My View of Life on the Dock
A few quiet scenes before the closing reception of the beautiful and thoughtful two person exhibition featuring artists David West and Peter Morse at Jane Deering Gallery. The show closes tomorrow.
Affordable original art by local artists- West’s drawings are $200-$300; Morse’s photos $150
Countdown to Mattos Field rededication day celebration
There’s just six more days till the big event, Friday October 5th, 2018, at 4:30PM, Joseph S. Mattos Jr Memorial Field, Gloucester, Massachusetts. And we’re talking years of community preparation to make it special!
Celebrate Joseph S. Mattos Jr
“We have a big day ahead for Joseph S. Mattos Jr. as it is his 100th. anniversary of his death and we are going to dedicate his flag to him on October 5th. 2018. We are dedicating his flag and we are also having a flyover as we raise the flag. A pilot named Rich Little is going to do it with his friends. He runs a charity Flights4CF as his daughter has this disease. The ceremony starts at 4:30 and the program is beautiful. The day will be completed with a softball game with the Softball Buddies special needs team and then food at the Gloucester Fraternity Club up the street as they have donated the hall to us for free. We are very thankful to the city, the Light Up Mattos Committee, our C.P.A., Lucia Amero and Cape Ann Veterans Services, and everyone who has worked so hard on this field! It’s a big big list! (Here’s a more detailed on published Nov 2017 in the GDT)” -Patti Amaral
Gloucester Meetinghouse Invitational, October 13th, car show to benefit Meetinghouse renovation
The opening event in the Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation’s 2018-19 Concert & Lecture Series is a vintage car show, to be held on the green at the corner of Church and Middle Street from 10:00am to 2:00pm on Saturday, October 13th. The event is free to the public but a $5 donation per adult is requested.
This event will be the first annual classic car show displaying vintage or significant cars owned by North Shore collectors to benefit the ongoing restoration of the historic 1806 Meetinghouse as a civic hub, entertainment venue and community center by the Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation.
The audience will judge the cars in 9 categories, including Best in Show. The event will conclude with trophies given to the winners in an awards ceremony.
PRIZE CATEGORIES
1 FIRST PRIZE Best in Show, the People’s Choice
2 ELEGANCE The most elegant car
3 LUXURY The car with the most luxurious interior
4 GRAND TOURING The best road-trip car
5 SPORT The best racing car
6 OSTENTATIOUS The showiest car
7 PRACTICAL The most useful vehicle
8 BEAUTIFUL The car with the best styled exterior
9 DELIGHTFUL The most fun to drive
will include a performance on the historic 1893 Hutchings pipe organ. Food and beverages will be available. A Dixieland band, ‘John’s Giddy Gang,’ will perform on the Meetinghouse steps.
Car owners are asked to pre-register at info@gloucestermeeinghouse.com with a suggested contribution of $25. For more information please see: www.gloucestermeetinghouse.org
Scroll down for more photos of the boat that’s for sale which had me remembering a great read. Excerpted quotes are from the superb young adult book, Driftwood Captain, from 1956 by Paul B Kenyon, a writer and Gloucester Daily Times columnist and editor, with illustrations by Louise Kenyon, folly cove artist. The book is dedicated to their sons. I guarantee explorers young and old will be inspired to seek treasure and adventure all about them and persist. Kids you know will want to befriend characters so real they jump off the page and grab your heart. Sometimes authors get in the way of their own writing, especially with children’s books, trying too hard and overwriting the kid’s perspective. Not Kenyon. Boy is he a timeless ease. You can find the book at Cape Ann Museum and local book stores.
“…But Pete had the faith of a twelve-year-old in his sailing skill and in his flighty boat, a hunk of a fisherman’s dory. He had been sailing in Lobster Cove since he graduated from floating logs. He knew the breezes and currents and even the ways that certain boats swung at each other. He would put on dark glasses to shield his eyes from the angry glare of visiting yachtsmen, and sail close to the boats of his customers so that he could toss folded newspapers into cockpits and cabins. He was a seagoing paperboy…
“He’d rather have the old hull lying on shore, tied to a tree just above the bridge. He liked her rugged looks and her air of being what Gloucester men called “able.”
“The old hull reminded Pete of the famous sloop Spray, Captain Joshua Slocum rebuilt the Spray, timber by timber and sailed her around the world singlehanded, after he finished fitting out at Gloucester. The Spray was thirty six feet long, not counting her bowsprit. She had a lot of room for a boat of her length. So had the hold hull that had lain unused for years. That’s where Pete had begun the daydream that had led to the Hunkadory-Harbor-Queen argument. Pete wondered why his family did not share his fondness for the hull. Pappy Leonard talked a lot about getting a boat big enough for cruising along the coast.
