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“Rembrandt’s People,” Wadsworth Atheneum, Oct. 10, 2009, to Jan. 24, 2010.
Brian Knep “Exempla,” Tufts, Sept. 10 to Nov. 15, 2009. Also Brain Knep, Rotenberg Gallery, Nov. 19 to Dec. 23, 2009.
“Drawings That Work: 21st Drawing Show,” Boston Center for the Arts, Sept. 11 to Oct. 25, 2009.
Kirsten Hassenfeld, Brown’s Bell Gallery, Aug. 29 to Nov. 1, 2009. Also at Cade Tompkins Editions/Projects, Sept. 25 to Nov. 14, 2009.
“First Hand: Civil War Era Drawings from the Becker Collection,” Boston College’s McMullen Museum, Sept. 5 to Dec. 13, 2009.
Alec Soth “Dog Days Bogota,” Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Sept. 9 to Nov. 28, 2009.
“Sacred Monsters: Everyday Animism in Contemporary Japanese Art and Anime,” Tufts, Sept. 10 to Nov. 22, 2009.
“The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480 – 1650,” RISD Museum, Sept. 18, 2009, to Jan. 3, 2010.
“Pixilerations [V.6]: New Media Art,” RISD and 5 Traverse, Sept. 24 to Oct. 10, 2009.
“Platform 1: Andrew Mowbray,” DeCordova, Sept. 26, 2009, to Jan. 3, 2010.
“Work by Women Billboard,” Hive Archive, October 2009 to June 2010.
“Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow,” Currier Museum of Art, Oct. 10, 2009, to Jan. 3, 2010.
“Act Up New York: Activism, Art and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993,” Harvard’s Carpenter Center, Oct. 15 to Dec. 24, 2009.
“Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” Peabody Essex Museum, Oct. 17, 2009, to Feb. 7, 2010.
“Secrets of the Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC,” MFA, Oct. 18, 2009, to May 16 (originally was Jan. 10), 2010.
“Focus on Four: Rhode Island Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, Lewis Hine, Charlotte Estey and Aaron Siskind,” Newport Art Museum, Oct. 24, 2009, to Jan. 24, 2010.
“Harry Potter: The Exhibition,” Museum of Science, opens Oct. 25, 2009.
Iron Guild’s Halloween Iron Pour, Steel Yard, Oct. 30, 2009.
“Krysztof Wodiczko: The Veterans Project,” ICA, Nov. 4, 2009, to March 7, 2010.
Gerry Bergstein & Henry Schwartz; David Aronson, Boston Expressionists at Danforth Museum, Nov. 18, 2009, to March 14, 2010.
“Albrecht Durer: Virtuoso Printmaker,” 45 prints from MFA collection, MFA, Nov. 21, 2009, to July 3, 2010.
“Harry Callahan: American Photographer,” MFA, Nov. 21, 2009, to July 3, 2010.
“Golden Legacy: Original Art from 65 Years of Golden Books,” Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Nov. 24, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010.
“Andy Warhol: A Recent Acquisition Exhibition,” Bannister Gallery at Rhode Island College, Dec. 9, 2009, to Jan. 8, 2010.
“Robert Indiana and the Star of Hope,” Farnsworth Art Museum, June 20 to Oct. 25, 2009.
“Contemporary Outlook: Seeing Songs,” MFA, July 1, 2009, to Feb. 21, 2010.
“Viva Mexico! Edward Weston and His Contempraries” and “Vida y Drama: Modern Mexican Prints,” MFA, May 30 to Nov. 2, 2009.
Fawcett’s Antique Toy & Art Museum, Waldoboro, Maine, ongoing.

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Maine Arts Commission Good Idea Grant Programs.
Massachusetts Cultural Council.
New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.
Rhode Island State Council on the Arts grants, deadlines: April 1 and Oct. 1.
Vermont Arts Council: artist development grants, deadline: 60 days prior to activity.

Yokelist Manifesto Number 1: Boston lacks alternative spaces?
Yokelism at the 2008 Boston Art Awards.
Yokelist Manifesto Number 2: Montreal case study.
Yokelist Manifesto Number 3: Hire locally.
Yokelist Manifesto Number 4: We need coverage of our living artists.
Yokelist Manifesto Number 5: We need local retrospectives.
Yokelism update: Coverage of our living artists: Sebastian Smee responds.
Yokelism update: Dangers of Provincialism.
Yokelism update: Re: Dangers of Provincialism.
Yokelist Manifesto Number 6: Could the CIA help?
Yokelism at the 2009 New England Art Awards.

Fawcett’s Antique Toy & Art Museum, Waldoboro, Maine.
Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Zimmerman House in Manchester, New Hampshire.

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MIT's List Visual Arts Center

Montserrat College of Art

Musee Patamecanique

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Rhode Island College's Bannister Gallery

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School of the Museum of Fine Arts Animation crew blog

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My Love for You Is a Stampede of Horses

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The Girl in the Green Dress

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Farewell to Stairwell and Yes

From our December report on the closings of Stairwell Gallery in Providence and Yes Gallery + Studio in Warren, Rhode Island:

More closings and a question: Can galleries survive here?

2009 was a crappy year for the arts as the lousy economy has pushed venerable institutions like the Rhode Island School of Design to cut staff, Brown University's Bell Gallery to leave a curatorial position unfilled, and galleries in places like New York and Boston to shutter in droves. The latest bad news is that Stairwell Gallery on Broadway and Yes Gallery + Studio in Warren are closing.

Stairwell co-founders Natalie Purkey and Haley O'Connor are shy about discussing the details with me, but Purkey says "[we're] relinquishing our storefront space, and will be continuing Stairwell projects in a more free-form manner." Think something like the exhibits they curated at Boston University late last year and in New York. In the meantime, they plan to focus on their own artmaking. O'Connor e-mails that she's "headed west to participate in the Mountain School of the Arts in LA. Natalie has a few shows lined up, the first in Baltimore this winter."

