Stirring The Waters: Part 2 of 6: Road Trip!

by Boston Sculptor Jessica Straus

There were plenty of things to be nervous about as the date drew near for our departure to Cleveland. Foremost on my mind was the question of whether all of our work would actually fit in the two cars and one rental truck that we had designated to carry the work. After a couple nights of tossing and turning I came to the conclusion that the only way I'd get any sleep would be to do a "dry run". So about a week ahead of time we packed the two cars with 7 artists' work and whew! It all fit, even if just barely (half-obstructed visibility out the back window of my car was better than no visibility)

 

 

At the crack of dawn, well in advance of rush hour on June 6, Laura Evans, Hannah Verlin, and myself squeeze into my car with all our work and head for the Mass Pike.

No need to use GPS--it's a straight shot on Rt 90 the whole way! It's roughly 11 hours each way and we drove it in one day.  Between the drive out there and the ride back we stopped at just about every rest stop along the way-- we think we'd be in a pretty good position to write a guidebook to Rt 90 rest stops--and yes, we had our strong preferences! We can tell you which rest stops have Starbucks and where you'll have to settle for Horton's (a very disappointing cup of Joe), where you get picnic tables and where you can stretch out on a scenic (well, at least it’s green) strip of grass. 

 

Laura was our exercise leader--she came up with this very cool egg-beater, arm-flapping thing that had the three of us drawing on-lookers' attention in the parking lot. No blood clots for us!

We arrived in Cleveland in time to join Marilu Swett and Julie Shepley (who were finishing up their challenging first day of installation) for dinner in Cleveland's "Little Italy" (it is little, but very sweet and several good choices of restaurants right near the Sculpture Center and our hotel, Glidden House. If you go to Cleveland--definitely try to stay at the Glidden House:

 

It's in a turn of the century mansion originally home of the Gliddens of Glidden Paint fame, on the Case Western campus and right across from the stupendous Frank Gehry building (below) on the Case Western campus.

 

Stirring The Waters/ Between Two Bodies - An Exchange exhibition with the Sculpture Center in Cleveland Ohio Part 1 of 6: Planning

by Boston Sculptor Jessica Straus

Three years of planning and organizing an exchange between Boston Sculptors Gallery and The Sculpture Center of Cleveland, Ohio has finally come to fruition in the form of two exhibitions, "Stirring the Waters / Between Two Bodies" at each of our venues. The first of these shows, a group of 10 (Andy Zimmermann, Hannah Verlin, Marilu Swett, Margaret Swan, Jessica Straus, Julia Shepley, Michelle Lougee, Peter Haines, Laura Evans, Caroline Bagenal) has just opened at the Sculpture Center, and it looks fabulous!

Many folks have been asking me how these shows came to be so here's an account of the whole process: As a member of the Exhibition Committee at Boston Sculptors Gallery I was researching exhibition venues outside the Boston area where Boston Sculptors members could mount an exhibition to extend our reach beyond our own gallery walls and to gain a wider audience for our work. I was particularly interested in finding an organization that shared our mission of exclusively showing sculpture. And to this, I added the requirement that the venue have a similar focus on high caliber, contemporary work. Right away I discovered how unusual is our focus on sculpture. I was really excited when my Goggle searches pointed me to the Sculpture Center in Cleveland. I spent a lot of time looking at their website (http://www.sculpturecenter.org), looking at each of their exhibitions, past, present, and future, and sensed a kindred spirit. There was just one wee thing that looked like a stumbling block for our having a shot at proposing an exhibition there; the Sculpture Center’s mission is to promote Ohio sculptors.

Nevertheless, I began a correspondence with The Sculpture Center's director, Ann Albano. She was incredibly gracious, but she did point out that they only showed sculptors with ties to their region. Hmm, would this be the end of the discussion? I offered her the possibility of an exchange with our gallery (which coincidentally has almost the same footprint, square footage-wise, as the Sculpture Center). I asked if this opportunity might indeed fit the Sculpture Center's mission of promoting Ohio sculptors in that an exchange would provide the opportunity for national exposure. Ann's response? "I'll bring it to my board and see what they think." I was so pleased to receive an email from Ann a while later, telling me her board approved the exchange and now we could begin the planning process in earnest. Hurray!

 
In the fall of 2009 I had the opportunity to travel to the Cleveland area--the perfect chance to visit the Sculpture Center and meet Ann Albano. I was immediately taken with the Center, a funky, quirky (in the best artistic sense), beautifully renovated space--two galleries, one in each of their two buildings joined together by a courtyard which displays sculptures by the Center's founder and benefactor, the late David Davis.

