MCLA’s Berkshire Cultural Resource Center has announced another round of Tricks of the Trade, workshops for artists. This month’s theme is centered around how to approach galleries and get your work shown:
Tuesday, February 9th, 6:30 pm: MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams: Cathy Deely- the producer of “Made in the USA in Pete’s Motors” will discuss non-traditional spaces and curator Pip JS Deely will discuss fine art galleries
Wednesday, February 10th, 6:30pm: Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, Pittsfield: Gail and Phil Sellers, owners of River Hill Pottery, will discuss fairs, festivals, open studios and trade shows
Thursday, February 11th, 6:30pm: IS183 Art School, Stockbridge: Melissa Stafford, director of Carrie Haddad Photographs, will discuss fine art galleries and non-traditional spaces
All workshops are free, but do require pre-registration. For more information, and/or to register, call Jess Conzo, the program coordinator for MCLA’s Berkshire Cultural Resource Center, at 413.663.5253.
Tearing your hair out over writing your artist statement?
The Berkshire Cultural Resource Center at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has announced the latest round of workshops from its on-going Tricks of the Trade series, a set of classes entitled “Writing: How do artists write about their work?”
These interactive sessions will be led by writer/editor Seth Rogovoy and artist Meryl Joseph. Facilitated by Kidspace Director and MCLA Professor Laura Thompson, the seminars will examine artist statements to understand what connects an audience most to the artwork. Attendees will then use these techniques to write their own statements.
All sessions begin at 6:30 p.m. Class locations are:
Tuesday, January 12th, 6:30 p.m.: MAYA III, North Adams
Wednesday, January 13th, 6:30 p.m.: Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield
Thursday, January 14th, 6:30 p.m.: IS183 Art School, Stockbridge
The workshops are free, but pre-registration is required; call 413-663-5253 to register.
(Editor’s Tip: If you’re too lazy to attend the workshop, or you just enjoy baffling folks,
you can try using the fill-in-the-blanks Market-o-Matic to write your artist statement.)
You may have seen the initial presentation of “Animalia: Stories of Collapse, Calamity and Departure” when C. Ryder Cooley and Todd Chandler performed it at RPI in Troy back in March of last year.
Since then the haunting “Animalia” has been seen everywhere from Proctors in Schenectady to Skybox in Brooklyn to the Mission Creek Festival in San Francisco.
At 7:30pm on Wednesday (November 18), “Animalia” will be performed at the MCLA Church Street Center in North Adams, Mass. General admission tickets are $12, and reservations can be made by phoning 413.662.5204.
Cooley describes “Animalia” as “an inter-species fairytale that combines theatrical movement with live music on singing saw, accordion and strings.” The backdrop of the 50-minute multi-media performance is a hypnotic collage of mesmerizing video and archival film.
Created by Cooley, the performance in North Adams will also feature Anna Jacobs (of LAVA and Wise Fool Circus) and Todd Chandler (Cooley’s partner in the musical duo Fall Harbor).
Following the performance, there will be a reception at 9pm at Gallery 51 in North Adams, where Cooley’s drawing installation, “Reliquary,” is part of the four-woman exhibit “Nest.” The exhibit runs through Sunday (November 22).
One of the most angst-ridden decisions an artist must make is how to price his or her work. The Berkshire Cultural Resource Center is coming to the rescue with FREE professional development workshops for artists. This week, the subject is Pricing: How Much Is Your Work Worth? and three sessions mix gallerists, museum directors, and art collectors to explore methods of determining your work’s value in today’s marketplace.
TODAY: (Tuesday, November 10th ) | 6:30 p.m. | MCLA Gallery 51 | 51 Main Street, North Adams | Joe Thompson (Director of MASS MoCA) and Jo Ellen Harrison (Owner of Harrison Gallery)
Wednesday, November 11th | 6:30 p.m. | Lichtenstein Center for Arts | 28 Renne Ave, Pittsfield | Stuart Chase (Director of Berkshire Museum) and Kurt Kolok [Owner of Kolok Gallery]
Thursday, November 12th | 6:30 p.m. | IS183 Art School | Stockbridge | Nancy Fitzpatrick (art collector) and Geoffrey Young (Owner of Geoffrey Young Gallery)
All workshops are free, but do require pre-registration. For more information, and/or to register, call 413.663.5253. Here’s more info.
There’s more to North Adams, Mass. than just MASS MoCA, of course.
