Author: Joey Ciaramitaro

Maritime Gloucester Kicks Off 2014 Speaker Series

Maritime Gloucester is kicking off its winter speaker series, Maritime Gloucester TALKS with weekly presentations in February featuring acclaimed presenters and hometown heroes who will focus on the themes of Schooners. Tom Balf, Maritime Gloucester’s Executive Director remarked, “as the host of the city’s annual Schooner Festival, we are proud to continue exploring schooner history and reaffirming its place on today’s waterfront.  We are excited to introduce a hands-on workshop as part of the series where participants can learn basic and traditional navigation techniques.  Maritime Gloucester is a place where we learn by doing.”

All presentations are free and open to the public, donations appreciated.  Weekly programs start at 7:00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Gorton’s Seafoods Gallery at Maritime Gloucester.  Advance online reservations are strongly encouraged at www.maritimegloucester.org or by calling 978 281 0470. The schedule and speaker bios follow.  Maritime Gloucester TALKS will continue into March with a series on Climate Change.  In April, Maritime Gloucester will host the UMass Large Pelagic Research Center’s annual speakers series.

FEBRUARY 6-Adaptive Sailing Program aboard the Schooner, Sugar Babe, Capt. Ed Boynton.  Come and learn Capt. Boynton’s program that brings people with disabilities sailing aboard theSugar Babe. Ed will recount the schooner’s traditional past and exciting new mission.

FEBRUARY 13-Fitz Henry Lane Online, Melissa Trafton, Senior Researcher & Martha Oaks, Curator, Cape Ann Museum.  The Cape Ann Museum is redesigning its Fitz Henry Lane Gallery and in addition, in 2015, the Museum will launch Fitz Henry Lane Online, a catalogue raisonné and research tool, featuring new discoveries and scholarship surrounding Lane and his milieu. Join us for a journey behind the scenes of Lane’s landscapes and learn more about the plans for the renovation and the FHL Online project.

FEBRUARY 20 –Lessons of Historic Ship Preservation Projects, Harold A. Burnham 2012 N.E.A. National Heritage Fellow Master Shipwright.  Through slides and discussion, Capt. Burnham will showcase several ship and vessel preservation projects he has been involved with over the years including fishing schooners Adventure, Effie M. Morrissey/ Ernestina, and Evelina M. Goulart.  He will discuss the lessons he has learned during the projects while balancing historic integrity, seaworthiness, financial stability, and preservation practices.

FEBRUARY 27-Secrets of Celestial Navigation, Carl Herzog, Instructor, Sea Education Association (SEA) and former editor of Reed’s Nautical Almanacs.  In the GPS age, steering a ship by the stars can seem like a mystical lost art. We’ll discuss the various ways that cultures across the globe and throughout history have used the stars for ocean navigation. In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore some simple practical skills you can still use with the night sky today; examine some of the tools of the trade, and answers questions like, “What do you see when you look through a sextant?”

Photo: Gloucester’s Own Adventure and Ardelle, by Carl Gustin

Event – My Play’s performance from Mary Beth Smith

I’m not sure it you cover events outside of Gloucester and mind a little self-promoting…  I’m a playwright from Rockport and my play, “Keep A-breast”, won the Peter Honegger Prize for Top Honors in the One Act Category in The Firehouse Center for the Arts’ New Works Festival.  It’s a dramedy about my experience with breast cancer,  playing one night only on Friday, January 24^th.  It’s sold out with lots of survivors coming – we’re all wearing “a splash of pink”.  Here’s the description:

Betty’s doctor recommended she seek advice from the multi-disciplinary board to decide treatment for breast cancer. But why is the lusty mailman and cranky waitress from the diner waiting in the queue to examine her? Why does her mother get to comment from above on everything Betty says to defend herself? And are Betty’s boobs really all that important anyway? And to whom?

I appreciate your mentioning it because I’m hoping to find a theater to perform it in October for breast cancer awareness.  If it’s not appropriate, no worries.  I work a lot and without your blog, I wouldn’t know what was happening in Gloucester and when.  Really appreciate it.

Hi Joey,

  Would it be possible to get the January deal for the Y posted on GMG?  A JPEG is attached.  Super deal worth over $200.  It would be great if you could help us get the word out!

Thanks,

Chris Erbland

Artist Gabrielle Barzaghi and poet Patrick Doud present their collaborative

program of poetry and art titled Persistent Images

Gloucester, MA – The Gloucester Writers Center presents Persistent Images, a 

collaborative program of poetry and drawings by Gabrielle Barzaghi and Patrick Doud, 

on Wednesday, January 22 from 7:30 to 9pm at the Gloucester Writers Center.

Gabrielle Barzaghi, a Trident Gallery artist and a Senior Lecturer at the New England 

School of Art and Design at Suffolk University, has had her work shown at the Boston 

MFA, the Currier Museum, the Fuller Museum, and the Cape Ann Museum, which 

recently acquired three pieces for their permanent collection. 

Patrick Doud is a strong, prolific poet and author, who has already published several 

books of poetry and two books of fantasy. His published books of poetry are Girding the 

Ghost, The Man in Green, and Hickory Bardolino Poems. In June 2010, he published his 

first entry in his series The Winnitok Tales titled The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin. In less 

than a year, Doud had already published his second entry to the series, The Mornith War.

For over a year, these two local artists have shared their work with one another to create a 

collaborative presentation that truly displays the literary and artistic talent that Gloucester 

has to offer.

The Gloucester Writers Center is a working writers center in a working town. It was 

founded in 2010 to save the late poet Vincent Ferrini’s home and turn it into a working 

writer’s center. Its mission is to preserve, promote, and celebrate Cape Ann’s rich literary 

legacy and to encourage writing and the belief that all voices count.

For more information about this event and upcoming events from the Gloucester Writers 

Center, please visit gloucesterwriters.org or visit us at 126 East Main Street, Gloucester, 

MA 01930.