 

The Sculpture Center is less than a mile from University Circle, an area referred to as "Museum Mile" where one can visit, among other attractions, the Cleveland Museum of Art,




 the Botanical Gardens, and soon, the new Institute of Contemporary Art.




One of the two Sculpture Center's galleries fronts onto and has great visibility from Euclid Avenue, one of Cleveland's main thoroughfares.

 

I traveled back to Cleveland and the Sculpture Center in the fall of 2010 and met again with Ann. By this time we had had quite an email correspondence going as we began to work out the way this exchange would be orchestrated. There was so much to work out! I found Ann to be was incredibly thoughtful and insightful, someone who could zero in on the right questions to be asked. One of the first things we needed to figure out was how the artists would be selected for these two shows, a potentially tricky and complex process given that the Sculpture Center and the Boston Sculptors Gallery are structurally very different: Boston Sculptors is a cooperative, artist-run gallery whereas the Sculpture Center is a non profit that operates more like a museum without a collection, with the director serving as curator who selects artists for exhibitions.

Ann offered to curate both shows, selecting a group of Ohio artists who each had been showcased earlier as emerging artists at The Sculpture Center. Ann got to know the Boston Sculptors first through our gallery website and catalog and then she thoroughly investigated each of our individual artist's websites. Her goal was to make a dynamic exhibition that would be at once diverse and cohesive. Little by little as she narrowed her selections, a thread began to emerge for her that showed a regional flavor that would tie the work together.

Next entry: part 2 - Road Trip!

Medfield’s Main Street becomes a sculpture path

By Lisa Kocian Boston Globe Staff June 14, 2012 Hannah Verlin is installing “Thoughts Are Free,” based on verse found in the Warsaw ghetto, along Main Street inMedfield this summer. Hannah Verlin is installing “Thoughts Are Free,” based on verse found in the Warsaw ghetto, along Main Street inMedfield this summer. Telephone poles might seem an unlikely canvas, but they are being used in Medfield to create a “sculpture path” that is meant to highlight cultural destinations and happenings in town. Anyone walking or driving along Main Street (Route 109) near the center of town may notice bright white letters appearing on the poles this summer. The temporary exhibition marks a proposed cultural district, while also exploring the theme of this year’s Medfield Reads program. The white words, in both English and Yiddish, are from a poem called “Thoughts Are Free,” which was found among documents buried in milk cans in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation in World War II. The poem was chosen because it ties into the book chosen by the Medfield Public Library for its community reading project, “Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books,” by Massachusetts author ­Aaron Lansky. “It is in part a marketing tool for the town with an eye toward attracting tourists,” said Jean Mineo, chairwoman of the town’s Cultural Council, and the project manager. And it’s also about “identifying cultural assets in the community,” she said. There are quite a few of those. Although a small town, Medfield traces its history to the 1600s, and boasts such landmarks as the Peak House, which was built around 1668, and rebuilt around 1680 after it was burned down during King Philip’s War. The outdoor installation, with 16 sites in all, will stretch along Main Street between the Peak House and the old section of Vine Lake Cemetery. It is the work of Somerville artist Hannah Verlin, who has completed about a third of the project and will continue her work through the summer. The path roughly demarcates the proposed cultural district, which would include all of the local properties on the National Register of Historic Places, about 50 businesses, and most of Medfield’s religious and government institutions. The cultural district designation is being sought as part of a Massachusetts Cultural Council effort, launched last year as a way for communities to gain access to a wide range of programs and resources. Although there’s abundant history to showcase, the sculpture path also spotlights some of Medfield’s newer cultural attractions, including the Zullo Gallery Center for the Arts, where the white paper letters take a brief detour from the telephone poles and land on a brick wall. “It’s a wonderful piece of work,” said William Pope, executive director of the Zullo Gallery, a nonprofit organization. “I saw some kids out there kind of touching it and looking at it.” And that’s the idea. It’s meant to be a conversation piece, he said. The gallery has another link to the library’s Medfield Reads program with an ongoing exhibit through June 24. Because Lansky’s book is about Yiddish and cultural history, the gallery is hosting “Outwitting History,” a juried show in which artists explore their own cultural history. The collaboration of so many groups in town — the sculpture path links the Medfield Historical Society, the Vine Lake Preservation Trust, and the library, among others — helps all of the organizations. “We’re all close, we’re all doing things, we all know each other,” said Pope. Verlin said she purposely used cheap, thin paper, called sign-makers’ paper, and wheat paste to adhere the English and Yiddish words for the outdoor installation. “It will be a little bit resilient, but over the course of the summer it will slowly deteriorate,” she said. “Conceptually, it sort of reflects the idea discussed by Lansky — as something present but being worn away.” There’s a personal connection for her because Verlin, who is 29, is from a family of Ashkenazi Jews, and like many such families each generation has a lost a bit of the language, she said. She said although her great-grandparents were fluent in Yiddish, she only knows the words that are in the common vernacular. The Cultural Council’s Mineo said the work on the proposed cultural district and the sculpture path has helped bring together many groups in town, and she is rooting for it to foster ongoing collaborations. “I do hope that more people become involved in the cultural offerings of the community and that the organizations become stronger through collaborative efforts,” she said. “I think art can be an integral and very hands-on and accessible way to build community.” Lisa Kocian can be reached at lkocian@globe.com.