1959 Lyman boat for sale as is, dry dock @ Shaw’s shopping center, Gloucester, Mass,
A few weekly scenes observing her art’s impact in progress
September 14, 2018
September 21, 2018
September 28, 2018 (different vantages, silhouettes, and scavenged intricacies portend meaning and events)
“When you go into the Woods: Dogtown and other treasures of the forest”, a solo exhibition by Vanessa Michalak, opens October 2, 2018 at Jane Deering Gallery Gloucester, Massachusetts. Reception 6-8pm on October 6th.
Read more about the exhibition and the artist from printed matter announcing the show:
“When you go into the Woods,” features oil paintings by Vanessa Michalak highlighting some of Cape Ann’s well known gems. Works depict imagery of a variety of places including Annisquam Village, Lanesville’s Vernon Quarries and Babson’s Dogtown boulders. The exhibition will be on display throughout October at Jane Deering Gallery, Gloucester, MA with and opening reception scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 6th from 6pm-8pm.
The Exhibition, “When You Go Into The Woods” is a reflection of Michalak’s exploration of Cape Ann and her ongoing investigation of the painting process. The works reflect a fascination with a specific place and its hidden treasures. Many of the works are plein air paintings that brought her to the edges of quarries and sent her trekking through Dogtown’s rocky paths. As much as these works pay tribute to a specific place, they also reflect Michalak’s gestural painting style that at times borders on abstraction. Much like her wanderings in the woods, there is a sense that she doesn’t mind getting a little lost in brushwork, layering and mark before finding her destination.
Vanessa Michalak grew up in Maine before moving to Boston where she lived and worked for over a decade. While living in Boston she visited Cape Ann often and eventually moved to Gloucester last year. She received an MFA in painting from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2013. Residencies include: Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO; Emerging Artist-in-Residence, Penn State, PA; and Playa, Summer Lake, OR. Michalak’s work was featured in New American Paintings #110 and Fresh Paint Magazine (cover artist 2014). She was selected as a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Painting in 2014.
Continue reading ““When you go into the Woods” solo art exhibition by Vanessa Michalak opens Oct. 2nd at Jane Deering Gallery”
Last weekend! Meet the artists at the closing reception Saturday, September 29, 2018 from 5-7pm. Neither Mustard Nor Teeth, photographs by Peter Morse, drawings by David West, Jane Deering Gallery, 19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester
Just around the corner! Reminder: this year the Massachusetts Cultural Council Gloucester LCC Application deadline is October 15th, 2018.
Here’s a list of 2017 awarded projects. The Gloucester Cultural Council is one of hundreds of Local Cultural Councils across the Commonwealth. The LCC Program supports community-based projects in the arts, sciences and humanities every year. The state legislature provides an annual appropriation to the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), a state agency, which then allocates funds to each community. The Gloucester Cultural Council guidelines and online applications are available at http://www.mass-culture.org/Gloucester.
Thanks to a GMG reader for sharing news about a Bel Canto evening not to miss:
“Giovanni Formisano will perform this Friday, September 28th, at 7:30PM at Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic Church (at Parish House) in Jamaica Plain, 146 Forest Hills St. In addition to Neapolitan songs, he will perform arias and duets with a Ukrainian soprano, Olga Lisovskaya. The two have performed together at Carnegie Hall and were featured on RAI TV, viewed by millions. More info:https://www.facebook.com/events/1889334104708495/”
He wowed Gloucester this summer
Haskell’s House, 316 Main Street, is one of more than 110 homes and vistas in Gloucester, Massachusetts, that inspired artist, Edward Hopper (1882-1967).
Gloucester merchant, public official (city councilor / state representative), and Master Mariner, Melvin Haskell (1848-1933), commissioned the house in 1884.
Hopper and artist, Jo Nivison (1883-1968), were married in 1924. They nicknamed the fancy house high atop the hill the Wedding Cake House. The famous drawing was originally purchased by American master painter, George Bellows (1882-1925), from a sensational Hopper solo exhibition held in the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery in 1924. The watercolor changed hands and was eventually gifted to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, by Mr. and Mrs. Herbert A. Goldstone in 1996. Hopper depicted the house in two other works, both side views from Prospect street rather than this view from Main Street.
