ArtSake

Digital Ethnography: The Phenomenon of YouTube

bigbaby — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:40:48 +0000

Imagine YouTube seen throught the eyes of an anthropologist. Well thanks to our colleague Maggie Holtzberg (the MCC’s Folklorist) she turned ArtSake onto the work of Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist at Kansas State University working on issues (including methodology) in the digital realm. His hour long presentation The Machine is Us/ing Us was presented last June at the Library of Congress. It’s a fascinating look at how YouTube influences mediating human relationships and participatory culture.

Batter up for Artist Opportunities

bigbaby — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:16:58 +0000

Get ready to strike at the artist knuckeballs heading your way:

First up at bat is an opportunity from the US Mint (as in money, not the plant that makes mint juleps). There will soon be a call out to artists to design money. Be on the lookout for their next upcoming nationwide call for artists.

Here batter, batter, here’s a call for submissions from Gallery 51 in North Adams for an exhibition titled “Here.” Artists are being asked to submit recent works that demonstrate the concept of HERE - Content could include a direct or indirect reference to North Adams, The Berkshires, the moment in time “2009.” Submissions accepted in any media. Deadline: August 4, 2009.

Rounding first base is ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art, which is currently seeking works for Volume 15: Influence and Reference. Deadline: August 1, 2009

Heading into second base is CRAFTBOSTON. They are now accepting applications for two events: the annual spring event at the Seaport World Trade Center and the holiday event at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts. Deadline: September 25, 2009. Email show@craftboston.org for more information.

Rounding third base is En Foco’s New Works Photography Awards Fellowship. This annual program selects three or more U.S. photographers of Latino, African, or Asian heritage and Native Peoples of the Americas and the Pacific. Three photographers will be selected from an open and national call for entries to receive a $1,000 honorarium, photo-related supplies, technical assistance, a photographer’s page on enfoco.org, an article in Nueva Luz, an En Foco membership, and a culminating group exhibition in New York. Deadline: July 31, 2009.

And sliding safe into home for the winning run is the Experimental Art Gallery & Studio in Salem. They are accepting all media for the show SEE-Scapes. For a prospectus and entry form, please email: ex.art42@gmail.com Deadline: July 31, 2009

Image credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, LC-USF33-005212-M4 DLC] Edwin Rosskam photographer. Baseball game, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.

GLOVEBOX: creating a community for emerging artists

ArtSake — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:02:13 +0000

We’re interested in Massachusetts arts organizations that have identified a specific need for artists, then created programs to directly meet that need – in essence, matched the right horse with the right course. We’re calling this type of post - you guessed it - Horses for Courses.

Our first subject is the Boston nonprofit GLOVEBOX. We asked Jodie McMenamin, co-founder and co-director of the group GLOVEBOX with Liz Comperchio (and, incidentally, our fabulous MCC Artist Department intern for Spring 2009), about what need they identified, what they do, and what’s next.

The course: “We saw emerging artists with talent and energy but lacking a community to help foster growth and professional experiences,” Jodie said. “We knew there are so many opportunities for these artists to share their work with the community. What was missing was the link.”

The horse: GLOVEBOX, a grassroots nonprofit artist organization that creates a community for emerging artists and enables them to exhibit art in nontraditional spaces in the Boston area.

What we offer artists: “We locate non-gallery spaces around the city, like pubs and vintage clothing stores, and turn them into a creative space for artists to exhibit,” Jodie said. “The local businesses that donate their space often get exposure through the press. GLOVEBOX and our artists maintain relationships with the businesses, supporting and advocating Boston’s local scene.

“GLOVEBOX provides a community where artists can begin to discover how to exhibit their work or where more established artists can take risks with their work–and where all artists can bounce ideas off each other. Our artists get involved in the entire process, and we often give them opportunities to volunteer, promote and curate.”

What we’ve done: “GLOVEBOX has hosted a variety of events including art shows at Goody Glover’s and Ned Devine’s (two Boston restaurants), an art auction to benefit orphaned girls in Kenya (in collaboration with One Home Many Hopes), and our most recent event, SPIN, an exhibition themed around cassette tapes and vinyl records (check out Studio Views: Kevin Hebb to read more about it). Rescue, Allston’s local vintage apparel and accessory store, teamed up with us to host SPIN, which was a huge success and was covered by the Allston-Brighton Tab, The Metro and the Weekly Dig.”

Up next: JUNKO REVIVAL, a group art show themed around environmental consciousness, using found materials, recycled goods or just plain old junk!