When your surgeon has an art-school diploma on the wall

We just can't resist sharing this story. Thanks for making the case so eloquently! originally published: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/growth/when-your-surgeon-has-an-art-school-diploma-on-the-wall/article4247486/?cmpid=rss1 JAMES MARTIN The Globe and Mail Published Monday, Jun. 11 2012, 2:03 PM EDT Last updated Tuesday, Jun. 12 2012, 2:38 PM EDT There are a few things we like to see on a doctor’s office wall. A medical degree is a good start, especially if it’s from a university that doesn’t have the words “mail-order correspondence” in its name. But what about an art school diploma? For physicians, especially those engaged in medical research, that might be a good idea. “When people find out that I was in fine arts before going into medicine, they say, ‘Wow, that was a real change.’ But it was a straightforward progression from my point of view,” says John Semple. Today he’s the chief surgeon at Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital, where he specializes in post-cancer breast reconstruction. He’s also a professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and the chair of surgical research at the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. But it all started by studying painting and sculpture at what is now the Ontario College of Art and Design University from 1970 to 1973. He then completed a medical illustration BSc at the University of Toronto, then medical school at McMaster University. “A training in art is really a training in observation. It teaches you how to be aware and how to see. And that’s certainly something you can use extremely well in medicine.” Although an artist’s manual dexterity – and a deep knowledge and respect for the medium, “whether it’s Florentine marble or living human tissue” – is certainly an asset to a surgeon, Dr. Semple believes the world of scientific research can benefit from an artistic education. “The idea that creativity is part of everyday thinking is something I use all the time,” he says, “specifically in my capacity for dealing with abstract ideas.” As a senior scientist at Women’s College Research Institute, he just completed a mobile health pilot project that saw post-surgical patients use a smartphone app to file daily reports with their doctors, giving them improved recovery care without having to return to the hospital. His other research areas include clinical work in breast reconstruction and the effects of hypoxia on high altitude mountain climbers. “I find a lot of people fear facing abstract notions, and will retreat to known components,” he says, “But a painter is trained to face a blank canvas, and deal with it head on. From a research point of view, that can mean looking at things in ways people haven’t looked at before. That might be in terms of microvascular blood flow, or different ways the body can heal or be encouraged to heal.” Creativity, Dr. Semple believes, isn’t so much taught as it’s cultivated. He believes so strongly in the power of artistic training as an across-the-board driver for innovation and advancement that he recently joined the OCADU board of governors. “When I was applying to medical school, I got a lot of blank stares from people who couldn’t figure out how being an artist could have any relevance to science. But I think it’s such a great background for scientists. It’s the way you think as an artist that’s so important. “Creativity is really a critical element of how human beings advance in all our disciplines. Where medicine and science need help from art is in looking over the horizon, in looking at something in a completely different way. Thinking as an artist means connecting the dots that aren’t next to each other.” Special to The Globe and Mail

Boston Biennale Summer 2013 Call

Boston Biennale - Summer 2013 From the website: 'The Boston Biennale was formed to establish and maintain a world-class cultural event that integrates contemporary and traditional arts within Boston's historic cultural setting. This event is one that celebrates and encourages excellence, creativity, diversity, participation, promotes artisans and local businesses, improves the cultural resources of Boston, and also provides access to the arts and education. They have a call out to artists: Send a JPEG of your vision for the Boston Biennale. One image per person, please. (10mb max file size) ideas@bostonbiennale.org

Boston Art Review: Sarah Hutt, "In Your Dreams"

Boston Art Review: Sarah Hutt, "In Your Dreams", at Boston Sculptors ...: The show is composed of three distinct sections: The Dream Boxes A wall of small clay figures And an arrangement of 2-D...