And even now that the summer tourist season has come and gone, there’s still lots to see art-wise around town.
On Thursday (October 29) you can check out opening receptions for two interesting group exhibitions.
“Tracks” is a month-long exhibition at the North Adams Artists’ Co-Operative Gallery, focusing on journeys and how one marks that progression / transition. Interpretations of the theme are diverse, ranging from sequential images to surface mark-making and literal
interpretations of the theme.
The “Tracks” exhibit opens today (Wednesday, October 28) and runs through Sunday, November 22. The opening reception for the artists takes place from 5-7pm Thursday (October 29).
Curated by Melanie Mowinski, “Nest” brings together contemporary artworks that explore the nesting instinct – artist-created shelters, invented and realistic creatures who construct them and other pieces that nestle together. This show features artwork by Adrienne Gale, C. Ryder Cooley, Rosamond Purcell and Kate Barber.
The opening reception is 5-7pm tomorrow (Thursday, October 29), and the exhibit will run through Sunday, November 22.
MUSIC: Emeline Michel with Beverly Teixeira @ MCLA’s Church Street Center, North Adams, Mass.: Popular Haitian singer-songwriter Michel returns to MCLA in support of the latest of her nine albums, “Reine de Coeur.” 7:30pm. $12; students $5.
LECTURE: Max Brooks @ Sage College of Albany‘s Kahl Campus Center Gym, Albany: Son of the legendary Mel Brooks and author in his own right, Brooks delivers a lecture/reading/Q&A/book-signing of “The Zombie Survival Guide,” “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War” and the new “Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks.” 9pm. $5.
MUSIC: The Michael Flower/Chris Corsano Duo with the Andy Crespo-Ron Schneiderman Duo @ Spring Street Gallery, Saratoga Springs. Drummer Chris Corsano has fueled the percussive drive for such forward-thinkers as Thurston Moore, Bjork and Nels Cline. Now he’s teaming up with Michael Flower on shaahi baaja (a kind of Japanese banjo). 7:30pm. $5.
FILM: “Art 21: Systems” @ EMPAC at RPI, Troy: A special screening of the fourth episode from season five of the award-winning PBS-TV series, featuring Julie Mehretu, John Baldessari, Kimsooja and Allan McCollum. 7:30pm. Free.
FILM/MUSIC: “The Unknown” with Eric Halder @ Albany Public Library, Albany: For the final installment of the Silent Film Spectacular series, classically trained guitarist Eric Halder (of the Ashley Pond Band) performs his newly composed soundtrack to accompany the screening of 1927′s “The Unknown,” starring Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford. 7pm. Free.
MUSIC: Gregory Douglass @ Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs: Burlington, Vermont-based singer-songwriter Douglass returns to the Lena stage in support of his latest album, “Battler.” 7pm. $5.
This just might be the single busiest weekend of the year, so we really don’t want to hear a single peep out of anyone complaining that there’s nothing to do in Nippertown. Seriously.
Here are just a few suggestions:
Los Lobos
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
Lecture and opening reception for Jennifer Dalton‘s “Is It Just Me?” @ the Teaching Gallery @ Hudson Valley Community College, Troy (FREE)
“Capital Region’s Got Talent” @ Revolution Hall, Troy (FREE) Colleen Pratt & Friends @ the Van Dyck, Schenectady (FREE) 3rd Thursday arts walk @ various locations in Pittsfield, Mass. (FREE) Los Lobos with Jonah Smith @ the Calvin Theater, Northampton, Mass.
Discussion with Annea Lockwood, Margaret Cogswell and Ian Berry @ the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs (FREE)
We’ve written about DownstreetArt before, an arts initiative organized and sponsored by the city of North Adams and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts that’s begun to snowball, making downtown North Adams an arts destination in its own right. This time, we went back for a last-Thursday-of-the-month evening of openings and performances, and we weren’t disappointed.
Not only home to MASS MoCA, North Adams is also the location of a burgeoning arts scene, as witnessed by DownStreet Art, a summer-long cooperative initiative intended to revitalize the city by making it an arts destination in its own right. Now in its second year, it has grown to 27 exhibition spaces and includes some boffo, world-class art.
Check the DownstreetArt website for a map and the events calendar, which includes performance and new exhibitions opening on the last Thursday of each month – hey, the next one is this Thursday, July 30 – as well as open studios, concerts, art talks and a recurring farmer’s market.
Here’s a sampling of what we saw on a recent stroll through downtown:
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