Read the rest here.

Pictured from top to bottom: An opening at Yes Gallery + Studio and the front of Stairwell Gallery.

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Brandeis student laments: “I was hugely proud to be afforded the opportunity to graduate with a degree that would help me get into graduate school or give me a leg up while finding a job. Now when I tell people I go to Brandeis, their only response is, ‘Oh, the school that wanted to close the Rose Art Museum?’”
Stephen Huneck of Vermont, famed for his folksy carvings of dogs, took his own life on Jan. 7. He was apparently despondent over having to lay off most of his employees because his art business was hurting.
NH native Colin Ford makes surreal art from live fish tank creatures in Miami.
Boston museum construction projects go green.
New Rhode Island Museum of Science and Art proposed.
Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford relaunches its Matrix contemporary art program. Also unveils the reinstallation of its superb collection of Hudson River School paintings.
Amazing bubble-maker Keith Michael Johnson of Warwick, RI, recalls his beginnings: “There were very few people working with serious bubbles at the time. Just a couple of people.”
RI marine salvage Captain Ed Hughes’s brush with cancer inspires him to take up nature photography: "Animals don't run away from me. They should. But they don't. They let me get close."
Joyce Amend of York, Maine, makes sailors’ valentines.
Will Sofrin of RI is making prints of classic Nathanael Green Herreshoff sailing yacht designs.
Pam Sawyer of Somersworth, NH, honors local families of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead with needlepoint memorials.
Essex sculptor Chris Williams’s 1,800-pound bronze rhino wanders around town.
Arshile Gorky was in Providence, then taught Mark Rothko in Boston.
“NEH chief preaches the art of manners.”

RSS feed.

Lynda Barry, Oct. 2, 2008.
Eleanor Callahan and Barbara, Nov. 11, 2008.

Nick Cave

Brian Chippendale, May 16, 2008, part one and two.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Sept. 23, 2008.
Chuck Close, Nov. 1, 2007.
Gregory Crewdson, Oct. 29, 2008.
Lynda Hartigan of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, July 16, 2008.
Anish Kapoor, May 27, 2008.
Dennis Kois, director of DeCordova Museum, June 9, 2008.
Ernest Morin, July 21, 2008.
Dan Moynihan, Brookline cartoonist and illustrator Oct. 8, 2009.
Damián Ortega, Sept. 15,2009.
Gary Panter, April 11, 2008, and Sept. 20, 2006.
Martha Rosler, Nov. 21, 2008.
Stefan Sagmeister, April 25, 2008.
Neil Salley of the Musée Patamécanique in Bristol, Rhode Island, Aug. 16, 2007.
Jon Sarkin, July 31, 2008.
Peter Schumann of Bread and Puppet Theater (pictured above), Aug. 12, 2008, part one, two and three; Jan 23, 2008, part one and two.
Richard Serra, June 1, 2008.
Rachel Whiteread, Oct. 14, 2008.

Boston Globe: The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research is one of “The best of the (local) web.”
Edgar Allen Beem of Yankee Magazine: "Indispensable ... Probably the best regional art site in the country."
Art Connect: “Cook covers so much ground that you get the feeling that he must be aware of everything that goes on in the New England art scene.”
Wikipedia: One of the “Notable art blogs.”
Drawn & Quarterly blog: The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research is “the best coverage of the New England area art scene out there.”
Modern Kicks: “When it comes to art in New England, the man sees everything. I don't even want to know what the mileage on his car is.”
Joel Brown of HubArts: “Cook has been a veritable Woodward and Bernstein on the Rose.”
Art Fag City: "The most detailed report [on the Rose Art Museum that] I’ve read thus far."
Online University Reviews: One of the "100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs."
Sara Agniel: “The Journal is worth adding to your regular reading list.”
Caleb Neelon: "The best regional arts news source out there."
Yankee Magazine blog: The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research is one of the "Best Art Blogs in New England."
Ethan Ham: “Excellent.”
Thomas Garvey of The Hub Review: "Thoughtful."
Geoff Edgers of the Exhibitionist: “Always compelling.”
Boston Photography Focus: “Excellent overview and coverage of the breaking gallery news since the spring as it happened.”
ArtSake: “Incisive analysis of the New England art scene.”
Modern Kicks: “Greg Cook has continued to be on top of the story.”
Anne Elizabeth Moore: “Has excellent taste, and is tracking the SHIT outta the local arts scene.”
Boston Lowbrow: "Who would've thought Cook's unrivalled thoroughness of local gallery coverage would translate so well to investigative journalism."
Newcritics: “Cook gets it right.”
Robert Castagna: Cook and The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research are the cause of, and solution to, all of Boston art criticism's problems.
Jon Petro: “Cook's review reads like a sophomoric attempt at art criticism.”
Also our favorite footnote (see 32).