The house was listed for sale at $830,000 throughout the spring and summer of 2018. Landscaping today involved major brush and tree removal. The result will be a scene closer to the one experienced by artists Edward Hopper and Jo Nivison in the 1920s. The scenic locale is a power spot: down the block from the Crow’s Nest and across the street from Gloucester’s Inner Harbor, Beauport Hospitality’s Cruiseport and Seaport Grill venues, Cape Ann Whale Watch, and Gorton’s.
Tree and heavy brush removal underway September 26, 2018, 316 Main Street, Gloucester, Massachusetts, revealing a scenic vista closer to the one that inspired Edward Hopper back in 1924 ©Catherine Ryan
Aymar, Jimmy, Edgar and Pedro were some of the adroit and brave tree climbing removal crew with ALZ Landscaping and Tree Service out of Lynn, Massachusetts. The unwieldy trees grew threateningly high.
short video: Edward Hopper Haskell’s House in Gloucester Mass is easier to view after tree removal Sept 2018 © catherine Ryan
David West is originally from Mississippi. He holds an MFA from Louisiana State University with a concentration in printmaking. He is Associate Professor of art at Gordon College, Wenham MA where he is Chair of the Art Department. West is also Co-Founder/Curator of ArtSpace 86 Gallery in Jackson MS. He has exhibited widely in the US. West is now living in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Meet the artist at the closing reception of the September art exhibition: Neither Mustard Nor teeth, photographs by Peter Morse, drawings by David West, at Jane Deering Gallery, 19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester
art exhibition closing soon! Meet the artists at the closing reception Saturday, September 29 5-7pm. Neither Mustard Nor Teeth, photographs by Peter Morse, drawings by David West, Jane Deering Gallery, 19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester
from the exhibition release:
“Neither Mustard nor Teeth, by artists Peter Morse and David West, is an exploration of the everyday discipline of the artist searching to find the extraordinary and the beautiful among the quotidian rhythms of ordinary life.
Morse’s photos call attention to the overlooked. They catch moments of light, pattern, form and structure that might otherwise be sensed only out of the corner of the eye. What is captured in the frame draws us nearer, asks us to pause. While grounded in the ordinary, they leave the viewer with questions about time and place and the seemingly familiar. West’s drawings feature the townscape of Gloucester as seen by a non-native. They are visual handshakes from a Southern alien coming to terms with a new place for the first time. The quiet empty spaces offer little peace; the architectures crowd each other and jostle for attention as they attempt to stay upright.
Both bodies of work are rooted in the act of stopping and looking, the life blood of the artist. Slowing down. Being present in the moment long enough to pay attention and to record. Whether the action is contained in the fraction of a shutter click, or the longer process of drawing, each is a response to the quiet call of objects and moments at hand. The phrase — neither mustard nor teeth — is from the essay, Of Power and Time, by the Massachusetts poet Mary Oliver. Oliver tells of the tensions between the necessity of living in the world with its demands of time and task and energy, all the while striving to see the inherent beauty of it all, to make sense of it through the creative process:
It is six a.m., and I am working. I am absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth.
Peter Morse lives in Amesbury, and David West is resident here in Gloucester. Both artists are in need of going to the grocery as well as the dentist.
Peter Morse holds a BA Summa Cum Laude from Gordon College and an MFA in Photography from the University of Hartford, CT. Residencies include Berlin, Germany, New York, NY and Portland OR. He teaches at Gordon College where he is also Manager of the Barrington Center for the Arts and the Gallery. He has exhibited in the US, Germany and Cuba. Morse maintains a studio in Amesbury MA.
David West is originally from Mississippi. He holds an MFA from Louisiana State University with a concentration in printmaking. He is Associate Professor of art at Gordon College, Wenham MA where he is Chair of the Art Department. West is also Co-Founder/Curator of ArtSpace 86 Gallery in Jackson MS. He has exhibited widely in the US. West is now living in Gloucester MA
photo caption: Whalen-Waller Hazmat-Man, 24×24, oil & collage, work included in Experimental Group 9th annual show at ROCKPORT ART ASSOC & MUSEUM
Donna Caselden www.donnacaselden.com shares the press release:
What: Unexpected No. 9 Exhibit
Where: Rockport Art Association & Museum, 12 Main Street, Rockport, MA
When: Sept. 29-October 13, 2018, Reception Sunday Sept 30, 2-4pm
Info: www.experimentalartgroup.com
Rockport Art Association & Museum’s Experimental Group Opens Ninth Show
The Rockport Art Association & Museum’s Experimental Group opens its ninth group exhibition, “Unexpected No. Nine” at Rockport Art Association & Museum, 12 Main Street, Rockport, MA, 978.546.6604. This juried show features artworks of both the RAA&M’s artists and contributing members. Works on view in the exhibition range in medium to include paintings, mixed-media, graphics, sculpture, digital art and photography. The exhibition runs from September 29 through October 13, with an Artist Reception on Sunday, September 30 from 2-4 pm. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 1-5 pm or by appointment. Closed Monday.
