Author: James Eves

Gallery 53 on Rocky Neck, 53 Rocky Neck Ave, Gloucester MA 01930

Opening Reception: SAT, May 23, 6 to 8pm • Gallery hours: 10am to 6pm daily

Gallery 53 on Rocky Neck (formerly Rocky Neck Gallery) at 53 Rocky Neck Ave., Gloucester, MA, opens officially for the season on Friday, May 22.  In addition to 28 Rocky Neck Art Colony (RNAC) artists, former Goetemann Artist Resident, Ekua Holmes has been invited to exhibit her extraordinary, vibrant collages at Gallery 53 as part of RNAC’s Summer Artist series. The public is invited to meet Ekua and gallery artists at the Opening Reception on Saturday, May 23, from 6-8 pm.

Ekua Holmes is a Boston-based artist, who creates colorful collages that reflect African American life. She uses news clippings, photographs, vibrant color and composition to infuse her work with energy; her layered, abstract creations convey a sense of unity and evoke memories that are both personal and universal. Holmes was chosen as a Goetemann Artist Resident in 2010 and the gallery welcomes her back to Cape Ann for a three-week show, from May 20 until June 9.

Five new artists have joined the gallery this year: jeweler Trish Conant, silkscreen artist Jane Keddy, wood turner James Lemieux,  watercolor/mixed media artist Martha Swanson and Stephanie Mason who makes fish prints using Gyotaku, an ancient Japanese printing technique. These artists join 23 returning RNAC members, Katherine Bagley, Judith Bly, Cynthia Curtis, Susan W. Daly, Marci Davis, Phyllis Feld, Joyce Frederick, Elizabeth Gauthier, Deborah Geurtze, Dina Gomery, Susan Hershey, Frederick Jillson, Mary R. McCarl, Skip Montello, Michael Oleksiw, David Piemonte, Mary Rhinelander, Judy Robinson-Cox, Tom Robinson-Cox, Kate Somers, Pam Stratton, Deborah Way, and

Ruth Worrall.

Gallery 53 on Rocky Neck is a juried co-operative gallery located in a historic 19th century building, which features an original and distinctive collection of fine arts by Rocky Neck Art Colony members. Previously known as the Rocky Neck Gallery, the collective hosts opening and end of season receptions and showcases work by invited New England artists in seven Summer Artist Series shows throughout the season. Gallery 53 is open daily from 10 am to 6 pm from May 22 until October 13.  See rockyneckartcolony.org for a full schedule of gallery events.

The Rocky Neck Art Colony, a 501(C)3 non-profit organization, nurtures excellence in the arts through exhibitions, workshops, residencies and vibrant cultural events for its members and the public. Long renowned for its luminous light, this harbor and coastal location has been a magnet for some of the most revered realist painters in American art and a catalyst for the progressive ideas of artists Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Milton Avery, and Nell Blaine, among many others. Today Rocky Neck continues to attract artists and art lovers to a thriving creative community. For up-to-date information, visits www.rockyneckartcolony.org

On Saturday, Anna and I delivered some prints to Shore Thing, a gift shop on Bearskin Neck. Owners, Jennifer Clark and Becky Ingersoll are fun to work with and their shop is beautiful. We decided to stay for the Motif 1 Day festivities. In spite of it being a cloudy day, threatening to drizzle, downtown Rockport was packed.

We stopped by The Art Nook, David Arsenault’s gallery, Floating Lotus, G19 Artisans, The Fish Shack, and i art colony. We could hear Glass Onion playing in the tent on Dock Square almost everywhere we went. I loved the Side Walk Chalk Art on School Street.  I’m so glad that so many folks came out to celebrate Motif 1.

Here are some snaps I took with my phone…

Mayor hosting cultural town meeting

TONIGHT, Thursday May 14, 7:00-9:00

Seeking community input for Public Art Policy

City Hall Kyrouz auditorium 9 Dale Avenue

Office of Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken
(978)281-9700 http://gloucester-ma.gov/

Sunday, May 17, 2015 ~ 2:00 until 3:00

On the green in front of the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church located at the corner of Church and Green Streets in Gloucester, MA.

After the long, cold winter, it is time to get outside and celebrate the spring!

Rose Sheehan of Folk Life Studio will present the Second Annual Gloucester May Celebration – complete with live music, a maypole and morris dancers – on Sunday, May 17 at 2:00 PM.

This family-friendly, participatory event will run for about one hour or so and will feature group singing from song sheets as well as instruction for simple dances including Maypole dances.