Shepard Fairey admits he lied, faked evidence and destroyed evidence to conceal which Associated Press photo he, uh, appropriated for his famous Obama “Hope” poster. The AP, which has sued the RISD alum for copyright infringement, notes that “Fairey’s attorneys, led by Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University, have informed the AP that they are withdrawing.” Fairey insists that “regardless of which of the two images was used, the fair use issue should be the same.”
Wall Street Journal: “There is something uniquely depressing about the fact that the National Portrait Gallery's version of the Barack Obama "Hope" poster [by Shepard Fairey] previously belonged to a pair of lobbyists.”
Boston Greenway fails to attract people. Globe: “Call it the Emptyway.”
Egypt wants back “a bust of pyramid builder Ankhaf from the Boston Museum of Fine Art.”
World Monuments Fund warns that farm system that has survived in Hadley, Mass., since 17th century is now endangered.
Did Bostonians transplanted to California fake theft of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Renoir and Miro? San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 30: “Pebble Beach Men report art theft.” Boston Globe, Oct. 2: “Ransom asked in theft.” Monterey County Herald, Oct. 4: “Art heist puts collectors in spotlight.” San Jose Mercury News, Oct. 5: “A curious case of art theft.” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 7: “’Art theft’ smells fishy, investigators say.” Boston Herald, Oct. 8: “Art ‘heist’ suspect: I have proof.” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 10: “List of art stolen in Pebble Beach raises doubt.” Boston Herald, Oct. 11: “Art experts ‘smell a rat.’”
Farnsworth Museum tightens belt, despite 30 percent attendance growth.
Salary cuts for a third of US museum directors, including Gardner, MFA, and a little at ICA.
Onion: NY’s Met aims to boost attendance by “allowing patrons to touch paintings.”
Boston sculptor Matthew Hincman – of screwy park bench fame – mints his own money.
Daily Beast says Boston is third smartest city in U.S. Take that number 13 New York. The “city” of Hartford-New Haven ranks sixth. Providence is number 22.
Women to turn 41-acre oceanfront estate in York, Maine, into art colony.
Bill would create Massachusetts poet laureate.
Boston native Ann Philbin behind Hammer Museum’s “striking rise.”
Portsmouth unveils statue honoring firefighters.
Massachusetts artist Mikyoung Kim fills Washington, D.C., bridge tower with kaleidoscope.
City finally finds a use for art: “Boston recruits local artists to help ward off graffiti.” (By the bye: If you use the cliche “outside the box” you are by definition thinking inside the box.)
Profile of Richard Silliboy, a Micmac basketmaker in Maine.
RISD dropout John Baizley makes awesome heavy metal art.
Profile of Gallery XIV’s Will Kerr.
Disney animator Lon Smart, who grew up in East Providence, speaks to students in Warwick, R.I.
Profile of artist, designer and MIT teacher Richard Filipowski, who died last November.
People mad about removal of mural from old Verizon building in Boston.
New England carpenters union installs the “highest-resolution transparent LED display in the world” on its Carpenters Center in South Boston. (Via Universal Hub.)
New Greater Boston Food Bank building facade includes hidden picture.
Students paint murals across front of burned Boston restaurants. (Via Universal Hub.)
Providence’s downtown building boom ends with a whimper.
RISD is one of the most dang neighborly schools in the U.S., according to some guy.
Mystic Seaport mills “centuries-old live oaks” from Texas to restore 1841 whaling ship.
Maine furniture craftsman Wayne Hall honored by Center for Maine Contemporary Art.
Jimmy Sampas of Holliston produces film about his uncle Jack Kerouac.
Exhibit of Mexican Christian art, organized by Michael Komanecky, currently interim director of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, opens in San Antonio.
Julie Feingold of Harwich makes “Lost Heroes Art Quilt,” honoring post 9-11 military dead.
David Brigham, former director of Worcester Art Museum, named president of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Harvard acquires John Updike archives.
Giant puppets rampage in Berlin celebration of the 20th anniversary of fall of the Berlin Wall.
Another Case Western prof makes crazy Jackson Pollock claims. Previously.
Norman Rockwell Museum launches award to honor artists … who have served on its board.
Brown U is Hogwarts for Harry Potter’s Emma Watson.
Providence artist/rocker Brian Chippendale on his artwork for Lightning Bolt’s new album: “I’m actually very excited about the artwork for this one. I think it’s the best stuff I’ve ever done for one of the records. My stuff tends to be really full of color, no white space at all, but the new one has a lot of white space, which makes it feel really energized. I’ve been kind of getting into white space suddenly, out of the blue.”
Boston Police sketch artist Robert Neville: “Usually when you’re nearing the end, that’s when you start to realize you’ve really hit a chord. … You know when they react they’re not just saying it to make you feel good because you’re the artist. You did a good job. You start to realize, ‘That’s the guy .’”
Harvard Book Store getting magic book making machine that will allow it to conjure up books on demand.
Boston Dynamics, the folks behind the super creepy/amazing BigDog robot, to produce military robot that can leap over 25-foot obstacles and keep going.
Phil Bissell, creator of New England Patriots’ logo “Pat Patriot,” says, "People just like Pat. They seem to know this guy is getting down to business. He's going to give it all. Flying Elvis [the newish Patriots logo] is just going around the field pointing to the sky. It just isn't the same."
South End Boston photographer Peter Urban dies at age 61.
Concord tries to save house built in 1780s by town’s first freed slave.
Harvard prof exercises his right to have cow at his retirement party.
Boston Museum School alum David Lynch has an art show.
Mass. Governor Deval Patrick: "The digital gaming industry is on fire in Massachusetts - one of the fastest growing sectors in technology and entertainment in the country.” Also, gaming site says: “Video gaming as we know it today can trace its birthplace to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
Tours of Gloucester City Hall's Depression-era Works Progress Administration murals.