The Experimental Group is a creative forum, its main mission is to increase public awareness and to foster self-expression by bringing artists together to explore and share ideas that cultivate creative freedom. The EG is encouraged and supported by the Rockport Art Association & Museum.
If you would like more information about the exhibition, would like to schedule an interview and a walk through, or need additional promotional images please contact: Nella Lush, Experimental Group, Chair, 978.886.4582 or via email experimentalgroupraa@gmail.com
The Rockport Art Association & Museum (RAA&M) is one of the oldest and most active art organizations in the country. The Association has a long and distinguished history that has spanned 96 years.
Great news from multitalented creative Ken Riaf:
“The premiere of My Station in Life a new play I wrote about Simon Geller, America’s last one-man radio broadcaster. Geller, the radio recluse who brought classical music to a hardscrabble fishing port, fights for survival against powerful forces that want what little he has. Actor Ken Baltin and supporting cast bring Geller’s quirky persona and corkscrew saga to the stage from October 12th through October 28th. ”
FREE Trails & Sails events throughout Gloucester, Cape Ann and all of Essex County during two upcoming weekends September 21-23 & 28-30, 2018!
Ocean Views Walk from Ravenswood to Rafe’s Chasm Hosted by Cape Ann Trail Stewards
Sustainable Foraging: Wild Food and Medicine by the Sea Hosted by Gloucester’s Magnolia Library & Community Center & Iris Weaver
Step on FISH NET: Gloucester’s Award-winning 300ft Street Art temporary HarborWalk mural Hosted by city of Gloucester
IPSWICH Come Paint with Me Decorative Painting Demonstration, Hosted by Johanne Cassia, American Folk Artist, AnnTiques’ owner. Co-founder of the Woman Owned Businesses Along the Essex Coastal Scenic Byway trail map celebrating street level, local women retailers from Gloucester, Essex, Ipswich and Rowley who share a regional ‘Main Street’ – Route 133/1A, part of the gorgeous 90 mile Essex Coastal Scenic Byway
ANDOVER: Addison Gallery of American Art Gallery Talk: Paul Manship and His Artistic Legacy Manship Artists Residency + Studios (MARS) President Rebecca Reynolds and Addison Gallery Associate Director and Robert M. Walker Curator of Art before 1950, Emerita Susan Faxon will discuss the significant work of Paul Manship, his influential presence in Gloucester, and his connection to the Addison.
Wall facing entrance numbers 1-16
and continued with numbers 17-22
Wall on the right as one enters- numbers 23 – 42
same wall photographed groups of 4
Walls to the left upon entering: 43 – 54 and 55 – 63
Organized by the Friends of the Library committee including Mary Weissblum Smith and the Art Advisory Committee, the (21st) Annual Art Auction on October 3, 2018, will feature 63 participating artists:
Jerry Ackerman, Deborah Aldrich, Melissa Aliberte, Nancy Alimansky, Anita Beloff, Coco Berkman, Linda Lea Bertrand, Sheila Farren Billings, Carol A. Bistrong, Lois Showalter Blankenship, Roy Blankenship, Isabel Brown, Katherine Coakley, Ray Crane, Mary L Crowningshield, David Curtis, Susan W. Daly, Michael DeCosimo, Patricia Doran, Cynthia Dunaway, Phyllis Feld, Susie Field, James Formichella, Grace Frost, N. Hale, Marion Hall, Joy Halsted, Jeanne Havran, Olga Hayes, Sandra Herdman, Deanie Johnson, Pia Juhl, Phyllis J. Kaplan, Susan Kelley, Fred L. Kepler, Barbara Kremer, Mary Jane Lane, Margaret Laurie, Carol Loiacono, Lauren Maher, Mary McCarl, Patricia McCarthy, Roy McCauley, Perry McIntosh, Danny Mears, David Millar, Kate Nordstrom, Christine Pitman, Mary Rhinelander, Richard Roche, Jess Semerano, Emily Strangman, Peter Tysver, Juni Van Dyke, James Watson, Lea Watson, Jeff Weaver, Alyce Wherren, Curtis Wilcox, Jane Wolf, Heidi Caswell Zander, Ann Mechen Ziergiebel
Checklist Numbers 1 to 63: Continue reading “Preview now! LIVE art auction October 3, 2018: local artists annual fundraiser for Gloucester Lyceum & Sawyer Free Public Library”
reminder from Jill Cahill, Gloucester’s Community Development Director:
Harbormaster Building Committee public listening session will be held on
Here is the link to the Harbormaster Building Committee Public Listening Session meeting posting – http://gloucester-ma.gov/Calendar.aspx?EID=6957&month=9&year=2018&day=17&calType=0
And here is the link to the 2017 Harbormaster and Visiting Boater Center feasibility study that helped set the stage for this project – http://gloucester-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4590
August 4, 1909, Gloucester Day brought an audience of 20,000 to Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The 1909 pageant of “The Canterbury Pilgrims” by Percy Wallace Mackaye was touted as the “greatest open air performance ever attempted in the country”.