The art from JUNKO REVIVAL can be viewed and purchased at the opening reception on Sunday, July 12 from 7-10 PM at Rescue (252 Brighton Avenue, Allston). The show will be ongoing from July 12 to August 9.

Artists interested in learning more about GLOVEBOX and/or submitting work to future calls to artists should visit gloveboxboston.com and their blog, gloveboxboston.blogspot.com.

Images: Liz Comperchio and Jodie McMenamin, co-directors of GLOVEBOX; Jacklyn Boyland, WEEDING (2009), paintings on paint samples for JUNKO REVIVAL; Christopher Schuch, LOOKING NORTH-NORTHEAST FROM THE MAIN GATE (2008), C-print, 20 x 24 in; In-progress sculpture by Vic Yambao for JUNKO REVIVAL; Amanda Atkins, WILD BIRD GUEST (2009), book painting for JUNKO REVIVAL; Gary Duehr, APPLE, glass sculpture for JUNKO REVIVAL.

In Step with Alisia Waller

bigbaby — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:30:11 +0000

ArtSake caught up briefly with FY08 Choreography fellow Alisia Waller. She is a member of Mobius, a co-founder of The And So No Sin Performance Troupe, as well as a fight and dance choreographer, physical comedian, dancer, drag performer, stage fighter, video and performance artist and sometime sculptor and comix artist. Well bust my buttons, let’s see what else she’s been up to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LhZRduvhHw

The first piece I completed and presented in formal performance after receiving my fellowship is entitled “(do not) go gentle”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHqqrzPg_vI

Our latest completed work w/ the mellifluous title “Control Efforts:
Ongoing (variable: candy)”. This piece takes inspiration from dog bite preventing techniques and various (often conflicting) techniques for training (ie: communicating with) dogs.

Control Efforts: Ongoing (variable: candy) from MobiusArtistsGroup on Vimeo.

Minimalist Update: I will be going to Beijing in August to perform as part of the OPEN Arts Festival there and we’re hoping for our next full evening show (the first since the fellowship) to happen in December, pending various presentation space complications. Here’s a sample of some images from the OPEN Arts festival in 2008.

And the animal friendly people here at ArtSake want to give a shout out Alisia’s cat Miss Kitka who told us in a separate interview that she is waiting for her human companion to create a piece about cats!

Artadia finalists announced

ArtSake — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:53:21 +0000

Artadia, a New York-based arts nonprofit, announced the finalists for the Artadia Awards 2009 Boston - including several past MCC Artist Fellows/Finalists (linked, below). Congratulations to: Claire Beckett, Cree Bruins, Ambreen Butt, Laura Chasman, Caleb Cole, Margo Cooper, Raul Gonzalez, Eric Gottesman, Wendy Jacob, Erik Levine, Steph Plourde-Simard, Nick Rodrigues, Amie Siegel, Suara Welitoff, and Joe Zane.

Each of the finalists, who were selected from nearly 600 applications, will receive a studio visit in the upcoming weeks. The Artadia jury will then select two artists to receive awards of $15,000 and five to receive awards of $3,000, to be announced mid-August.

More info about the Artadia awards.

Images: Claire Beckett, CIVILIAN JOSHUA OSBORNE PLAYING THE ROLE OF AN IRAQI CIVILIAN, WADI AL-SAHARA, MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER, CA (2008), 2008 Archival ink print, 30 x 40 inches; Laura Chasman, NURSE ASSISTANT (2008), Gouache on mounting board, 12 x 11 inches; Eric Gottesman, MOTHER AND SON REUNITED (1978/2002), Rephotographed and Degraded (2006), Inkjet print, 24 x 17 inches.

Submit 3-minute fiction to NPR

ArtSake — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:38:17 +0000

Writers have until July 18 to submit to NPR’s “Three-Minute Fiction,” calling for original fiction that can be read in under three minutes.

The judge of NPR’s contest is literary critic James Wood. He notes in the NPR announcement that writing three-minute fiction (usually around 500 words) “strikes at the very heart of the short story as a project… How do you get a character, as it were, into a room and up and going within a sentence or two?”

No doubt Massachusetts writers are up to the task. Quick Fiction, a literary journal that publishes stories and prose poems of 500 words or less, is based in Salem, and the recent Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (featured on ArtSake here) includes a host of Massachusetts writers and was published by Brookline’s Rose Metal Press.

Winning entries will be read on-air and posted on NPR’s web site. Read the official rules.