Portland artist Joe Kievitt installs glass tile mural at UMaine’s Collins Center for the Arts.
RI sculptor Robin Mandel exhibits kinetic works in Pennsylvania.
Mary McFadden, whose fashion designs are on view at MassArt, interviewed.
MFA’s “World of the Pharaohs” Egyptian artifacts go on view at Arkansas Art Center.
Illustrator Jessica Shea opens art gallery in Georgetown.
Jim Drain, former Providence Fort Thunderite, exhibits at UTexas.
UMass Amherst shows off its gift of Warhol photos.
Florence Griswold Museum to present “Wee Faerie Village.”
“Three sculptures have been stolen and a sculpted bench badly damaged while on display as part of the Prescott Park New Hampshire Sculpture in the Park exhibition.”
Former RISD Provost Jay Coogan hired as president of Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Farnsworth Museum launches $12 million campaign to remember Andrew Wyeth – in particular to create an endowment to fund maintenance and operations of its four Wyeth-related properties.
Shep Abbott’s “String Castle Theory” in Gloucester’s Dogtown.
Piscataqua Fine Arts closes in Portsmouth, opens in Gloucester.
Peter Diepenbrock of Jamestown, RI, unveils sculpture at URI.
Peggy Fogelman named chairman of education at NY’s Met, leaving her post as director of education and interpretation Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum.
Mass. artist Matt Charros walking 3,444 miles across U.S. to raise awareness about disease affecting his sister, multiple sclerosis.
Art association in Newfields, NH, to turn old post office into community art center.
Boston Comics Roundtable is part of a “a thriving comic book culture in Somerville and throughout greater Boston. No longer ‘underground,’ it's definitely a sub-culture that's rapidly breaching the boundaries of pop culture.”
New Bedford community cultural collaborative AHA! marks 10th anniversary of promoting arts there.
Brian Fox of Somerset, Mass., paints baseball stars at All Star Game.
Painting stolen in Florida, recovered in New Hampshire after it was discovered for sale on Craigslist.
Vermont judge orders $100,000 restitution for 23 metal sculptures stolen from artists studio.
Cambridge artist Doug Kornfeld installs boring but big stick-figure sculpture at DeCordova. Coincidentally Kornfeld installs a 23-foot-tall stainless steel stick-figure outside Indiana State University’s new Student Recreation Center.
New book about late decoy carver George H. Boyd of Seabrook, N.H.
“Cash-strapped Boston zoo may be forced to close doors, euthanize animals.”
Yale fights for ownership of Van Gogh’s “Night Café” with great-grandson of Russian guy who had it before Bolshevik government “nationalized” his collection.
Patty Martucci began work as program director in May at the newly renovated Warwick Museum of Art in R.I.
New PhotoPlace gallery opens at Vermont Photography Workplace in Middlebury.
Hive gallery opens in Rockport, MA, with show of robots.
Somerville artist David Omar White, who painted the murals at Casablanca Restaurant in Cambridge, dies at 82.
Barre, Vermont, quarried granite used nation-wide, while at home locals used it to erect monuments to their loved ones.
MassArt students design, build bus shelter for disabled kids of Boston school.
Vermont Arts Council tries to promote art by giving out 9,500 wood puzzle pieces and 51,000 paper puzzle pieces for people to decorate.
Remembering artist Sarah Wyman Whitman of Beverly, Mass., a pal of James, Lowell, Sarah Orne Jewett, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Eliot Norton and Isabella Stewart Gardner.
Woburn artist Gina Johnson gives portraits of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to their families.
Jamie Wyeth depicts seven deadly sins, using sea gulls.
Preservation society documenting history of mills in Warren, R.I.
Damon Rich’s map of New York foreclosures, which began its life at MIT, opens at Queens Museum of Art after MIT curator Larissa Harris gets a job there.
New Walker curator studied at Bates and Williams College, then was a fellow at Harvard.
Bay State Banner suspends publication.
Neko Case records on eight pianos at her Vermont farm.
Vermont “author-goat farmer's memoir a surprise delight.”
Hubub in Portland over “very weak, very amateurish piece of sculpture” commissioned by Portland Sea Dogs owner.
Plan to revitalize Pittsfield with a new carousel attracts dozens of volunteer carousel animal carvers.
Mainers Josh Farr and Mikhela Stinson build “Palace” of stones and junk along Burlington, Vermont’s shore of Lake Champlain. Also people apparently are stacking stones all across New England.
Mysterious petroglyphs appear in riverside rocks of Bellows Falls, Vermont.
Ruthie Tredwell founds Portsmouth Museum of Art.
Connecticut governor proposes $30 million in cuts to state arts and tourism grants over the next two fiscal years.
Wadsworth Atheneum director Chick Austin made awesome avant-garde art happen in Hartford during the Great Depression. May this be a lesson to you no good lazy depressed layabouts.
Worcester Art Museum plans to convert existing studio into a 130-seat public lecture hall, improve access to the lobby and make upgrades to the museum café with help from $310,000 grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund.
Everybody in North Adams Loves Mass MoCA, except for Vinny Patel, the owner of Corner Market convenience store: “I’m expecting more, put it that way.”
Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., turns 40.
Official portrait of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by New Hampshire artist Richard Whitney unveiled at State House. Says Mitt: “You'll note that one thing this painting has in common with real life is that, in the painting, my hair doesn't move either.”
Over the hill Globe columnist Sam Allis discovers – OMG – art in Boston’s Jamaica Plain. Owner and curator Brent “Refsland, tall and 27, was holding the fort, a straw pork pie hat on his head from the local funky shop, Salamagundi. You assume when you meet him that he’s hopped up on something because of the energy he emits and the machine gun bursts in which he speaks. Maybe some Ritalin would help this overactive child, I say to myself.” Bingo!
Paint Pens in Purses transforms vacant Allston storefronts.
Late conceptual artist David Ireland lives on in his curious Edward E. Elson artist-in-residence apartment at Andover’s Addison Gallery.
