The Nave Gallery and Gallery 263 Launch Fundraising Campaigns in March

/in , /by

The Nave Galleries in Somerville and Gallery 263 in Cambridge recently launched fundraising campaigns this month to help pay for their programming and related costs. These two galleries—both non-commercial and non-profit spaces—are crucial for emerging artists and curators to show work in an area lacking in alternative art spaces. Located outside the City of Boston, these galleries are instrumental spaces in the fragile ecosystem that are the arts in Boston. If you have visited either one of them, you know that the quality of their programs is excellent and worthy of your support.

The Nave Galleries (both the original location in Teele Square and the Annex in Davis Square) are hosting An Accordion-Themed Fundraiser on Sunday, March 13, 2016 at Aeronaut Brewing Company in Somerville. Funds raised from this event will allow the Nave Gallery to continue their exceptional programming as well as fund the upkeep of both their spaces. If you can’t attend the fundraiser, donations are being accepted online.

In Cambridge, Gallery 263 launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $10,000 in hopes of continuing to empower more artists and deepen their community partnerships through their excellent programming. Launched on March 1, Gallery 263’s Kickstarter campaign is already more than 50% funded—a testament to the impact they have had on their community of artists and performers.

I’m a fan of the work both of these galleries do and of the community of artist, curators, writers, poets and performers they nurture through their spaces and programming. If you have $10 or $20 to spare, I hope you join me in contributing to both of these fundraising campaigns.

To donate to the Nave Gallery, you can click here. To donate to Gallery 263, you can click here

In Which I Urge The City and State to Save the Northern Avenue Bridge in Boston

/in , /by

Northern Avenue Bridge Eric Kilby

Northern Avenue Bridge, Boston’s Fort Point Channel. Photograph by Eric Kilby and used under the Creative Commons License.

There’s a lot of talk lately surrounding the Northern Avenue Bridge in Boston. The structure, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a testament to Boston’s industrial clout at the turn of the 20th century. Built in 1908 and powered by compressed air(!), the bridge is one of the last remaining swing bridges in the State of Massachusetts. Its steel trusses and cross bracing make it one of the most memorable bridges in the entire city, but like some buildings and other structures in Boston, it has severely deteriorated following years of neglect. Some of my most memorable walks along the Fort Point Channel have involved the Northern Avenue Bridge, strolling under the stars admiring the city lights and their reflection in the waters of Fort Point Channel. However, following warnings from the Coast Guard that the bridge could collapse into the channel, it was finally closed to pedestrians in December 2014—this was approximately the last time I used the bridge.

The city, in doing what is best for the bridge and for the safety of the people, has taken the first steps in dismantling the structure and moving it by barge to East Boston. This is a good first step since the Northern Avenue Bridge needs to be properly examined, rehabilitated and then reinstalled and rededicated as a pedestrian-only bridge. Sounds simple, right?

Well, as we know, things in preservation aren’t always that simple and the future of the bridge still remains uncertain. I urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the City of Boston to seek and implement a preservation-friendly solution that would not further alter or interfere with the architectural integrity of the Fort Point neighborhood or with the bridge itself.

The story of removing, demolishing and replacing historic buildings and structures is one too familiar in Boston—a story we cannot keep repeating in the name of “innovation.” In an area devoid of any soul and character thanks in part to the many cookie cutter glass boxes that swallow any sense of human scale in the nearby Seaport District, one solution to all the damage that has already been done, is to rehabilitate the Northern Avenue Bridge. Greg Galer, the Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance noted in a blog post that the city examined and presented to several advocacy groups the costs of rehabilitating the bridge and as it turned out, the cost was estimated at around $44-49 million—one of the cheaper options on the table. Demolition and/or replacing it with a new structure would be much costlier and I’m sure in these times of financial hardship, the City nor the State cannot afford this option.

The way I see it, the Northern Avenue Bridge presents an opportunity for the City of Boston to think outside of the box by reinvigorating the Fort Point Channel neighborhood and reimagining how the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the Harbor Walk and Northern Avenue can all be reconnected with the rest of the city. We pride itself on being a pedestrian-friendly, walkable city and we’ve come a long way in achieving these qualities, but we’ve got a long way to go. The time to return the bridge to the people has come, and that time is now.

7415555824_27b22f8585_z

Detail. Northern Avenue Bridge, Boston’s Fort Point Channel. Photograph by Eric Kilby and used under the Creative Commons License.

