Day: June 18, 2011

These are photos from the first Mug Up at Khan Studio and the Good Morning Gloucester Gallery.  We will be holding Mug Up every Sunday at 10:00.  Tomorrow is Father’s Day, so if you’re a Dad and can’t make it, we understand.  Everyone’s invited.  Greg Bover has said he is bringing some edible offering.  Offerings are gratefully accepted and consumed by all.

Happenings on Rocky Neck

Alma McLaughlin hosted the most amazing re-opening of her new two shop location at 75 Rocky Neck last night.  All the famous and infamous artists, colorful and beautiful people, characters and denizons of Rocky Neck and beyond were there.  If you were there, you know you were at the happening place.  If you weren’t, well, sorry, you missed a magnitude thing.  Paul Morrison hightailed it over from Rockport as soon as he heard “stuffed mushrooms”; I think that’s Paul’s hand you see reaching into the food shot.  If you missed last night, you should schedule a trip to Alma’s Art & Antiques as soon as possible.  The shops are chock full of great art and really neat collectibles at very affordable prices.  Karen Roberts from Sailor Stan’s did an amazing job with the food, which never stopped coming and was incredible, believe me, I tried it all!  Afterwards a bunch of us headed to Madfish Grill and wore holes in the floor dancing nonstop and wildly to Boston Horns’ great funk and soul.  Wendie Demuth says she can’t dance; but that girl kicked  up a storm and wanted to marry both the horn players (which I think is illegal in this state, and at least one of them was already married).

This is an early tip to everyone out there in GMG land who will be on or near Cape Ann on Thursday, July 7^th  from 5:00 – 9:00pm.  We are planning an amazing Night on the Neck that you and the whole family will enjoy and not want to miss.  Mark your calendars now – details to follow soon.

E.J. Lefavour

www.khanstudiointernational.com

Sefatia informs us-

Place: Gloucester House Restaurant

The Annisquam Exchange, 32 Leonard St., is open for the season. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday; and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Annisquam Exchange, a nonprofit organization, offers antiques, collectibles, linens, cards and gifts. For more information call 978-281-0358 or email info.annisquamexchange@gmail.com.

Photos- EJ Lafavour

Joey,

We just posted this on the Blue Shutters blog (http://www.blueshuttersbeachblog.blogspot.com) and thought the GMG community might be interested in the Gloucester history lesson unfolding at our B&B this week….

The four of us took over the Blue Shutters in early 2007, but it feels like we’ve been here forever. Our roots may have been down 128 a few exits — in Burlington, Woburn and Stoneham — but Gloucester has always part of lives. It’s where we came on a summer Saturday for a few hours of Good Harbor Beach fun, on a Friday night for some dancing at Little Earls and on a Sunday afternoon for dinner out with Mom and Dad.
But our Gloucester history seems insignificant when compared with the group staying here at the Blue Shutters this week. It’s a gathering of the direct descendants of Capt. Elias Davis and James Mansfield, described by one of the organizers –Rev. Graham M. Patterson –as "late 18th and 19th century contemporaries who figure prominently in Gloucester’s seafaring history."
Graham is here to host a memorial gathering for his mother, Marion Mansfield, who he describes as "the last of her generation of Mansfields." According to Graham, their "forbearer James Mansfield (1765-1842) established a ship’s chandlery on Front Street in 1792. From there he built one of the largest fleets of fishing schooners in mid-19th century Gloucester. On the 1852 Walling Map, the Mansfield Wharf is the largest on the western end of the harbor. He built a four-story, double Federal house at No. 26 and No. 28 Front Street in 1832, the year my great-great grandmother Abigail Somes Davis married Alfred Mansfield, Sr."
He goes on to talk about his great-great grandmother Abigail Somes Davis Mansfield (1811-1900), who "befriended Fitz Lane (1804-1865) from the days of her childhood, purchased his paintings, and left them to my cousin Alfred Mansfield Brooks." Graham tells us that one of his ancestors owned the California, which is featured in one of Fitz Henry Lane’s most celebrated paintings at the Cape Ann Museum. A great uncle left the museum a cache of Fitz Henry Lane drawings in the 1940s, and since the very opening of the Cape Ann Museum, some of the many Mansfield family fine arts objects donated to the Cape Ann Museum have been housed there.
Nearly a dozen Mansfield cousins — from Paris, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire and here in Massachusetts — are attending this reunion, touring both the Cape Ann Museum and Cape Ann itself with Linn Parisi, serving as tour guide, following the journal entries of Graham’s grandmother, Adelaide Mansfield, which she made during her trips to Gloucester between 1915 and 1948.
We feel very fortunate to have this group with us this week — while we hope we’re contributing to Gloucester’s future with our work here at the Blue Shutters, we also think it’s important to celebrate the unique history of this city and surrounding towns. And you can’t get much historical than this Mansfield clan. We hope you agree — if you do, give this group a wave if you see them on the streets of Cape Ann these next few days.

Tony & Patty Sapienza, Ed & AnnMarie Comer

Blue Shutters Beachside Inn

DOWN THE FORTgloucester, massachusetts

gloucester, massachusetts

No Pretty Prayer explores the gritty character of an old seaside neighborhood in the oldest seaport in America. Known locally as the Fort, the enclave has long served as the working heart of Gloucester, Massachusetts’ marine industrial economy and as home to the city’s Sicilian community. The film examines how this mix of industry and culture has fused the character of this place and its people over the past one hundred years. With the threat of urban gentrification as a haunting backdrop, the film invites viewers to contemplate what it means to sustain cherished roots to a humble place that the broader world threatens to erase and forget in time.

Next Screenings: 2011 St. Peter’s  Fiesta

Cape Ann Community Cinema http://capeannecinema.com

Seven screenings throughout Fiesta