Providence Mayor David Cicilline unveils plans to boost city’s arts.
Commercial photographer Clint Clemens uses 3D imaging to help rebuild his historic Newport firehouse.
Photos stolen from Concord, New Hampshire, exhibit.
Brockton artist Fritz Ducheine's paintings about violence in society featured at Boston’s National Center of Afro-American Artists.
Did you know that Ben Shattuck’s show at 5 Traverse in Providence last year “sold out - in an hour”? The painter recalls thinking: “"Good Lord, maybe I'm onto something.”
“Retirement from a life in banking prompts sculptor Claude O’Donnell of Holden [Maine] to unleash the creative hippie hidden in the gray flannel suit.”
Sculptural bust of Broadway musical songwriter – and Providence native – George M. Cohan unveiled in Providence.
First-grader Paul Taraszuk of Georgetown, Mass., is the awesomest drawer of ideal schools, according to the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
Needham artist Rachel Perry Welty’s Facebook performance included in New Haven exhibit of art inspired by the rapacious social-networking site TM.
Architect magazine names Boston’s William Rawn Associates the top architectural firm in the country.
Burlington hospital unveils Kat Clear's 40-foot-tall sculpture “Fabric of Life" depicting sewing machine and quilt.
Boston native Sophie Matisse – granddaughter of thee Matisse – makes “five uniquely painted chess sets.”
Real Art Ways commissions four public sculpture projects for Hartford.
They love the ICA’s Tara Donovan show in Des Moines.
The Davis Square Tile Project is trying to track down the kids who painted the tiles in the Davis Square T station back in the late 1970s “to better understand the history of Somerville.”
Glastonbury, Connecticut, artist Harry White collages landscape scenes from the flowers in his garden.
New Philadelphia Museum of Art director Timothy Rub got his start with a bachelor’s degree in art history from Vermont’s Middlebury College.
“Some airports have removed public art for advertising,” though report provides no details.
Massachusetts artist George Sherwood’s “Orchid” is one of 16 pieces of art scattered in the heart of Albany, for the latest edition of the city’s “Sculpture in the Streets” series.
Did you know Jonathan Lethem has a part-time residence in Maine?
Elephants paint at Providence zoo. Previously: Gorilla art at Boston zoo. Also, Rhode Island dog exhibits his paintings: “I just decided to put some paint on his tail and paper beneath it. I was amazed with what I saw – beautiful configurations.”
Nantucket antiques dealer David L. Place charged by Feds with illegally importing and illegally trafficking in sperm whale teeth. Previously: Nantucket scrimshaw artist charged with dealing in black market whale teeth.
Renegade knitters “tag” Boston bike rack.
Brown University breaks ground on new arts center in Providence.
Rockporter Erik Ronnberg Jr.’s model of a factory trawler to be featured in Smithsonian’s “On the Water: Stories from Maritime America” exhibit.
Federal judge rules that Kokoschka painting – allegedly sold under duress in Nazi-occupied 1939 Vienna – legally belongs to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Because, for one, “the three-year statue of limitations period on such claims has passed.”
Addison Gallery staff begins planning to move back into the renovated and expanded building – which is expected to reopen in spring 2010.
Arson destroys Maine topless coffee shop.
Portland introduced art tax increment financing in November 2009. It taxes construction in the city’s arts district, raising some $50,000 to date.
Profile of John Maeda after his first year as president of RISD.
A visit to New England Sculpture Service in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the folks who repair the “Make Way for Ducklings” statues at Boston’s Public Garden when they are damaged.
Oliver Brothers of Boston restores 65 artworks damaged in fire at Yaddo more than a year ago.
A video visit with Jamie Wyeth at Tenants Harbor, Maine, on the occasion of his new show of paintings at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland: “Maine ... it's really of no fault of Maine, but it has produced more bad art than any state in the union. Maine is very emblematic. But what interests me is to go deeper, to go beyond cuteness and prettiness, to get to the angst, of which there is a lot in Maine.”
AS220 in Providence, with help from federal stimulus money, offers 32 art jobs for young people.
C.D. Wright of Barrington, Rhode Island, wins $50,000 (a bit less in U.S. dollars) Griffin Prize for poetry. The Brown English professor won the $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant in 2004.
Massachusetts-born artist Dan Nelson follows up his book “All Known Metal Bands” with project to raise $1 million. So far he’s collected $60.
“For the first time in its history, Mass MoCA is close to breaking even without a desperate round of fund-raising.”
Belcourt Castle in Newport, Rhode Island, goes on sale. It was a “birthing ground” for the Newport Jazz Festival. Also maybe haunted. Yours for $7.2 million.
Zsuzsanna Szegedi, artist in residence at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts: “"I wasn't planning to paint this many trees. But every painting gave me a new idea for the next one. Trees are easy to work with. They don't talk back.”
Documentary on John Marin to begin filming in Maine.
Derrick Cartwright, former director of the Hood Museum in Hanover, New Hamsphire, to lead Seattle Art Museum.
Six public art projects in Maine funded by $60,755 from the Maine Arts Commission – thanks to the Harry Faust Art Fund.
Public art transforms Boston street.
Boston’s Bren Batclan to be featured on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. This follows reports that he leaves his paintings around San Francisco for Free: “"The economy is so bad now. People are losing their jobs, so this is how I can help.” Also Batclan planned “to leave 50 paintings of colorful creatures in random spots around [Chicago] with notes saying they're free.”
Profile of Michelle Wojcik, owner of Galeria Cubana in Boston and Provincetown.
Polaroid lovers try to revive its instant film.
Lego debuts Frank Lloyd Wright building sets. Build your very own Falling Water.
MFA’s Monets in Australia: “Monet on the walls is money in the bank.”
Cambridge psychiatrist Karen Norberg “knits anatomically correct woolly brain.”