Northern Avenue Bridge

Northern Avenue Bridge and the U.S. Customs appraisers stores., Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967 (photographer)., 1930 (approximate). Leslie Jones Collection. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

On Sketchbooks and The Sketchbook Show at the Nave Gallery

/in , , /by

I love sketchbooks. As a tool readily available to anyone, sketchbooks are important in documenting the growth and development of an artist; they allow for experimentation and exploration of ideas that may or may not produce a completed or more meaningful work later on. Sketchbooks are the subject of an exhibit at the Nave Galley Annex and as one might expect from an exhibit of this nature, there are some sketchbooks and then there are pages torn out of sketchbooks. As the sketchbook enthusiast that I am, the latter hurt my eyes, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Curators Ellien Laramee-Byers and Rachel Mello write in their curatorial statement that “what distinguishes sketchbook work from other artist’s works is the sense of a thought being puzzled out, a problem being explored.” I agree in that most, if not all the work in a sketchbook give one a sense of the ideas that emerge out of the creative process—ideas that haven’t yet blossomed into something worth presenting to the public. I’d go as far in saying that much (for the most part) of the work in a sketchbook may not be ideal for exhibiting or even selling, but as I wandered through the exhibit on two different occasions, I kept asking myself, “why would someone sell a page torn out of a sketchbook if it’s something so personal and close to the creative process?” My answer, of course, lies in the call-for-work, which specifically asks those submitting to the exhibit to remove pages from their sketchbooks because “sketches will be displayed statically; visitors will not be able to flip through books.”

That observation out of the way, there are some outstanding sketchbooks in this show ranging in size and quality and some coming from artists with diverse practices.

Hawkins_09-758x1024

Gary Hawkins, Sketchbook Drawing, Ink and Washi Tape. Image Courtesy of the Artist.

Five in a series of eleven sketchbooks by poet and artist Gary Hawkins are on view in this year’s show and they’re all very impressive. Hawkins documents his daily 15-minute drawing-and-writing practice, resulting in a wonderful juxtaposition of text on one page and drawings—all done with ink and washi-the traditional Japanese paper (tape in this case)—on the facing page.

Catherine Aiello’s accordion-like sketchbook is another swoon-worthy work. Completed in 2011 while on a 10-day trip to Cuba, Aiello sketched her way through Havana and Pinar del Rio using ink and watercolor, capturing the colors and energy of a country at the verge of another social and political change.

There are twenty-five artists in the show and from what I could tell, many submitted pages from multiple sketchbooks. Among some of the artists whose work I wish I’d seen in a sketchbook rather than on pages torn out of it include Daria Theodora, Bryan Ramey, Lisa Kraase and one of the show’s curators Rachel Mello. Illustrator Daria Theodora’s work recalls the flowing, elegant and graceful lines characteristic of Art Nouveau aesthetics as well as Japanese woodblock prints.  Using fountain pen, colored pencils and ink, Theodora’s highly stylized flowers, gingko leaves and animals appear to burst out of the page.

Bryan Ramey’s work—like Theodora’s—is also characterized by fluid, elegant lines, however Ramey executes his lines with much more restraint, capturing the surreal and dream-like tendencies his drawings often convey.

Lisa Kraase’s sketches are some of the most colorful and most memorable in the show. At times spilling over two pages, the repetitive cosmic-like diagrams on view are in Kraase’s own words, “borderline obsessive.” I’d love to flip through one of Kraase’s sketchbooks and obsessed over her drawings.

The sketches of Rachel Mello depict much of the artist’s surroundings wherever she may be at a given point in time. Using ink, watercolor, pen and sometimes graphite, the artist takes her viewers on a stroll around the neighborhood, zooming in on architectural details of houses or zooming out on a section of a street or public square.

yellow-gable-final

View from the Morrisville, VT Hospital, watercolor & brush pen on paper; 7″ x 5″ Image Courtesy of the Artist.

There are so many more sketchbook pages worth drooling over including those by Hannah Earley’s and her incredibly detailed studies of MBTA passengers as well as Tony Astone’s stunning comic book renderings—many left in pencil and others inked in, allowing the viewer to peek into his process.

