walker, a former Manhattan gallery director and art museum administrator, was in Provincetown, a place where she’d come since early childhood for some R&R. During her stay, she got tapped to be the emergency acting director of the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC), having been its chairman of the ...David Kasman
LARGER THAN LIFE David Kasman kicks off his first solo show at the Copley Society, “Continuum,” in dramatic fashion. Larger-than-life sculptures will dominate the space, their forms magnificent and brutish. Smaller, accessible bronze pieces will round out the collection, mirroring the coarseness and motion of their large-scale counterparts. You may be familiar with the public work of Boston area native Kasman. His towering 2011 “Resurgence,” which perches regally in front of the José Mateo Ballet Theatre at the Old Cambridge ...The Stories We Tell
FULLER CRAFT SUMMONS GODS AND MONSTERS The gods and goddesses have been summoned to Brockton. “The Stories We Tell” at the Fuller Craft Museum presents three wood-centric artists who present distinct mythologies taken from world culture, or create modern pantheons of their own, or blend them together in some sort of a cosmological Cuisinart. The exhibition is striking in that it is easy to see a clear, common thread in the symbolically loaded art of Binh Pho, Michelle Holzapfel and ...Magic Gold, Full Sun
CORRINE COLARUSSO’S SUN ALSO RISES Before beginning her series of paintings for a solo show at the Newport Art Museum called “Magic Gold, Full Sun,” Corrine Colarusso wondered about painting a sunrise relevant in the 21st century. Could it be done? How should it be done? Speaking from her Atlanta studio, she mentioned the sunrise as being among the most over-appropriated images in today’s advertising lexicon. It frames myriad product placements — everything from banks to cornflakes. She asked whether ...Singularity
GEORGE SHAW MAKES HIS MARK George Shaw’s paintings have the immediate feel of his lifetime of work as a carpenter — every marking utilizes a memory bank of all the houses, barns and structures he’s worked on — the end result is a life story shared. “When you’re looking at a work at 3 a.m., you wonder what happened with the past six hours,” he explained. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing in there in the studio. Sometimes I’m ...Eaden Huang
LONG SUMMER'S LOTUS Photographer Eaden Huang is a man in a hurry — except when he’s waiting for that perfect moment, when the light and shadows of his subject are poised to change, the temperature to climb or dip, revealing a new landscape. It might be a subject as close as the lotus pond in Whitman Mass., a private garden that he haunts every spring in order to court his lush subjects, lotus blossoms, in a moment of transition from ...Johnson, Vermont
A TRANQUIL YET ENERGIZING CREATIVE CULTURE If it’s creative rejuvenation you seek, then a trip to Johnson, Vermont is in order. The Gihon River meanders through the heart of town — at times bustling, and at other times perfectly calm. It’s an appropriate metaphor for the experience one has while visiting this celebrated artistic community, a place where one may simultaneously be energized and find tranquility, whether gathering inspiration and ideas from visiting one of the many artists’ studios or ...Wanderlust: Southcoast Maine
MAKE A GREAT CATCH ALONG THE ROCKY SHORELINE Why are so many artists drawn to the South Maine Coast? Perhaps it’s some special quality in the glint of sunlight against the Gulf of Maine water, the sound of effervescent salt spray released as cold waves crash against rocky shorelines. Or something about the intermingling visual appeal of ramshackle lobster shacks and the rank stench of baitfish that stirs the creative juices and triggers the artistic urge. Whatever causes the phenomenon, ...Connecticut Museums
RENEW YOUR SPIRIT WITH A DAY OUTING Finally, spring, with its mix of lime green and yellow and bright bursts of color, has arrived in Connecticut. It’s been a long winter. But alongside this gift of the season is an eclectic mix of exhibitions at the state’s major regional art museums. A few day trips seem designed to lift the spirits. It’s hard not to be charmed by “Click Clack! Ding! The American Typewriter,” one private collector’s look at the ...Interstate 93 in New Hampshire
YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE One of the best times of year in New Hampshire is the late spring and early summer. Trees are green with new leaves, flowers are in bloom and the black flies haven’t hatched yet. New Hampshire has many opportunities to see contemporary art while enjoying all of the state’s beautiful scenery — just follow Interstate 93 north and enjoy these stops along the way. MANCHESTER WHAT TO SEE: “Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey,” through ...The Wild, Wild (Metro) West
A CORRIDOR OF CULTURE IN NATICK AND FRAMINGHAM Easy proximity to Boston by the Framingham/Worcester commuter rail line and major driving Routes 9, 135 and the Massachusetts Turnpike peg these two towns as desirable bedroom communities for commuters. However, a concentration of artists and creative organizers have negated the need for a drive into the city for a dose of culture — re-envisioning the industrial bones of the area as habitats for studios, performance spaces, boutique retail galleries and culinary ...Newburyport Artwalk
ART, COMMUNITY AND CULTURE The annual Newburyport ArtWalk is a citywide celebration of art, community and discovery. Taking place over four weekends in 2014, including June 19 and 20, this self-guided walking tour takes visitors to open house festivities at 17 galleries, five cafes and a historic inn. Newburyport is a classic maritime seaport whose history includes everything from fishing and shipbuilding to silverware manufacturing and rum distilling. Today, it is a cultural center that attracts a diverse group of ...Personal Terrain: Mapping Our Own Identities
MAPPING OUR OWN IDENTITIES Eleven artists corralled by curator Ilana Manolson simmer on the walls of the Concord Art Association until May 18; or, rather, they offer their mapped views of their contemporary universes, as they see them. They might look arcane at first glance — but don’t be intimidated. We all have one in some back pocket of our consciousness, so folded and creased that we’re shy of displaying it in public. Perhaps now is the moment, prodded by ...Resonance
SPRING EXPLODES WITH COLOR, LIGHT AND SOUND After the winter of 2013-14, with its arctic temps and record-high snowfall, New Englanders said, “Enough already!” Ali Goodwin, director of the Drift Contemporary Art Gallery at the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion in Ports- mouth, has executed her own form of revenge. It’s called “Resonance,” the gallery’s opening exhibition of the season. “Spring is resounding with color, light and sound,” Goodwin says. “And I’m welcoming it in with bold, vibrant colors in this show ... ...Capsule Previews
“Tour de Force,” the International Poster Gallery’s 20th anniversary exhibition, features Henri de Toulouse–Lautrec’s iconic “Eldorado” from the 1890s (“The Golden Age of the Poster”), Italian rarities by Marcello Dudovich and Leopoldo Metlicovitz and a Herbert Leupin maquette for an Object Poster for Swiss men’s clothier PKZ. Along with the exhibition, 40 rarely-seen posters from the gallery archives are on sale. “Our passion for posters remains constant,” said owner Jim Lapides. “Original posters continue to prove an important and enduring ...