My View of Life on the Dock
Blackwood March Auction – Fine arts and antiques
Saturday May 20th at 11AM
“Artworks from the estate of noted Rockport art dealer and collector Donna Dussault, and antiques from the estate of historian Prudence Fish.”
Sale price plus 20% buyers premium (or 25% buyers premium on line)
Register ahead to bid live on line at Invaluable here
Jeff Weaver is an American artist who began painting the beauty and the built environment in Gloucester five decades ago and it’s remained his lifelong interest.
“This Unique Place: Painting and Drawing by Jeff Weaver”, will be on view at Cape Ann Museum from March 18, 2023 – June 4, 2023. What a welcome chance to survey Weaver’s deft, wry and luminous line and structure. What selection was decided upon by the curators and artist? Save the date to see! The first substantial catalogue of this contemporary American painter will accompany this landmark exhibit.
Weaver’s studio gallery is located on 16 Rogers Street and is open to the public on Saturdays. www.jeffweaverfineart.com
painting: Jeff Weaver, Tally’s Corner, 2003. | street scenes: Looking across to the studio from the sidewalk in front of Minglewood and Oak to Ember, St. Peter’s club is on the left and the Be Sargent Judith Murray mural in on the right.
The Friends of the Sawyer Free Library Annual Art Auction 2021 is on! 54 artists donated original works of art to help the library.
To generate excitement and get the ball moving, a hallmark of the annual art auction is the group show featured in the lovely Matz Gallery, a remarkable main entrance venue. Temporary shows of work by living artists are rotated monthly. In Gloucester, Massachusetts, art at the threshold greets all library visitors. What a treat to walk though an art exhibit to enter a library! The library interior has boasted major bequests via philanthropists and local big wheels since the library’s namesake benefactor, Samuel Sawyer. Books, art, library and learning were essential and inseparable to the founders.
The contemporary Annual Art Auction group shows begin as silent auctions with starting bids set low (well below retail for some of the participating artists*) ahead of a LIVE event. The idea is the bidding will rise above opening reserves so that The Friends of the Sawyer Free Library Annual Art Auction fundraiser can be a success.
*scroll down for checklist and to view the lots
DEADLINES APPROACHING – There’s still time to visit, enjoy, and leave a silent bid in person
During the month of September 2021, beautiful art works by 54 artists–which they’ve so generously donated to the Art Auction–were installed in the singular Matz Gallery. Casual, emerging and established creatives are united in their support of our local library. View the art in person. Take notes. You may recognize artists, neighborhoods, a favorite motif or medium. These auctions are a great opportunity for a first time original art buyer or for a collector that helps an artist with a first time sale.
Leave a bid and/or try again when the auction moves on line October 1-5. The highest September bid will be the beginning reserve for the online auction October 1 – 5, 2021.
Signs of the times – Covid 19 precautions and greater access have spurred the LIVE auction to move online. Visit www.sawyerfreelibrary.org October 1-5, 2021
Bonus- The art is framed and ready to take home and hang after the online auction concludes.
Support our local artists and Friends of the Sawyer Free Library
Lot #, Artist Name, Title, Minimum opening bid
NOTE NEW DAYS/HOURS at Sawyer Free Library: M-W 8-6; Th 10-7; F-S 10-5
Face masks required.
Calling all Gloucester, Cape Ann, North Shore and New England area artists! One monumental exterior wall and two interior sites are available for commission submission in downtown Gloucester on the new apartment building, Harbor Village. The exterior mural $5500 (fee & materials. Lift will be supplied.) Two mural opportunities (10 x 10; 10 x 15) inside are $2000 each (fee & materials).
“North Shore Community Development Coalition (NSCDC) and Action Inc. have partnered together to bring new art into downtown Gloucester through the Punto Urban Art Museum (PUAM)…The goal for this call is to provide opportunities for local/regional artists to bring life and color into downtown of Gloucester. Selected Artists/teams will be a part of efforts in celebrating the 400th anniversary of Gloucester!”
Submission Deadline Sunday May 2, 2021- midnight; project completion target end of summer 2021.
Harbor Village: a new mixed income apartment building developed by Action Inc. and North Shore Community Development Coalition on 206 Main Street at Elm (formerly Cameron’s) now under construction.
Harbor Village website HERE.
