COMMUNITY
ARTS RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE
82 PRESCOTT STREET
LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS
THROUGH FEBRUARY: SELECTED WORKS OF JESSICA TAWCZYNSKI
FROM HER RECENT ARTIST’S RESIDENCY IN AKUREYRI, ICELAND
by Flavia Cigliano
Founded in 2009, the Arts Research Collaborative (ARC) in Lowell, Massachusetts quickly established itself as a cultural presence in the heart of the city, committed to working with the arts communities of both Lowell and the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML).
The concept for a professional workspace and gallery came from three colleagues in the Art and Design Department: Jim Jeffers, Denise Manseau and Stephen Mishol, who explained, “We wanted to create a hybrid space where our students could have more direct interaction with professional artists.” Both Manseau and Mishol were quick to acknowledge the critical role Jim Jeffers played in developing ARC. “It was Jim who found this space, and we would not be here without him. He was really the straw that stirred the drink. I know we are indebted to him to this day and he remains a great friend,” Mishol said.
According to Manseau, establishing the Arts Research Collaborative was first and foremost in response to the need for a professional studio space for the three co-founders. “We started by looking for a place to work, but also with the idea of bringing UMass to the down-town by having small shows and student events,” she said.
“Early on we held a postcard fundraiser downtown — people loved it, it was very successful. The community’s reaction to the postcard show sealed the prospect of establishing ARC in downtown Lowell,” said Manseau. “We continue to help out with fundraising events for the students — whether a postcard show or silent auctions, we find a way to incorporate fundraising events for the students into our programming.”
The founders’ vision was to give the students experiences that could not be accommodated in a classroom setting or within the curriculum of the university. “We try to make a difference, to make a difference to our students and to the city of Lowell,” stated Mishol. “By expanding their lessons down here, giving them a chance to think like professional artists, allowing them to exhibit in a professional space, having them interact with the community and the city, you provide things that really can’t be replicated in the classroom.
“Nothing could be more experiential than making a painting or drawing, and an extension of that is when artists put their work into the world. That was the thinking originally – we could really offer more experiences not only to the students, but to the Lowell community as well. It gives opportunity for discourse that students miss once they leave school. That’s significant. ARC has become a hub as students are able to come here for these shows, meet the artists, see their colleagues, and reconnect with each other. It gives them an opportunity for a continuing, ongoing dialog. It’s all part of a larger process.”
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Celebrating the life of Dahlov Ipcar
By Greg Morell
Manchester, New Hampshire – Dahlov Ipcar was celebrating her 99th year when her life and her vibrant career as a prolific artist came to an end, February 10, 2017.
I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Dahlov at her Maine home for Artscope Magazine when she was 93. At the time, she was putting the finishing touches on her expansive exhibition of her circle of life paintings for her one-woman show at the University of New Hampshire.
Entering Dahlov’s world was a heady experience of artistic intoxication. Every corner of her domicile was crammed with paintings, bronze busts, sculptures in marble and wood, drawings, soft sculptures, and marionettes, all painted or stitched by Dahlov, or her artist parents.
She was a joyous lover of life and art. Her work is a rich visual feast, an experience full of zest, color, and magical imagery.
At the time if my visit, she had just finished “Blue Moon Circle” destined for her show at UNH. I was amazed that despite her advanced age, she was working at the height of her artistic power.
Taking the visual journey through her paintings is a pleasurable voyage of discovery. What is produced is a world of balance, a veritable cornucopia of visual motifs celebrating the weave of life. From the subterranean worlds of the ocean to the winged creatures of the air, all collaged with colorful exuberance in a beating matrix of interlocking creatures, great and small.
Dahlov Ipcar, born in 1917, was the child of Marguerite and William Zorach. Her father was a sculptor and her mother a painter, both were favored with distinguished careers in the New York art world.
Dahlov was her father’s muse and served as the principal model for both her father and his coterie of art students. Dahlov was plagued with hours of posing and she confided to me that she dreaded the idea of marriage to another artist fearing yet more tedious hours of posing.
Two of her father’s life size bronzes of Dahlov can be seen locally, one at the Portland Museum of Art and the another at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art.
When I queried Dahlov on the secret of her amazing health, longevity and productivity, she responded: “I credit my luck with my diet — heavy cream, rich butter and eggs, Jersey whole milk and lots of beef and pork.”
My visit and interview with Dahlov was one of the most enriching experiences of my life.
TRURO CENTER FOR THE ARTS AT CASTLE HILL’S SUMMER BASH JULY 23; HONOREE JUDY CICERO DISCUSSES
By Harriet Bee
Truro, MA – The Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill is celebrating its 45th year at the annual Castle Hill Summer Bash on Saturday July 23, and will also be honoring longtime friend and supporter Judy Cicero.
The outdoor party will feature great food, martinis and cosmopolitans by Ray Elman, and dancing to the music of the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, as well as the tribute to well-known Provincetown resident Cicero.
Cicero first came to the tip of the cape as a ten-year-old when her parents began their ownership of Cabot’s, the fudge and candy emporium on the corner of Commercial and Ryder streets, where they remained for many years during the summer months. Much later, as an adult, a teacher, an art collector and antiques dealer, she moved to the Outer Cape in 1972 where she has remained ever since.
