Since when did the Kentucky Derby become a big deal?
Not trying to be Andy Rooney, but it seriously feels like this holiday didn’t exist a few years ago for New Englanders.
Do people even bet?
If I had to put $ on a mighty steed, I’d go with Uncle Mo. Because that is the name of my favorite liquor store employee.
Go Mo, go!
There are loads of things to do in and around Boston this weekend.
So put down the julep..stow away your silly hats..and lets wrap this week up.
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2011 Spring Sidewalk Sale
When: May 6th -7th, 2011, 10AM-5PM
Where: School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 230 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Explore the creative and original works by artists in 2011 SMFA Spring Sidewalk Sale at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA). On May 6 + 7, hundreds of pieces of art by about 50 Museum School artists will be for sale—from ceramics, photography and drawings to jewelry, T-shirts, prints, paintings and much more. Prices start at around $5.
In an effort to give back to the community, each year participants select an organization to donate a percentage of the sale’s proceeds to; this year proceeds will benefit Food Not Bombs. First formed in Cambridge, Food Not Bombs is a world-wide movement made up of over 1,000 independent chapters that work to end hunger. Groups provide free, vegan meals to their local communities and support organizations on the cutting edge of positive social change.”
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Habits of Growth: Linda Leslie Brown
(Holiday Squid)
When: May 04th-29th, 2011
Opening Reception: First Friday, May 6 5-8 pm
Where: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave. #43 , Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “I suppose these works came about as a result of my having spent a lot of time climbing trees. The works are tactile and sensual, with limbs that arch, curve and intertwine. Their forms are almost graceful, except for a stubborn raw lumpiness that insists that they be recognized as distinctly homemade. The domestic theme is supported by the incorporation of kitchen tools, wire baskets, lamp parts and assorted odd doodads that might be old christmas ornaments or other leftover seasonal décor. Then there are the plants, most of them spiky tillandsias that nestle into and become entwined with their sculptural host.
These are the habitats that grew out of my own peculiar art habits. They seem to want to be alive, and I hope they make you smile.”
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Elizabeth Keithline: Smarter, Faster, Higher
(Feet Up)
When: May 03rd-June 5th, 2011
Gallery Talk Sunday, May 8th at 3pm
Where: Danforth Museum, 123 Union Avenue, Framingham, MA 01702-8291
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Human beings are biologically programmed to evolve – to become ‘Smarter, Faster, Higher’. Technology has given us new tools with which to accomplish this end. Simply by opening a laptop we create the potential to increase our mental capacity. However, as far as we may seem to have come from our roots in the natural world, technology mirrors nature in the way it evolves using replication. Smarter, Faster, Higher explores this idea by drawing the viewer into a current of figures that traverse the Swartz gallery. Using a wire weaving technique that she has employed since 1990, Elizabeth Keithline, in collaboration with her husband Jeff, arrays an installation of woven wire human beings and wire trees. Some of the figures are frozen in a crawl, some in a walk, and some in a run as they spread out across the gallery.
The figures merge upon a ‘pool’ of monitors placed upon the floor. The monitors depict an image of a wire figure that constantly divides, emphasizing the idea of population and evolutionary progress through replication.
Like Narcissus, one of the figures gazes into the pool, absorbed by the sight of his image. Technology presents to him both an opportunity for self-reflection and the potential for self-absorption. Does it become an obstacle, a springboard, or both?”
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Post-Bac Exhibition
(Orchard Street, Chelsea Welsh)
When: On view through May 7th, 2011
Where: Mass Art, Doran Gallery, 621 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115
How: Official Website
What/Why: “In/flux is the first-ever exhibition showcasing the work of Post-Baccalaureate students at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, featuring nine artists and designers working across diverse disciplines.”
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Robert Baart
When: May 06th-May 28th, 2011
Where: NK Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “NKG is pleased to present the rich abstract world of painter Robert Baart. Robert taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Art Boston for 35 years. His classes in painting were popular and highly respected by the students. He demonstrated process, materials, and techniques that are rarely taught, all in a calm, generous and knowledgeable manner that inspired his students.
Please visit NKG to experience firsthand the most recent work of this contemporary painter. Robert Baart will bring you into his rich abstract, yet recognizable world.”
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Strange Sculptures
(Winged Demon Mask, Michael Frassinelli)
When: On view through May 7th, 2011
Where: 7 Nason Street, Maynard, MA 01754
How: Official Website
What/Why: “In the exhibition “Strange Sculptures” five artists come together to display odd and intriguing works of art. Some of the artists recycle things that would otherwise be thrown away and some take apart an existing object to create a whole new piece onto itself. Michael Frassinelli’s most recent work centers around sculptures made only of old piano parts. This work inspired him to create a fictitious tribe known as the Pianistas where his created objects serve as their mysterious artifacts. In some of Susan Huszar’s sculptures, we see animal bones combined in a way to create skeletal structures of what look like mythical creatures. In her “Bag Baby” series she uses brown paper bags like cloth, draws out an animal pattern and then stitches them together. She then stuffs them and embellishes them with details. The brown paper is coated with vaseline and then seal coated with polyurethane. The resulting pieces have an earthy leathery tone reminiscent of something primeval.”
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The Moment Where Sculpture Happens
(detail from Ambulantes)
When: On view through June 05, 2011
Where: Davis Museum at Wellesley College, 106 Central Street,Wellesley, MA, 02481
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Francis Alÿs: The Moment Where Sculpture Happens is presented in conjunction with the Davis’s recent acquisition of a major triptych by Alÿs entitled Cityscape (1996-97). The exhibition features the Belgian-born artist’s subtle performances and extended documentation of life in the congested colonial center of his adopted home of Mexico City. The multimedia installation, specifically designed for the Joan and RIchard Freedman Gallery by the artist, in collaboration with Art Department faculty and adjunct curator James Oles, includes 35mm slide projections, video projections, and a light-table with slides and studies on tracing paper, to demonstrate the diverse range of Alÿs’s artistic practice over the past twenty years.”