Sanford Robinson Gifford’s 1859 painting of “Mount Mansfield, Vermont” is “one of two works recently sold by the National Academy, sparking a controversy in the art world.”
Martin Luther King Jr. monument project in Boston stalled: “Almost nothing has been done.”
“By most accounts, the history of modern camouflage begins with Alfred Thayer, a prominent Boston artist.”
Andrew Wyeth of Maine and Pennsylvania dies at 91.
Art student Myja A. Parviainen killed by wrong-way driver on Route 495 in Massachusetts.
Hopkinton artist Michael Alfano sculpts Barack Obama: "Like Obama, Alfano was not the most likely candidate for success in his chosen career.”
“Local doctor uses Clark Art Institute as part of training for med students.”
“Somerville's first community arts center at the final stretch.”
Sculptor Adio diBiccari of Arlington and Chelmsford dies at 94.
Steve Carell buys Marshfield general store.
“Rhode Island Leads US Into Deep Recession.”
“Disney Is No Mickey Mouse Figure in the World of Art.”
“New safety law may prohibit children under 12 from libraries – or make many books illegal.”
Retired Falmouth attorney Robert R. Mardirosian sentenced to 7 years in prison plus $100,000 fine following conviction “in a case arising from the theft of a Cezanne and other pieces of art from a Stockbridge home in 1978 – “the largest burglary from a private residence in Massachusetts history.”
“LeWitt exhibit prompts 50 percent attendance spike” at Mass MoCA.
“Roger Mandle’s journey from RISD to Qatar.”
Maine artist T. Allen Lawson paints White House Christmas card. “He doesn't get paid for the work, and the White House gets to keep the original. But Lawson figures that's OK.”
Major profile of Gloucester’s Jon Sarkin in New Jersey’s Star Ledger. Also interview of the “Medical Mystery and Artist Savant” in Vanity Fair.
Cheryl Brutvan, formerly of MFA, arrives in Florida to be curator at Norton Museum.
Vermont cartoonist Jason Lutes, creator of “Berlin,” interviewed.
RISD blogger-in-chief John Maeda profiled. Again.
Dorchester artist Greg Rogers paints with his feet.
Somerville cartoonist Tim Fish, creator of “Cavalcade of Boys,” interviewed.
Former Salem News cartoonist Scott Allie now edits comics for Dark Horse.
Exhibit by self-taught artist Joseph Sorel, a Providence native who “really began to explore art in earnest when he was incarcerated for about seven years following his time in the service during the Vietnam War.”
Artists fight for the future of Piano Factory gallery in Boston.
OCD therapy fuels art of Jeffrey Sparr of Pawtucket.
Central Maine art galleries begin collaborative promotion.
Providence Journal to sell its downtown home.
Vermont wildlife painter John C. Pitcher exhibits in Manchester, Vermont.
“Artists answer the call for portraits of pets that capture quirks and charm.”
Newburyport artist fashions glass fish.
Ethan Bond-Watts of Burlington creates glass sculpture for University of Vermont center.
News flash: Women can tattoo too.
Warren M. Robbins, Worcester-born collector of African art, dies.
“Steven Wright Named First Inductee of Boston Comedy Hall of Fame.”
Boston City Hall declared ugliest building in the world.
Aubrey Beardsley illustration “recently discovered hanging on a bathroom wall in a Boston-area home” sets auction record.
Boston’s “WGBH files suit over repairs for video wall.”
Out of Town News in Harvard Square to close.
“Attendance numbers for the Nasher Museum of Art's 'El Greco to Velazquez: Art During the Reign of Philip III' did not meet an ambitious goal set one year ago. … The show also appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where it also fell approximately 30,000 visitors short of its target.” And the Nasher may have to cut costs as a result.
Boston gun-violence memorial bus “may be headed for scrap yard.”
Was Boston Globe’s “g” logo swiped from Griffin Museum?
Minneapolis Institute of Arts hires MFA Boston's Thomas Rassieur as its new prints and drawings curator.
William Rudolph will become curator of American art at the Worcester Art Museum in January after four years as the Dallas Museum of Art’s associate curator of American art.
Farnsworth Art Museum Director Lora Urbanelli leaves.
London Independent: Boston MFA Director Malcolm Rogers is “the maverick with the Midas touch.”
“A federal appeals panel ruled … that a painting owned by a German baroness that long hung on her walls in Rhode Island had, in effect, been stolen from a Jewish art collector during the Holocaust.”
What was the art project that a UMaine senior did to collect food and raise money for needy? He “spent 19 hours riding a seesaw on the Campus Green last week dressed as Marie Antoinette. … While Berry planned for a 24-hour event, the cold and fatigue convinced him to end it after 19 hours.”
Joe Cote, whose cartoons appeared in the Fitchburg Sentinel and Townsend Common, has died.
Marylin Hafner of Cambridge, who illustrated more than 100 children’s books as well as the comic strip “Molly and Emmett” for Lady Bug magazine and later Cricket magazine, has died after being hit by car.
Late Brown U prof Hugh Townley remembered in “The Wizard with Wood” exhibit at Wheaton College.
“Movies on Exchange Street” moves to Portland Museum of Art.
“The Vermont Arts Council has declared 20 artists finalists to present proposals in January to take part in 'Art in Action: Shaping Vermont’s Future Through Art.' This art project will fund work to reflect and respond to issues and challenges facing Vermont.”
New Hampshire cartoonists profiled.
New clues on masterpieces stolen from Boston’s Gardner Museum in 1990? ‘In ‘The Gardner Heist,’ which is to be published in February, author Ulrich Boser posits that the art may be closer at hand – as he puts it, in a retired crook’s beach house in Marshfield or Plymouth, a storage shed in Brockton, or a farm building in western Massachusetts.”
“Defy Shepard Fairey.”
Slovak artist’s interactive sound installation featured in Providence.
Bangor unveils steel deer sculpture by New Yorker Wendy Klemperer.
Public art project? Ballot measure that would have named San Francisco sewer plant after George W. Bush fails.
“Frank Cieciorka, a graphic artist, art director and watercolorist whose woodcut rendering of a clenched-fist salute was a model for the New Left’s most ubiquitous emblem, died on Monday at his home in Alderpoint, Calif. He was 69.”
Suffolk University "College Republicans come under fire with 'racist' [anti-Obama] flyer"