Going back to my comment on pages torn out of sketchbooks, I understand that last year’s sketchbook show was curated and hung the same way as this year’s show, but what if a different approach in exhibiting sketchbooks is taken? More specifically, I am referring to The Sketchbook Project in New York City and how they organize and exhibit their more than 30,000 sketchbooks in their collection. The Sketchbook Project gives people the opportunity to browse and flip through an artist’s sketchbook cover to cover truly gaining a broader sense of an artist’s work and process. I find this approach much more fulfilling in that I can walk away with a better understanding of who the artist behind a certain sketchbook is and how they tackled a certain challenge or problem page after page. But that is just me, your approach in looking at a sketchbook may be different from mine and that is OKAY.

The annual Sketchbook Show is on view until March 03, 2016 at the Nave Gallery Annex, 53 Chester St in Davis Square (next to Redbones).

Shattering Stereotypes at the Peabody Essex Museum’s Native Fashion Now Exhibit

/in , , /by

The Peabody Essex Museum is no stranger to mounting thought provoking exhibitions on Native American Art. Thanks in part to its favorable location in Salem and to the elite members of the East India Marine Society—the Peabody Essex’s founding institution—who began amassing much of the museum’s 20,000 works made by Native Americans, the museum is now home to oldest-ongoing collection of Native American art in the United States.

In recent years, exhibitions such as Intersections, Native American Art in a New Light and Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art, have shattered many stereotypes and preconceived ideas of what Native American art is or should be.

Currently on view at the museum is Native Fashion Now, a survey of contemporary Native American fashion spanning the last 60 years. Billed as the first large-scale exhibit of its kind, I had been looking forward to Native Fashion Now since December 2011 when Curator of Native American Art and Culture, Karen Kramer first hinted at it during the press preview for her excellent exhibit Shapeshifting

Organized into themes, the nearly 100 garments and accessories on view illustrate the vitality and creativity of Native American artists and designers. While it is an exhibit about the work of Native American artists, select pieces by non-native designers such as Isaac Mizrahi, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan are smartly integrated within these themes, commenting on how these designers have been influenced by traditional Native American design motifs and cultures.

There were many statement pieces in the exhibit such as Isaac Mizrahi’s iconic “Totem Pole Dress” and David Gaussoin and Wayne Nez Gaussoin’s “Postmodern Boa,” but it was the shoes that made a lasting impression on me (of course, being me, it had to be the shoes!). Among the shoes in the exhibit, Jamie Okuma’s boots by Christian Louboutin are the most exquisite for their color combination and delicate craftsmanship. Hand-stitched by Okuma herself with antique 1880s glass beads creating a bold design inspired by motifs common to Western tribal communities. Nicholas Galanin’s hand-made shoes of leather and engraved with copper armor detail on the quarter of the shoe are another standout in the exhibit, along with Louie Gong’s Converse “Spirit Wolf” Chuck Taylors.

NFN-018

Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock). Boots, 2013–14. Glass beads on boots designed by Christian Louboutin. Museum commission with support from Katrina Carye, John Curuby, Dan Elias and Karen Keane, Cynthia Gardner, Merry Glosband, and Steve and Ellen Hoffman, 2014.44.1AB. © 2015 Peabody Essex Museum. Photography by Walter Silver.

The exhibit does not disappoint and surprised me in ways unexpected. I think the biggest surprise for me was the entrance to the exhibit gallery, which really sets the tone for the rest of the show. With the unconventional designs of Patricia Michaels, Project Runway’s Season 11 runner-up, the moment one walks into this first gallery is the moment our preconceived notions of what Native American fashion is are shattered.

Native Fashion Now is on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA until March 6, 2016. It will then travel to the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, OR, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, OK and finally, the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, so if you’re traveling to any of these cities, you’ll have to catch the show there, that’s if you’re unable to see it at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Desert Heat-2

Orlando Dugi (Diné [Navajo]) Cape, dress, and headdress from “Desert Heat” Collection, 2012 Paint, silk, organza, feathers, beads, and 24k gold; feathers; porcupine quills and feathers Courtesy of the designer, Santa Fe. Hair and Makeup: Dina DeVore. Model: Julia Foster. Photo by Unék Francis.

NFN-069a-2

David Gaussoin and Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Diné [Navajo])/Picuris Pueblo) Postmodern Boa, 2009 Stainless steel, sterling silver, enamel paint, and feathers Courtesy the designers Courtesy of the designers and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Model: Tazbah Gaussoin.