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Needham Open Studios
(Mick Provencher)
When: May 07(10-4)-May 8th(12-4),2011
Where: Participating Artists Map
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The 13th annual NEEDHAM OPEN STUDIOS TOUR will be held on Saturday, May 7 from 10 am to 4 pm and on Sunday, May 8 from noon to 4 pm. Once again local artists welcome the public into their homes and studios. This year over 60 artists will be showing their paintings, pottery, printmaking, jewelry, origami, sculpture, photography, mosaics, glass, decorative objects and more in 14 locations around Needham.
This is a wonderful opportunity to meet the many creative artists living and working in Needham. Take the tour around town, visit the artists in their studios, see how they make art, ask about the creative process, and find unique hand-made treasures.”
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Fort Point Open Studios/Art Walk
(Rabbit Run, Jennifer Lewis)
When: Friday May 6: 4:00-7:00pm, Saturday and Sunday May 7 and 8: noon-5:00pm
Where: Map of Participating Artists
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Explore the studios of painters, jewelers, ceramicists, photographers, sculptors, textile artists, and more. Talk with artists in their studios and discover new works and treasured favorites. Visit Fort Point’s art galleries and creative design shops. Explore Boston’s changing Fort Point and see the unique waterfront warehouse district that is one of New England’s largest arts communities. Enjoy the opportunity to purchase works of art and fine craft directly from local artists.”
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Cambridge Open Studios(East)
(Dana Clancy)
When: May 07-08, 2011 , 12:00-6:00PM
Where: Participating Artist Sites
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Artists throughout Cambridge open their doors to the public for the third annual city-wide Cambridge Open Studios (COS) during three weekends in May. COS-East (Kendall Sq., Inman Sq. & Lechmere): May 7 & 8, COS-Central (Central Sq., Cambridgeport, Area IV & Mid-Cambridge): May 14 & 15, and COS-North/West (Neighborhoods from Alewife and Fresh Pond, down to Porter and Harvard): May 21 & 22, and. Open Studios hours are from 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm. Meet local artists and discover unique paintings, jewelry, fiber arts, ceramics, film, mixed-media, literary works, and more! Much of the artwork is available for purchase, so it’s a great way to find a unique gift or bring art into your own home or work space. It also offers an excellent opportunity to explore the unique character of each neighborhood!”
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Sally Lutz: “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things”
(Prior work of Sally Lutz from Traveler Series)
When: On view now through May 28th, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday May 6th , 6:00-8:30PM
Where: Bromfield Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “These paintings began as a way to both celebrate and exorcise an obsession with certain small objects which have occupied space in one corner of my studio for many years — hence the title of the show.
They are small, worn, discarded things, difficult to identify, probably humble in origin. For inexplicable reasons they have taken hold of my imagination over time. They are of metal, paper, plastic, styrofoam or cloth.
My process is messy and redundant, serendipitous, yet oddly controlled. I begin by either scanning or photographing the object to gather a somewhat “realistic” image. That image is then run through a low-quality scanning process onto ordinary copier paper where it appears much enlarged. This image is then glued in pieces to mat board where I prepare it to withstand an oil medium.
Each painting is a portrait of an individual object, but also an attempt to transform and transcend the reality of the thing, itself.”
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The Work of Wilson Hunt
(Swoop)
When: On view now through end of June 2011
Opening Reception: May 7, 2011, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Where: Helen Bumpus Gallery, Duxbury Free Library at 77 Alden Street, Duxbury Massachusetts
How: Official Website
What/Why: “..My work, to me has an organic look, which comes from an appreciation of the sometimes chaotic beauty of nature. Listening to jazz in my life has allowed my work to mirror the improvisation in jazz. Repeated colors offer a way to produce counterpoint and a build up a structure on the page. I am enamored by color and find it is extremely important in my work. I hope my viewers have as much interest and visual joy in the work as I do in its creation and viewing. “
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Michael Mazur: Black Paintings
(Explosion)
When: On view now through June 7th, 2011
Where: Barbara Krakow Gallery, 10 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116
How: Official Website
What/Why: In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Tom Sleigh writes: “… despite the overall sombreness of the imagery and the predominance of blacks and grays, these paintings possess an intuitive, up out of nowhere, unworried, wholly spontaneous vitality that perhaps surprised the painter as much as the viewer. And so for me these paintings aren’t in the least bit downers, or even all that elegiac. There’s something touchingly direct and sincere about the works’ phantasmagoria, both cartoonish and childlike. But stranger than that, and this is the greatness of these paintings, is how rock-solid, even objective the perceptions are. It’s as if every technique that the painter’s mastered—sumptuous, but subtle brushwork, monotype, stenciling, collage—collide and collaborate in ways that, to quote W. B. Yeats, carries us “beyond feeling into the aboriginal ice.” Of course, these paintings possess more humor and whimsy than Yeats’s statement, but the artist’s treatment of his imagery is remarkably cool and distanced, the purged accuracy of his rendering all the more passionate for its precision. In a sense, these are visionary paintings, but not the paintings of a visionary— no hambone hallucinations purveyed as ultimate truth. Instead, in their emotional remove and technical virtuosity, they make a visionary statement but without mystical mumbo-jumbo.”
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(Sam Quinn, Cambridge Open Studios participant)
Don’t forget about..
- SoWa First Friday
- First Saturdays at Western Avenue Studios
- B of A ‘Museums on Us’ weekend
- Free Sunday Mornings at the Harvard Natural History Museum
♥