Not here
Exterior mural could be visible from the next blocks: oblique angle view back to mural wall on Elm Street from Pleasant Street (between Cape Ann Museum and Jane Deering Gallery)
and strip at top visible from Chestnut
Action, Inc. continues a tradition of supporting the arts with these new commissions. The organization has a history of collaboration with community arts partners, commissioning original public art for its buildings, and preserving any historic assets (buildings and art).
Here is a selection of some of the exterior public art murals in Gloucester. Depending upon your device, double click or pinch and zoom to enlarge and/or right click to see the credit details. On mine there is an option to select “view full size”. Indoor murals include masterworks from Gloucester’s public art collection (for example see its major WPA-era New Deal murals).
Artist experience runs the gamut: outsider and novice artists; community collaborations (with established artists helping youth); and solo endeavors (from trained professionals whether emerging or midcareer, established and revered).
Nowadays Supreme Roast Beef
1930s | 2012 | 2021
photo credit: Catherine Ryan
Potential walls in Gloucester abound. At the back of Cape Ann Museum on Elm Street across from the new Harbor Village. One day O’Maley (see prior post here)
Jeff Weaver, Cape Ann’s preeminent painter, gets his morning joe from Castaways
Although Jeff’s gallery is temporarily not open due to coronavirus, you can contact him via his website: Jeff Weaver Gallery
About Jeff Weaver
Jeff Weaver was born in 1953 in Framingham, Massachusetts. He began drawing and painting at an early age, accepting portrait commissions by age fourteen. In his high school years, he won awards in drawing & sculpture in the Boston Globe state-wide art competitions. During this time his teacher was Eleanor Marvin, accomplished sculptor and graphic artist, who nourished his draftsmanship skills. After graduating from high school, he entered the Boston Museum School. In 1972 he took up residence in Gloucester, sketching and painting the waterfront on an almost daily basis.
In his early years in the city, he supported himself at various waterfront jobs, as well as from commissions for boat portraits from fishing vessel captains, and for murals in commercial establishments and private homes. This eventually led to many years of commercial work, including over 30 murals painted in different parts of the city.
Returning to fine art pursuits in the 1990s, Jeff again focused on depicting Gloucester and its environs in various media. He currently operates a studio/gallery at 16 Rogers Street on the Gloucester waterfront.
Pier 23 Kitchen on 23 East Main Street closed. The restaurant is for sale: contact (978) 887-9895. Pier 23 owners and AJ’s contributed major upgrades and renovations at this busy spot. (Mooters, LaRosas, and Cacciatores preceded AJ’s at the Harbor.)
The new sign for Oliver’s Harbor Restaurant and Bar features tiles at each end and heralds a change in ownership at 64 Main Street. The Bragas sold Trio which they had reconfigured after opening Italiano Restaurant in the former La Trattoria space and completing a major renovation and build out replete with a new industrial kitchen. Last year they added additional outdoor seating.
64 Main Street on Gloucester’s West End as Italiano 2017 and Trio 2018:
Reception Wednesday, November 13, 5-7 pm
Over 20 of Jeff’s paintings will be exhibited
at the Walter J. Manninen Center for the Arts, at Endicott College
The show begins November 5, 2019, and runs through March 2, 2020.
Walter J. Manninen Center for the Arts
Heftler Visiting Artist Gallery
Endicott College
376 Hale Street
Beverly, MA .
For more information please call: (978) 590-2979.
The Cape Ann Art Exhibit portrays extraordinary talent and diversity in both media and vision. Each Artist has displayed a life of dedication to community, preserving, promoting and representing the Value of ART to our lives. This show is happening because of Karen Tibbetts. Featured artists of today and in tribute include
Barb Duggan
Gordon Goetemann*
Judith Goetemann*
John Nesta* (who we will be honoring)
*for more information about these artists See Rocky Neck and Cape Ann Museum
Information labels were applied to City Hall walls with an epoxy that is ill advised near art. In early spring a label for this Ken Gore painting migrated to its surface and pulled away a small patch of paint. Elizabeth Mehlin, an expert painting restorer in Ipswich, Massachusetts, repaired the accidental damage. She was able to tease out pulverized pieces of the paint stuck to remnant epoxy and match the loss so beautifully the fix is indiscernible. The painting is large and heavy. I suspect that its original custom frame was likely carved by multi media artist and Montserrat teacher, Alfred Czerepak (1928 – 1986). Gloucester’s Department of Public Works are such great stewards of the city’s art and history!