Artist Selected for Edgar Allan Poe public art commission in Boston

Poe Returning to Boston, from Rocknak’s preliminary design proposal

Monday, April 23, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contacts:

Jean Mineo, Project Manager
Poe Square Public Art Project
508-242-9991; JeanMineo@aol.com

Paul Lewis, Poe Foundation Chairman
& Boston College Professor of English
617-552-3710; paul.lewis@bc.edu


SCULPTURE HONORING EDGAR ALLAN POE IN BOSTON CHOSEN
AFTER LENGTHY REVIEW PROCESS

POE TO RETURN TO CITY OF HIS BIRTH, WILL BE SEEN STRIDING ACROSS SQUARE DEDICATED TO HIM

TRIUMPHANT POE RETURNING TO BOSTON…SCULPTOR CHOSEN
FROM 265 ARTISTS

ARTIST/PHILOSOPHER SELECTED TO CREATE POE STATUE

BOSTON – Stefanie Rocknak, a professional sculptor with a tandem career as a professor of philosophy in New York, has been selected to create a statue to commemorate Edgar Allan Poe in Boston, the city of his birth.

“Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers ever born in the City of Boston. As a city proud of its rich history, I’m so pleased to see this wonderful tribute come to fruition. The statue chosen for Poe Square is full of life and motion, and is sure to inspire residents and future writers alike for generations to come,” said Mayor Tom Menino of Rocknak’s design.

A five-member artist selection committee, empowered by Boston Art Commission guidelines, has made the decision following a lengthy process involving intense public scrutiny of design proposals created by three competing finalists. The finalists were picked from a pool of 265 artists who applied for the competitive public art commission from 42 states and 13 countries.

“I propose to cast a life-size figure of Poe in bronze. Just off the train, the figure would be walking south towards his place of birth, where his mother and father once lived. Poe, with a trunk full of ideas—and worldwide success—is finally coming home,” said Rocknak of the design she calls Poe Returning to Boston.

“The sense of Poe returning triumphant with creative ideas bursting forth from his suitcase is very appealing,” according to project manager Jean Mineo.

“The review committee, and public input, conveyed great excitement with the dynamic sense of movement, accessible style, and Poe’s creative energy expressed in the proposal. There is also strong support for Steff’s approachable, ground level statue that helps humanize Poe and place him in the context of this active neighborhood,” Mineo said.

The plan calls for the statue of one of America’s most influential writers to be installed in Edgar Allan Poe Square, a tree-lined, city-owned brick plaza at the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South, just two blocks north of where Poe was born in 1809. Mayor Menino dedicated the location to Poe—and to his place in Boston’s literary heritage—during bicentennial celebrations in 2009.

Poe, who at age 18 returned to Boston to publish his first book, later developed a notoriously contentious relationship with the city’s literary elite, including with local editors who seized an opportunity to criticize him upon another return to his native city for a reading in 1845, the year Poe’s most popular poem, The Raven, appeared. Poe’s final works were also published in Boston prior to his mysterious death in Baltimore in 1849.

An award-winning member of the Sculptors Guild whose artwork has appeared in numerous publications and in more than 40 exhibitions including at the Smithsonian, Stefanie Rocknak is an associate professor of philosophy and the director of the Cognitive Science Program at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, where she has taught since 2001. A graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, with a B.A. in American Studies and Art History with a concentration in studio art, she holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston University. Her interests include the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume (the subject of her forthcoming book), the philosophy of art, and the philosophy of the mind.

Describing her dual roles as artist and philosopher in Colby Magazine last November, Rocknak said: “Initially I kept them totally separate … but making representational art is a manifestation of my philosophical belief that all art doesn’t have to be conceptual.” She said her figurative artwork, usually created in wood, is “cathartic” representing “a way to externalize certain emotions.”

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston appreciates support for the Poe Square Public Art Project, and the financial contributions of the City of Boston’s Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund that made its planning and artist selection process possible. Construction of a finalized design of the sculpture—which proponents envision by the end of next year—will depend on success of future fundraising initiatives to offset the anticipated $125,000 total cost of the project.

For more information about the Poe Square Public Art Project—and about how to contribute to the Poe Statue Fund—contact the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston at 160 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116, via email at info@poeboston.org, or care of http://poeboston.blogspot.com/

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, Inc., is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation organized exclusively for the charitable educational purpose of honoring Poe in the city where he was born in 1809.