"The economy's swoon and Wall Street's woes are taking a particularly specific and tough toll on art museums."
Meetings on Art Institute of Boston’s move from Boston’s Kenmore Square to Cambridge’s Porter Square.
Shepard Fairey, formerly of Providence, posters Cambridge and San Francisco.
Providence Phoenix celebrates 30th anniversary.
Jaime Gili, a Venezuela-born artist living in London, picked to public-artify South Portland, ME, gas tanks.
Portland’s mad toymaker Randy Regier wins one of four $13,000 Maine Arts Commission 2009 Artists’ Fellowship Awards.
“[Worcester] 13-year-old Keenan Cassidy’s edgy style earns him praise — and a solo show opening Sat.”
Edgar Allen Beem: “I'd put my money on Lauren Fensterstock [of Portland, ME] to make it big one of these days.”
Profile of Gordon Lankton’s 2-year-old Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, MA.
Peter Zonis, who grew up outside Boston and studied at RISD, sells his oil pastels on NYC streets.
Profile of Providence’s What Cheer? Brigade.
Old RI State House portraits being restored.
RI sculptor Donald Gerola unveils 23-foot tall wind sculpture in Barnstable, MA.
Bowdoin College Museum of Art renovation wins architecture honor.
Tufts Daily hates on Tara Donovan: “the work does not have much significance for the viewer. And, like much of modern art, the works leave a befuddled observer desperately searching for a purpose and clinging to the belief that art must have some sort of underlying motivation.”
Pinta — the Modern and contemporary Latin American Art fair — offers $150,000 to eight museums, including the Harvard Art Museum, to encourage them to collect Latin American art.
Profile of designers Pete Cardoso and Darren Johnson’s Ghost-Town Studio in Pawtucket, RI.
17 artists picked for 2009 Portland Museum of Art Biennial.
Portland Museum of Art debuts blog. And new online culture mag Maine Art Scene debuts.
Interview with San Francisco Chronicle critic Kenneth Baker, who got his start in Boston.
RISD grad Megan Rye paints Iraq.
Virgin Mary spotted in window of Mercy Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
New Yorker suspected of Boston graffiti held on $10,000 bail.
Paragon Carousel in Hull turns 80.
WaterFire in Providence marks 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
John Maeda, new RISD president, interviewed.
How did so many Monets end up in Boston?
Vermont’s David Macaulay has a new book, “The Way We Work,” out, and a new show at RISD.
Crafty New York artist detained at Maine-Canada border because US customs agent found her sketches suspicious.
Edgers: “Arts organizations across the state say they're bracing to hear from more donors like Nash: generous and loyal givers squeezed by the economy. To prepare, they've been making lists of potential cuts, enacting hiring freezes, and shifting reserve funds so they're better protected and easier to get at.”
Red Sox groundskeeper is still king of grass artistry. A previous report.
Where Boston artist Maria Magdelena Campos-Pons gets her rad clothes.
Francine Carraro, director of Abbe Museum in Maine, becomes head of Texas’ Grace Museum after its director moves to DeCordova in Massachusetts.
Parkour comes to BC.
Kidspace at Mass MoCA to expand.
Maine College of Art in Portland marks next step in renovations with opening of new admission center.
Umass art department marks 50th anniversary with art show.
Building the museum audience.
“Early 1900s mausoleum boom brought riches to [Vermont] granite industry.”
Exhibit features new media art that Stan VanDerBeek made at MIT in 1970s, or thereabouts.
Maine’s John Bisbee opening show in New York.
Russian cartoonist Boris Efimovich Efimov, who is featured in show at Brown, dies.
Emile Gruppé show in Rockport, Massachusetts.
“Airport 'X-ray art' courts TSA trouble”
Star Simpson a year after Logan Airport art-terrorism confusion: “I was waiting on the traffic island for the next shuttle bus to get on the subway when all of a sudden my hands were grabbed from behind me. … It turned out to be the state police. They have this magic trick where 40 of them can appear all at once out of nowhere.”
Police investigate theft from St. Johnsbury, Vermont, gallery: “someone took life size wooden sculptures of a golden retriever, a black and white cat, white Scottie dog and a black pug.”
Mass-produced moose sculptures plague Manchester, N.H.
Giant ant sculpture must be moved from Portsmouth, N.H., square.
Boston science museum curator: “Porcupines have a very pleasant and easy-going personality and are very endearing.”
“In the rural woods of Vermont, Benichou gets naked and captures double exposures of himself in a dance with nature.”
Hartford artist “said he hopes by giving his art away, people will talk about it.”
RISD grads grow art in Camden, Maine, storefront.
Patrick Dougherty sculpts stickwork “Twisted Sisters” at Wheaton College in Norton. Brown University to remove another Dougherty sculpture which was partly destroyed when an elm fell on it in March.
Boston electrical engineer creates “Latte Art” printer.
Late New Hampshire painter George de Forest Brush’s Parisians and Indians on view at National Gallery.
UMass Amherst dedicates studio arts building.
Brit romance columnist loves Providence’s WaterFire: “a living ritual in which fire, water, sound and smell all play a part to reduce you to awestruck silence and (in my case) tears of joy.”
Reviews of RISD’s new Chace Center. ProJo’s Bill Van Siclen: “the Chace Center, which officially opens on Saturday, is a gem — a compact yet powerfully sculpted building that pays its respects to its historic College Hill neighbors while remaining proudly and recognizably contemporary. It may even be the best building its designer.” Another ProJo columnist: “Moneo’s Chace Center is boxy and unimaginative.” Boston Globe: “bold and stunningly executed.”
Providence Mayor David Cicilline announces “Creative Providence” plan: “The cultural plan will focus on stimulating economic development, building links with the creative economy, developing a strong network of arts learning opportunities and enhancing the quality of life through civic engagement in the arts.”
In Indianapolis art talk, Providence Police Chief Dean Esserman “transcended the usual message on the importance of art in society to discuss basic principles he'd learned growing up and being in law enforcement. Children thrive in environments of support and love, not fear, pain or punishment. He said it is the community's responsibility to create that supportive atmosphere where the arts can play a role.”