Attendees are encouraged to wear festive clothing and flowers.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1564563153796378/

From the calendar section of Art New England May/June issue…

Art: motif 2015
OPENS Saturday, May 16
iartcolony launches motif 2015 – 15 artists from around the country will present their visions of Motif #1 in the form of conceptual paintings, sculpture, photography, video and performance art installations – honoring Rockport’s iconic red fish shack, the most painted and photographed building in America. motif 2015 marks the 65th anniversary of the celebrated Motif #1 Day, when the town of Rockport comes alive with activities involving dance, poetry, film, music and more. This art exhibition produced by iartcolony’s co-founders, Bob Armstrong and Jill Whitney Armstrong – opens on Saturday, May 16 at 10 AM.

iartcolony
42 Broadway, Rockport, MA
iartcolony.com
rockportartfestivals.com

If I wasn’t knee deep in running Cape Ann Giclée I would at least make a play for this. How often do we get a chance at having a successful business and 20 grand just handed to us?

Click here for details.

GLOUCESTER, Mass. (May 8, 2015) – The Cape Ann Museum will hold its Annual Meeting on Tuesday, May 19 at 7:00 p.m. The meeting is free and open to the public.

Staff reports and Board elections will be followed by Fitz Henry Lane Revealed, a brief discussion of new research based on infrared photography presented by Board member and FHL Online Project Manager, Sam Holdsworth. Refreshments will follow.

An opportunity to learn the fine art of flower arrangement by Celia of Celia’s Flower Studio: Thursday, May 21st from 6:30 to 8:30pm. Admission $35 for instruction and your own beautiful creation. Limited 15 spots, please rsvp to Cynthia by Monday, May 18th. (978)353-9111

77 Langsford St. Gloucester MA • 978-879-4683 • www.flatrocksgallery.com
Open Thurs. through Sunday 12-5pm or by appointment

Discover Gloucester through its architecture and artists

The Cape Ann Museum will be offering a series of walking tours – Hopper’s Houses, Historic Middle Street and Fitz Henry Lane’s Gloucester – on Saturday mornings at 10:00 a.m. beginning on May 2. Tours are held rain or shine and last about 1½ hours; participants should be comfortable being on their feet for that amount of time. $10 members; $20 nonmembers (includes Museum admission). Space is limited; reservations required. Call (978) 283-0455 x10 or email info@capeannmuseum.org for details.

Hopper’s Houses

May 2, May 23 and June 13
American realist painter Edward Hopper first visited Cape Ann in 1912. Returning in 1923, Hopper began working in watercolor, capturing the local landscape and architecture in loosely rendered, light filled paintings. During his final two visits to the area, in 1926 and 1928, Hopper produced some of his finest paintings. This special walking tour will explore the neighborhood surrounding the Cape Ann Museum, which includes many of the Gloucester houses immortalized by Hopper’s paintings.

Historic Middle Street

May 9, May 30 and June 20
Discover Gloucester’s historic Middle Street—an ever-evolving neighborhood packed with four centuries of social, economic, and architectural history. On this tour in the heart of downtown Gloucester, visitors will see surviving evidence of the past and learn about structures and people now gone.

Fitz Henry Lane’s Gloucester

May 16, June 6 and June 27
Fitz Henry Lane was a Cape Ann artist, printmaker and world-renowned American marine painter. With his subtle use of gleaming light, Lane is generally regarded as one of the finest 19th century practitioners of a style known as luminism. This tour takes visitors on a walk through downtown Gloucester to learn about sites that were part of Lane’s life as well as to look at some of the views Lane painted.

The Cape Ann Museum tells multiple stories, all relating to Cape Ann. Founded in 1873, the Museum’s collections represent the history of Cape Ann, its people, its industries, its art and culture. For a detailed media fact sheet please visit www.capeannmuseum.org/press.

The Museum is located at 27 Pleasant Street in Gloucester. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is $10.00 adults, $8.00 Cape Ann residents, seniors and students. Youth (under 18) and Museum members are free. For more information please call: (978)283-0455 x10. Additional information can be found online at www.capeannmuseum.org.

May 28-June 28, 2015

The Cultural Center at Rocky Neck

6 Wonson Street, Gloucester, MA 01930

Gallery hours, Thurs-Sun, 12:00-4:00 PM, until 6PM in June

Meet the Artist Reception Thursday, May 28, 6:30-8:00 PM

Talkback with Nubar Alexanian Sunday, June 14, 4:5:30 PM

Gloucester MA, February 26, 2015 —The Rocky Neck Art Colony (RNAC) is pleased to announce the exhibition: When The Fish Came First, Nubar Alexanian’s photographs of Gloucester, opening May 28 and running through June 28, 2015 at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck, 6 Wonson Street, Gloucester. Spanning forty years, the exhibit features a stunning series of color photographs originally published in GEO magazine in 1981 and never before exhibited.  For this work, taken over an eighteen month period, Alexanian accompanied the Brancaleone family of Gloucester on four ten-day trips to Georges Bank aboard the Joseph & Lucia II. It is the most comprehensive contemporary document of commercial fishing in New England before its steep decline.