“Stage Fort Park was the magnet which attracted thousands of people at the close of the grand afternoon parade yesterday, the procession in that direction, commencing early and continuing all through the evening, until between the hours of 7 and 8 o’clock, there was a continuous mass of moving color along both sides of the boulevard, with the middle of the street almost covered with the swifter moving carriages and automobiles. This scene was most inspiring, giving one something upon which to build an imagination for the greater display to come, when the play and pageant were presented for their consideration. The vast amphitheatre, with its great stage, were soon filled, the latter by nearly 20,000 spectators, in the boxes, on the seats and in automobiles, while the wings of the latter were filled with (thousands of) players.”
William H Taft (1857 – 1930), the 27th President of the United States from 1909-13, planned to be in attendance, thanks to host, John Hays Hammond, Sr., his boyhood friend and college classmate at Yale. The Mayor of Gloucester at the time of the 1909 pageant was Hon. Henry H. Parsons. Artist Eric Pape (b.Oct 17, 1870 San Francisco – d.Novembre 7, 1938), Master of the Pageant, directed the Canterbury performance. He was the lead design for Gloucester’s enormous bronze plaque and granite bas-relief commemorating the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony set in tablet rock at Stage Fort Park and dedicated in 1907.
Few days left to bid! Link to more photos of the collectible and sale found here: sale on capeanntiques, ebay seller
July 30, 1909 Gloucester Day Badge – Unique Design to Commemorate Event
“The Gloucester Day badges have arrived and are certainly worthy of the occasion. The special gold badge to be presented to the president is fo the same design as the others. It consists of a bar, backed by anchor stock, with the cables running along each side, and in the center a miniature of President Taft, flanked by the dates 1623-1909. Suspended from this bar by two chains is the embossed shield, the central figure of which is a Georges handline fisherman, riding at anchor under bare poles. On either side, clinging griffin-like to the inner circle dividing th ose parts is the inscription, “Gloucester, mass. Settled 1623. Incorporated, 1642” and beneath this is a representation of the Roger Conant house, with the word “built” on one side and the date “1623” on the other, and the inscription, “Roger Conant House,” beneath.”
“May be worn as badges or watch fobs…Design selected after keen competition.” They were pre sold for 50 cents.
Last chance to see Boustrophedons (“…every other line is flipped, or reversed or mirrored”) group show at Flatrocks Gallery. Exhibition features 8 artists: Joan Benotti, Paul Cary Goldberg, Ann McArdle, Valerie Weigand McCaffrey, Nick Neyeloff, Conny Goetz Schmitt, Linda Lagano Sojda, and Juni VanDyke. The closing Reception and special event is Sunday September 16, 2-4pm
(installation views – the natural light and architecture were in sync today with the show’s theme.)
Fall art walks
September, Newburyport, MA: For the third year, Sinikka Nogelo’s art is featured in the Maudslay State Park annual outdoor sculpture exhibition . Reception and walk through with the artists tomorrow, 2-5pm.
Thru Oct 7, Harvard, MA: Liz Fletcher’s sculpture was selected for the 2018 annual Around the Pond and Through the Woods Outdoor Sculpture at Old Frog Pond Farm, Harvard, Massachusetts. The show closes October 7th. If you time it right you can also attend the annual Plein Air Poetry walk September 16, 2-4pm. I’d love to see a Cape Ann Plein Air Sculpture and Poetry walk, perhaps through Dogtown, TS Eliot, beach, and Cape Ann Museum properties.
Thru Nov 4, Pingree School, S. Hamilton, MA: Look for works by Liz Fletcher, Michael Updike and Bart Stuyf in the ninth annual Flying Horse Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition at Pingree which opened September 1 and continues through November 4, 2018.
3rd Annual Phyllis A Marine Association Art Show and Sale 
Good Morning Gloucester 