Shepard Fairey, formerly of Providence and soon at Boston’s ICA, has show in San Francisco: “When asked why he picked the Tenderloin gallery as the appropriate venue for his work, Fairey adjusts his blue velour collar and flashes a toothy smirk, ‘because it’s punk as fuck.’”
Jane Portal named chair of MFA’s Art of Asia, Oceania, and Africa department.
Providence’s Jonathan Bonner is finalist for Florida public art project.
Boston artists to redecorate city electrical boxes.
Boston native Lorraine O’Grady’s NY show reviewed.
Marian Cannon Schlesinger’s ‘1970s and ‘80s paintings of New England mill towns on view at New Hampshire Historical Society.
MassArt teacher Kianga Ford shows in Baltimore.
Brockton artist Barry Julius paints critters for Massachusetts hunting stamps.
Portland, Maine’s Strategic Productions will make you the star of your own animated cartoon.
Montpelier pulls out of proposed art park.
“AS220 teams with MIT on new Fab Lab.”
Maine’s Robert Indiana makes “Hope” icon to support Barack Obama.
The South Porland oil tanks mural project.
Curator Anja Chávez leaving Wellesley’s Davis Museum to be contemporary art curator at Syracuse University’s art galleries.
“Suffolk University filed plans with Boston officials for a new 10-story, $68 million building to house the school’s art school.”
The Onion: “National Endowment for the Arts Funds Construction of $1.3 Billion Poem.”
“A notorious international graffiti queen - accused of tagging trains and buildings from Chicago to New York to the capitals of Europe - will be hauled to the Hub to face charges she caused millions in damages to [Boston] Back Bay brownstones.”
Bowdoin College Museum of Art Director Katy Kline leaving in October. And an earlier report.
Wall Street Journal: “Cities are being swept up in a wave of inane pranks. … Prankster groups are sprouting up around the country. Boston-based Banditos Misteriosos says its mailing list has doubled to more than 2,000 people since the start of the year.”
California sculptor Tina Allen who made statue at Boston's Back Bay Station of union organizer Asa Philip Randolph has died.
Interview with New York artist Joan Snyder whose work is currently on view at Framingham’s Danforth Museum.
From critic Peter Plagens’ novel “The Art Critic”: “New York was still the default city for ambitious artists … Boston didn’t count.
Updates on Addison renovation and expansion.
Providence artist Mark Tribe’s lefty political speech reenactment series goes to LA.
Connecticut is tracking down WPA art.
Thomas Bruhn named interim director of Benton Museum of Art at University of Connecticut.
Rhode Island artists “Giftcycle” across U.S.
Paintings stolen from a Massachusetts home three decades ago ordered returned.
Vermont sculptor Charles Ginnever’s 4-ton sculpture “Protagoras” at federal courthouse in St. Paul, Minnesota, is restored.
Nave of 60-year-old New York cathedral – designed by New Hampshire native Ralph Adams Cram – reopens after cleaning and renovation.
Westport Arts Center restructures management team.
Five-year restoration of Gettysburg Civil War cyclorama mural nearly complete. It premiered at what is now Boston’s BCA in 1884 and we want it back.
Former MIT prof Wellington Reiter named next president of School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Globe: Rose Kennedy Greenway’s “Not-so-green acres.” This is a disappointment that we need to fix.
Look at this awesome paperback books chair at Providence’s Myopic Books.
Globe argues for better Boston public art. As did Thomas Garvey. Here’s our rambling take. All of this attention follows Radio Boston’s May 27 program on public art, so they deserve some credit for bringing this to people’s attention.
Profile of MFA jewelry curator Yvonne Markowitz.
Boston Museum of Science cuts staff by 10 percent. But potential $3 million budget deficit not the driving factor, president says – "Regardless of the budget, we would have made cuts.”
Police seek painting – that could be by 15th century Italian master – which was stolen from Hopedale home in 2006.
RI lawmakers mull cuts to public art program.
Hartford debuts riverfront sculpture park with Abraham Lincoln theme – thanks to more than $500,000 in donations from Lincoln Financial Group.
Globe’s Robert Campbell looks at major architectural problems at Harvard’s Busch Reisinger Museum: “Its exterior walls have deteriorated so badly that Harvard says the only way to repair them would be to take them off and start over."
Providence’s Lydia Stein plans to paint mural of Fall River’s Quequechan River with young artists.
Mass Horticultural Society lays off half staff due to financial woes.
Former Rose Museum director Joseph Ketner resigns curator job at Milwaukee Art Museum to teach at Emerson.
Caroll Spinney of Woodstock, Connecticut, on playing Big Bird: "You have to not be claustrophobic. You have to be willing to walk, not seeing anything in front of you."
DA drops “hoax device” charge against MIT student Star Simpson who freaked out Logan Airport security with her LED shirt. She apologizes and is placed on pretrial probation on disorderly person charge.
Head of planned New Center for Arts and Culture is leaving after less than 2 years.
Rose Museum director Michael Rush gives eulogy for Patrick Ireland: “Has the passing of a life ever caused more joy?”
Salem artist Terry Bastian makes sea serpent sculptures that “guzzle up hazardous waste from the ocean and soil.”
30th anniversary of heartrending news photo of father tossing infant twin out window of burning Boston building. The kid survived.
Harvard Book Store is for sale.
Boston theater companies struggling financially.
Luxury retailer Louis Boston to abandon Newbury Street in 2010.
Profile of George Kinghorn, who was recently named director of UMaine art museum.
Lynda Barry is the best artist evah.
Architectural proposals for Boston’s Dudley Square.
Proposed Roxbury art complex – including a new home for the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists – is stalled.
$1 billion in MFA art, including 30 Monets, going on exhibit in New Zealand next year.
Profile of exiting RISD chief Roger Mandle.
Credit crisis causes MFA to line up bank credit, refinance.
Edith Wharton’s Lenox estate, The Mount, facing foreclosure.

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Farewell to Stairwell and Yes

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