While the Joseph and Lucia series forms the heart of this collection, the exhibition’s upland component features large format black and white panoramas juxtaposed with images of everyday life and the intimate and collective rituals that give Gloucester its unique character.  “In his fish photos Alexanian finds a metaphor of the people of Gloucester – endangered, atavistic, communal – and they’re as riveting as they are forlorn.” Christopher Millis, The Boston Phoenix

When The Fish Came First is a watershed one-person exhibition that should not be missed.

This exhibition was made possible by the generosity and support of Linzee and Beth Coolidge.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Nubar Alexanian is a documentary photographer and filmmaker. His photographs have been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Life, Fortune, Geo, Time and Newsweek among others, and has had solo exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Burden Gallery, The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, The LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph and other venues.

He is currently working on Scars of Silence, a feature documentary film about the Armenian Genocide, and directing Science All Around Us, a groundbreaking educational television series hosted by an exceptional 9-year-old boy who makes connections between scientific concepts and life in the everyday world.

Manchester Historical Museum  Lecture

“ One Hundred Years of the Manchester Bath & Tennis Club
and the history of Magnolia’s Summer Colony”

 David Fay will present a program on the formation and early years of the beach club that was originally known as the North Shore Swimming Pool and eventually became the Bath & Tennis. The presentation will also include the history of how Magnolia rose from a quiet fishing village to being known as “Little Newport”.

 TUESDAY, MAY 12 at the Sacred Heart Parish Hall 6:30pm Refreshments, 7pm Program

Members free, nonmembers $10
Please RSVP by Friday, May 8
Phone: 978-526-7230 or email info@manchesterhistoricalmuseum.org

Needlework Family Program for ages 3 and up

Saturday, May 9 (10am) I n the MHM Hall
$5 per child – Please RSVP by May 8
Phone: 978-526-7230 or email info@manchesterhistoricalmuseum.org

Lexicon Gallery Presents ArtLifting

Please join us for a very special and inspiring event in the Magnolia area of Gloucester, MA. Lexicon Gallery will be joining with ArtLifting in a show and sale of powerful artwork by talented homeless and disabled artists.

Opening and Artist Talk with Scott Benner: Friday May 8, 6-8pm. Show continues through June 21. Lexicon Gallery is located at 15 Lexington Ave., #1, Gloucester, MA. Gallery hours are fri-sun, 12-6pm.

Contact Seyrel Williams, gallery owner, for more info. seyrelwilliams@gmail.com To watch a short video interview with Seyrel about this event click here- https://www.bridgecapeann.com/profile/video.php?id=41&video_id=1411

Flatrocks Gallery’s May7-June 7 show,  ‘Blooming’– features paintings by Claudia Kaufman, Rokhaya Waring, Patricia Crotty and Laurel Hughes, photographs by Paul Cary Goldberg, stainless steel sculpture by Gints Grinsbergs. This survey will lead the viewer on a journey from photo realism, to abstract art. Using flowers as the subject, they take on new identities as characters in a metaphorical journey.

Claudia Kaufman’s is a contemporary realist painter, her works are studies in observation – still life set-ups of familiar objects that are deceptively simple, yet complex. She challenges herself to translate the perceived three-dimensional world to a 2D field by observing and capturing the conditions of light, form, color and space through the painterly properties of oil paint.

Rokhaya Waring paints in the spirit of Impressionism and Plein Air painting, with its constant change in light, color and mood, are a natural extension of her sensibilities and lend vibrancy to her work. She conveys through her paintings a feeling of being there, the power of nature- a transient beauty that is often bittersweet.  

Patricia Crotty’s paintings explore the territory between abstraction and realism with bold gestural brushwork and a sureness of line and color.  When her subject is flowers, she “tries to capture their fleeting beauty and catch a glimpse of the eternal in their brief life, to see the universal in their particular forms.”

Laurel Hughes is an abstract painter, drawing on quiet moments in nature, her paintings grow out of thoughtful observation, sensations and split second glimpses.  She is perpetually drawn to ideas and practices that help ‘re-seed our earth.’ —planting seeds of compassion, joy, and gratitude so that we touch the earth and stir her wonder.

Paul Cary Goldberg has established a reputation photographing our local industry and culture with a keen eye that transcends documentation, with painterly results. Last year he returned to his studio and the still life. His images are layered with rich texture, color and symbol – contemporary versions of still-life painting of the 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of change as a reminder of its inevitability. 

Gints Grinsbergs’ creates welded stainless steel over sized flowers that maintain their delicate grace. The sculptures indoors or out combine modern metal structure with rough, natural stone making these works unique sculptural forms.