Artist Opportunities Nibbles

bigbaby — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:36:22 +0000

The Boston Center for the Arts is accepting submissions for their 21st Drawing Show. Deadline: August 12, 2009

It was bound to happen. BRAVO is conducting casting calls to contemporary artists for a new show they are producing called the Untitled Art Project. So if you’re into competitive challenges with other artists and dream of being a reality television star, then your opportunity to reach that elusive 15 minutes of fame is right in front of you (Andy was right). The producers (including Sarah Jessica Parker a.k.a. Carrie Bradshaw) apparently are interested in making a show whereby someone “conquers the art world” (whatever that means).

Speaking of fame, the theme of upcoming Boston Biennial Project is cleverly and lovingly self-referential; it’s all about biennials. And when we say lovingly, we mean it in the narcissistic sort of loving way. The organizers of the Boston Biennial Project say it will focus on “all the aspiration and greed, sublime insight and cheap self-aggrandizement, profundity and narcissism that biennials have come to represent.” The show will be juried from actual work. Drop off is at the Atlantic Works Gallery, top floor, 80 Border Street, East Boston, MA, July 31 and August 1, 2-7 P.M. For more information, email thebostonbiennialTBP@gmail.com

For all you card catalogue and ISBN number loving bibliophiles, here’s an opportunity to exhibit your artwork at the Thomas Crane Pubic Library in Quincy.

Baby dragons, a sleeping fairy, the wings of Daedalus

bigbaby — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:24:48 +0000

If you are into the cabinet of curiosities, then the current exhibition at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester might appeal to you. The show is called Beyond Belief: The Curious Collection of Professor Rufus Excalibur Bell.

It’s an exhibit that examines the stories behind mythological creatures and encourages visitors to ask “why couldn’t this happen?” And it features some terrific sculpture and imaginative creations by Somerville artist Hilary Scott.

A note on the artist: Hilary has taught international relations for Tufts University, has a doctorate in international law, has lectured widely on European political history, and is the recipient of several postgraduate fellowships in public diplomacy and security studies.

Photo Credit: photographs by Hilary Scott

2009 MCC Artist Fellowships announced

ArtSake — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:24:44 +0000

The 2009 Artist Fellowships in Crafts, Film & Video, Music Composition, Photography, Playwriting, and Sculpture/Installation have been announced.

MCC’s Artist Fellowships are anonymously judged and provide unrestricted grants (this year, $10,000 for fellows and $1,000 for finalists) to individual artists in recognition of artistic excellence. We profile awarded artists and share samples of their work on the Gallery @ MCC, and we share the current accomplishments of past fellows and finalists in Fellows Notes.

Here’s a full list of this year’s fellows/finalists and panelists.

Images (top to bottom): Janet Echelman (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09), SHE CHANGES, NET NO. 2 (2008), Polyester fiber, steel 50 x 150 x 150 meters; Patricia Shannon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09), OPEN HOUSE (2008), cut newspapers, acrylic gel, binder’s board 17 in x 24 in x 22 in; Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ‘09), FLIGHT SUIT (2008), Archival Inkjet Print, 16 in x 20 in; Niho Kozuru (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ‘09), LIQUID SUNSHINE SERIES (2008), cast rubber, variable size (smallest, H 22 in to Largest, H 40 in); David Prifti (Photography Finalist ‘09), EMRYS AND MR. FRENCH (2007), Tintype 8 x 10 inches; Angela Cunningham, YELLOW NESTING SET (2007), Ceramics 6 in x 13.5 in x 13.5 in

Driving Towards Artist Opportunities

bigbaby — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:52:53 +0000

All women artists, curators and art professionals are invited to submit curatorial proposals for a one-month exhibit to be held at A.I.R. Gallery in 2010. Work in all media and materials may be submitted.
Deadline: July 1, 2009

En Foco’s New Works Photography Awards Fellowship is an annual program selecting three or more U.S. photographers of Latino, African, or Asian heritage and Native Peoples of the Americas and the Pacific. Three photographers will be selected from an open and national call for entries to receive a $1,000 honorarium, photo-related supplies, technical assistance, a photographer’s page on enfoco.org, an article in Nueva Luz, an En Foco membership, and a culminating group exhibition in New York.
Deadline: July 31, 2009.

The L.A. Center for Digital Art announces an international call to artists. All styles of artwork and photography where digital processes of any kind were integral to their creation are acceptable: digital art stills of any kind, digital photogaphy, short experimental time based video, video loops, mobile media, interactive media, and internet art.
Deadline: July 20, 2009.

Image Credit: New York Zamkin Press. 1939