Over the years, Cicero has actively served on many of the Cape’s fine and performing arts boards as well as local political organizations in the area, giving generously of her time, knowledge and passion to the causes in which she believes. Always focusing strongly on the arts, and after serving on the board of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) for a number of years, Cicero joined the board of Castle Hill, the Truro art school where she has been an outstanding leader and spokesperson for nearly two decades.
Cicero, who is leaving the Castle Hill board this year, has shared some of her thoughts and feelings about Castle Hill’s origins, growth, and unique contributions to the arts and to the Outer Cape community. Here is what she has to say:
“There are certain things about Castle Hill that are outstanding. It is a marvelous school. It has taught thousands of people to meet other people, to be social, to improve their art, to care about a community, to be in a wild suburban, and urban, setting. It’s close to Boston, it’s close to sophisticated people, it’s close to museums, and when a person comes to Castle Hill, it’s very beneficial for them and others. Children have loved Castle Hill. And I, personally, have been in classes where everyone is friendly and embraces everyone else.
“It’s just non-judgmental and a wonderful place to be. It’s something that gives you a lot of constructive thoughts about yourself, about others, and about your work. And even if you have absolutely no talent, which a few people are guilty of, you will be encouraged in every way to develop your skill. In my experience, the teachers have been supportive, your fellow students will help you at any time, when you are frustrated, when you are successful, when you are at wit’s end and don’t know what to write or paint, they will be behind you like an army. They will help you, and sometimes its whether you want to be helped or not, but it’s a community that is extraordinary; I know that a lot of us have been to other schools and classes but the feeling you get at Castle Hill does not exist anywhere else.
“Now, I have been on the board for many years, ever since Carol Green concluded her presidency and asked me to join the Castle Hill board, and that was the beginning of a long association with the Center. I feel that having been on the board, I cannot say we didn’t have rocky moments; people disagree, they agree, they have separate things they are interested in, they like or do not like something — any group of people will be like that — but the board from the very inception, as far as I know, always came to a consensus no matter what the difficulty was, no matter what the problem was; no matter what people said or did, in the end everyone would battle it out, or not, but agree.
“It was a very concrete feeling that you could express yourself in any way; you could scream, you could stamp, you could throw things, make speeches, be devoted to your own cause, or not, but in the end, from the very beginning, there would be consensus, there would be agreement. And the board, which has continually changed, with different people, different personalities, different skills, always came together in the end.
“And that presentation to the public, to the students, to the town of Truro, to Cape Cod, to nature, always came through. And usually it was stronger than ever after each crisis, whether we were broke, or whatever, we went out and raised money, contributed art to our auctions, and we continued. Artists donated works of art to our auctions, which became famous over the years. We always had community spirit; you could come and sit on the back deck,have a cup of coffee, and be included somehow.
“We had some very big and tumultuous decisions to make, many controversies; some wanted it to be a small organization, some wanted it to grow, we had people with no opinion or plenty of opinion, but so far as I know, 45 years ago when the founders, Joyce Johnson, Eleanor Meldahl and Dan Klubock, created Castle Hill they envisioned a very self-sufficient small art school, an unusual art school. To me the feeling was almost Japanese in its rigor and its freedom and the way it came together. I mean you could be in a class where everyone is doing something else, but it is also unified; there is a fusion.
“When we came to the point when Joyce Johnson said to me that there was a marvelous property for sale that was called Edgewood Farm, very few people knew it. Eleanor Meldahl had lived there with her family and raised her children there, and, of course, she was a part of Castle Hill. So we started to think, as a group, of buying it, and we eventually did, which has made a great difference. Over the course of three years we hammered out all the difficulties and came to the conclusion — a 100 percent of the board voted for it — that we should buy it. And now things are bigger, but they are not different. I find the same kind of community and the same kind of consensus. We worked at getting everyone together on that same page.
I know it’s different, bigger, but it is never going to be isolating, it’s never going to be a hierarchy of people who would govern it; it’s un-collegiate in that way. There’s no provost, no principal or headmaster or head of the school. There is an executive director and there will probably always be an one because that’s who coordinates the school, doesn’t run the school but coordinates it with different projects that the board, the students, people just work on. I guess you would say that the executive director is flexible.
“The current one, Cherie Mittenthal, has done marvelous, amazing things you would not have thought could be done and improved the school every year. It’s even funny for me to call it a school because it’s not rigid, it doesn’t have a rigid structure. It’s a school that is a community, not a community school. So I think that we’ve always leaned toward the positive, toward inclusion.
“The selfishness that you get on many boards doesn’t exist too much here. You think of Castle Hill, you don’t think of what you need. Of course, people are welcome to voice their opinions, but I’d say that 95 percent of the board thinks of how to make Castle Hill better. It’s an amazing confluence of people full of positiveness. And, finally, I am leaving the boardbecause I’ve been on it a long time, I’ve contributed what I can, and I personally am very happy at this point that Castle Hill is where it is today, and it’s going further, its going on and won’t stop. You can see that this is a continuum. Hundreds of years from now I hope it is still here, like Harvard.”
(The Castle Hill Summer Bash takes place on Saturday, July 23 from 6-9 p.m. at the Truro Center for the Arts, 10 Meeting House Road, Truro, Mass. For more information, visit castlehill.org.)