There will be a reception for the artists May 16th from 6-8pm. ‘Blooming’ runs through June 7th.  Flatrocks Gallery is open Thursday – Sunday 12-5pm. 77 Langsford St. , Gloucester. (978)879-4683. www.flatrocksgallery.com or visit us on facebook.

It’s time to think SUMMER!!!

Take advantage of the Best Deal on the Harbor.

“Water Shuttle Seasonal Passes” are now available.

Only $50 before June 30th.

email us at harbortours@gmail.com

http://www.capeannharbortours.com/shuttle.html

Join us for

Passports Restaurant’s Community Dinner Nights!
Tonight We Support Cape Ann Special Olympics 

4 – 9 pm • 3 Course Dinner • $15.00
10% of proceeds goes to Cape Ann Special Olympics
Reservations Requested

Celebrating 20 years in business we are giving back to the community every Tuesday night.
Full menu also available.

If you would like to inquire about support for your organization, please email us at
passportsrestaurant@gmail.com. We look forward to working with you!

Passports Restaurant
110 Main Street Gloucester, MA 01930
Please call for Reservations: 978.281.3680

TUESDAY, MAY12

at the Sacred Heart Parish Hall

6:30pm Refreshments, 7pm Program

David Fay will present a program on the formation and early years of the beach club that was originally known as the North Shore Swimming Pool and eventually became the Bath & Tennis. The presentation will also include the history of how Magnolia rose from a quiet fishing village to being known as “Little Newport”.

Members free, nonmembers $10

Please RSVP by Friday, May 8

Phone: 978-526-7230 or email info@manchesterhistoricalmuseum.org

Also on Saturday, May 9 (10am)

In the MHM Hall

Needlework Family Program for ages 3 and up

$5 per child – Please RSVP by May 8

Three Exhibits Open Season

May 7 running through Saturday, May 30, 2015,

Sunday, May 17th, 2 – 4 pm: Receptions for all three exhibitions

A1) BOB BLUE RETROSPECTIVE, The Works of Bob Blue, “Gloucester & Beyond”, in the Gordon Grant Room. Bob Blue (deceased 2008), an honoree of the NSAA’s Tribute Exhibition in 2003, has been a major contributor to the growth and spirit of the NSAA as a Vice President, an award winning marine and landscape painter, a beloved teacher, and lifelong artist member.

2) FIRST NON-JURIED MEMBERS EXHIBITION OF THE 2015 SEASON. Well known and notable NSAA artist members will exhibit over 100 exciting works including watercolors, works on paper, oil on canvas and sculpture.

3) MARY CALLAHAN & ANN MURPHY SHOW in the HALLWAY GALLERY. Mary Callahan’s free, impressionist watercolors have earned over 150 awards, and her paintings are in permanent and private collections throughout the US and Europe. Callahan is a director of the New England Watercolor Society, a Copley Master in the Copley Society of Art, and member of many fine arts organizations with solo exhibitions at the Harvard Club, the Guild of Boston Artists, Provincetown and Attleboro Museums, and is represented in the DeCordova Museum’s corporate program.

Ann Murphy, a New Englander, paints in pastel, oil and watercolor with subjects ranging from representational land and seascapes, to semi-abstracts of shorebirds and sea life. Her work is known for its distinctively sensitive and ethereal quality.

• A juried exhibition of New England Artists that explores the possibilities and pushes the limits of the use of paper in works of art.
• At the RNAC Cultural Center Gallery, 6 Wonson Street, Gloucester MA
• July 2-26, 2015
• Juror: Katherine French, Director Emerita at Danforth Art, Framingham, MA.
• Entries open: April 24.
• Deadline: Midnight, Monday, June 15, 2015

Gloucester MA, April 23, 2015 — The Rocky Neck Art Colony (RNAC) invites New England artists to submit work for the “Printed, Painted, Folded or Torn” a month-long juried exhibition at the Cultural Center Gallery at Rocky Neck, 6 Wonson Street, Gloucester, MA 01930. RNAC seeks work that explores the possibilities and pushes the limits of the use of paper in works of art. All media will be considered provided the use of paper is a primary component.

The juror for this exhibition is Katherine French, former Executive Director at Danforth Art in Framingham, MA, became Director Emerita upon her recent retirement from that institution. Acclaimed for exhibitions exploring historical and contemporary expressionism, French was recipient of an award for curatorial excellence from the New England chapter of the International Association of Art Critics. She was also named Best Curator of Locally Made Art at the Boston Art Awards and subject of profiles in Art New England and the Boston Globe.

For more information and a prospectus go to:
http://rockyneckartcolony.org/newsletter/painted-torn.html