KENNETH (KEN) GORE
(American, b.Oct 2 1911 Elvira, Illinois -1990 d. Gloucester)
Ken Gore visited Gloucester for the first time in 1948 and settled into a home and studio within a year. Eventually he purchased 186 East Main Street where he resided and maintained a studio and gallery. (Today it’s Lynzariums, aka the Plant Shack, across from Beacon Marine Basin in East Gloucester.) Gore was a student and art professor at the Detroit Meisinger Art School. He served as president of both Rockport and North Shore Art Associations and for the Cape Ann Festival of the Arts. He performed regularly with the Cape Ann Symphony. He taught regularly. Apparently his personality was as joyous and musical as his painting: his art students and friends considered him “one of the nicest mans they’d ever met.” I’ve heard that his plein air road trips and truck “studio” were quite a sight. I would love to see a picture of him on location by his truck. I do love seeing Jeff Weaver and his signature truck around town.
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”
The O’Maley Innovation Middle School campus setting is rather bucolic. There’s a line of apple trees that still bear fruit and suggest the original farm, playing fields are stepped down surrounded by marsh and pond, Dogtown stretches along one edge, and Pole Hill rises up across the way. Community volunteers and students have created lovely decorative gardens. Yes, the track needs work and the playing field could be upgraded to turf like Gloucester High School’s New Balance field at Newell Stadium. But it’s a beautiful spot to walk or catch a game. Ed Tedesco designed O’Maley in 1971. Although I believe the architect was quite sensitive to the setting, I understand how people criticize the exterior as harsh, or worse. “It feels like a prison!” exclaim some (and others joke. It is a middle school afterall.) You know what I see on the exterior when I come to O’Maley? Beautiful walls. Interesting shapes. Expansive public space ready for art and ideas.
O’Maley walls, photos from 2015
You can’t judge a book by its cover. OR can you? O’Maley has the potential for its shell to match the creative arts and legacy at its core. There are stunning historic murals from the 1930s and 40s in the Commons. The arts curriculum is valued and celebrated. The arts teachers are amazing. If there is any school in Massachusetts that sings out arts and legacy, let it be here. Monumental public art and street art abound in Gloucester.
Parsons Street before, after, and after
public art in Gloucester, MA and context collages
And not just for flat surfaces. Artists have suggested creative responses to Americord’s striated surface like a piano keys mural along the wall (a motif you may have seen elsewhere); others proposed a changing light installation when the cultural district designation was underway.
Stephanie Benenson’s temporary installation Harbor Voices at City Hall
Street art has become big business. Cities and towns around the world vie for renowned muralists in a competitive commercialized market with varying degrees of success.
O’Maley Innovation Middle School has the perfect walls for showcasing creative voices of former alumni who are art school grads (or currently enrolled)– professionally trained and inspired to leave a mark. Ever since the dynamite 18UP and Under 30 exhibition, supporters hoped to catalyze possibilities for these emerging artists. Murals taken to this scale warrant investments of $15,000 per artist per wall.
just a few of the grads…Chris Budrow | Kate Bresnahan | Jason Burroughs | Lexi Chipperini |Jon Cooney | Jeff Cluett | James Curcuru | Nicole Dahlmer | Leon Doucette | Alessia LoGrasso | Avery McNiff | Micah O’Conner| Mary Sullivan
Before I saw walls of possibility. I still see that, but now I imagine specific artists and I hope you do, too. There are plenty of walls to go around at O’Maley.
a few more international street art mural examples
save the date Reminders:
“December in November–Giving the Gift of Art” Rocky Neck Art Colony members’ fine art and crafts sale, through December 10th, OPEN Fridays 5-8pm, Saturdays and Sundays 10AM-4PM. Downstairs is a beautiful John Nesta tribute.
photo caption: Orginal watercolor painting, Birch on the Neck, by Deb Schradieck, booth at the Rocky Neck Art Colony 2017 Annual Holiday members show
TWO DAYS ONLY Cape Ann Artisans at the Rockport Art Association Friday December 1 and Saturday December 2nd (10-5). Cape Ann Artisans has also announced their special 2018 Cape Ann Artisan tour dates- June 2nd and 3rd and Oct 6-8
Sat Dec 2nd 8am-noon, 34 Leonard Street, Gloucester, MA 01930
It’s great to see the beautiful Matz Gallery at Sawyer Free featuring local artists again. There’s always room for the traveling exhibitions on walls and rooms elsewhere in the building, but I think the Matz gallery and Sawyer Free library sings most when it devotes its main exhibition space to local artists.
The annual benefit exhibition is hung salon style in advance of an exciting annual live auction reception. Stop by to preview the art or leave a silent bid. Minimum opening bids range from $40-$400. On October 4th, bring your family, friends and co-workers. There’s always a great buzz in the room. Bid alone or ‘group-on’ with friends–and generously! You’ll help the artist and the art community in general as well as the library.
Sawyer Free Library deserves the community’s support. Here’s a list of all the 2017 participating magnanimous artists (many are repeat donors). Enjoy some photos from the exhibit to draw your attention to the art.
Jerry Ackerman, Deborah F. Aldrich, Cynthia Asaro, Anita Beloff, Baraka Robin Berger, Coco Berkman, Sheila Farren Billings, Bob Blue, Carmel Bourneuf, Isabelle K. Brown, Pamela Burke, Ann G. Campbell, Nancy Caplan, Katherine Coakley, Ray Crane, Mary Crowningshield, Mary Curcio, Susan W. Daly, Terry Del Percio-Piedmonte, Nancy Davis, Patricia Doran, Phyllis Feld, Susie Field, Karen Fitzgerald, James Formichella, Paul George, Dina Gomery, Don Gorvett, Noreen Hale, Marion Hall, Joy Halsted, Jeanne Havran, Olga Hayes, Sandra Herdman, Deanie Johnson, Phyllis J. Kaplan, Fred Kepler, Barbara Kremer, Mary Jane Lane, Carole Loiacono, Judy Magee, Florence Martin, Mary McCarl, Roy McCauley, Perry McIntosh, Jeannie McIntyre, Danny Mears, Judith Menicocci, KT Morse, Kate Nordstrom, Christine Pitman, Mary Rhinelander, Charlotte Roberts, Sandra L Sperry, Marilyn Swift, Bonnie Sylvester, Peter Tysver, Juni Van Dyke, Jeff Weaver, Alyce Wherren, Bernica Wilcox, Curtis Wilcox, Marnie Williams, Jane Wolf, Theresa Wonson, Heidi Caswell Zander
One of my favorite events. You’ll always have a take-your-breath away moment when you see how Jeff Weaver has realized scenes from our everyday lives. 
You have until 5pm to see these 2 group shows at North Shore Arts Association that are closing today. Downstairs is filled with vistas so dear to local artists they’ve selected these works over others for the Icons of Cape Ann exhibition. Stop by and enjoy their selections. Do your ideas about the theme, emotions and vistas gel with theirs? 114 pieces make their case and they include ones that will stop you in your tracks.Upstairs is devoted entirely to watercolor and is at times mesmerizing. The installation includes juror feedback on the display labels and a peek into process for artists considering juried competitions. The New England Watercolor Society website has listed this year’s winners along with each artist and the work that was accepted for the Biennial, established in 1988. You really have to go in person to linger and closely observe this art. A few to look out for: Evelyn Dunphy, William Perry, Stephen Holland, June Webster, Joey Grant, Rance Jones, Michael Maron, Richard Hanson, Robert J O’Brien, and Kristin Stashenko. Also local artists including: Suzanne Brailey, Paul George, Marion Hall, Marilyn Swift, Carole Loiacono,and Charles Shurcliff.
Elise, Samantha, Pam, Woody, and Franny
Snapshots from Elise and Tucker’s fabulous and fun harvest party, just getting underway. Where earlier the produce had been planted, long tables with tantalizing pot luck offerings were arranged. Bales of hay with planks laid across made for practical seating. An assortment of lights and lanterns illuminated the grounds and the big oak tree was ready for moonlight dancing to begin beneath its boughs. 
Favorite photo from the party, Big Sister Franny giving Woody the “pesky little brother look,” with Mom Samantha Goddess, and Samantha’s Mom, Pam Wood.
I had to leave Cedar Rock Gardens early to attend the Cape Ann Plein Air gala, which Catherine covered. Scroll down to see her photos posted earlier today. The Rockport Art Association was overflowing with art enthusiasts, friends, and family and it was so exciting to see beautiful scenes from all around Cape Ann rendered by these master painters. Congratulations to Karen Ristuben, the project manager, and to all who helped make Cape Ann Plein Air a fabulously successful event. I do have to say though that Cape Ann’s own JEFF WEAVER rocked the house with his stunning paintings of the waterfront and downtown.
Photographs from last night’s gala. The exhibition continues today from 10-5 and straight to Paint Essex from 4-8PM.
Jeff Weaver
Marjorie Hicks
Continue reading “Scenes from Cape Ann Plein Air Gala”
Good Morning Gloucester 