3rd House Journal

PEM

[East India Marine Hall, Peabody Essex Museum; 2/25/12]

The weekend was sunny but chilly with high, gusty winds. So as we weren't planning to walk around town this weekend, it seemed a good day for a drive up to Salem to the Peabody Essex Museum. The PEM, which has its origins in the "curiosities" collected and brought home by sea captains, specializes in art from Asia, Oceana, India, and North America.Their current featured exhibit is Shapeshifting, with Native American art from across the country and from 200 BC to the present. I found myself "placing" each piece geographically as well as in time. Since the plaques stated the tribe/nation, but not region, you mostly had to have heard of the tribe to know its location. I recognized all of the beautiful southwest work (mostly Hopi and Navaho) from my visits to New Mexico, the local tribe names from New England, and a few others. I'm not as familiar with the Pacific northwest, but you couldn't miss the giant totem pole from that region. I knew they were big, but it's a different thing to stand next to one, dwarfed by it, and see the gorgeous carving.

Speaking of the northwest, I was thrilled to see Brian Jungen's "Cetology" installation at the exhibit. I first saw one of his astonishing "natural history" type (ie, hung from the ceiling) whale skeletons made from white plastic resin chairs installed at the contemporary art museum on a visit to Montreal in June of 2006 with a bunch of blogger friends. That exhibit in Montreal also had his wonderful aboriginal masks made from Nike footwear.

[Clouds over the Yin Yu Tang house]

We left the PEM just before closing time, and it so happened that just next door at the charming, independent Salem Cinema, The Artist was playing in about 20 minutes. It was up for an Oscar last night and was predicted to win Best Picture (it did), so we couldn't pass it by. It was, as many have said, a lovely piece of froth to top off our day.

Windows and Whirlwinds

[Pushpamala-Arni photographs, Sackler Museum; 2/4/12]

I've been in a whirlwind of activity for the past few days. It started last Thursday when I got a call inviting me for a phone interview on Friday. I spent the evening prep'ing for it, plus packing up for the weekend since we had tickets to a play in the city Friday evening and I'd have to leave right after work. I took the phone interview at home at lunchtime (it went well and I was invited to come in next week, keeping my fingers crossed because it sounds like a great fit), then back to the office for the afternoon, and back home after work to gather my things and go with D into town. Leaving my bags in his car, we headed out for dinner, then to see Superior Donuts at the Lyric Stage (very enjoyable).

We normally wander around the city near D's place on weekends, but we thought we'd try a different destination and hit on taking the T over to Harvard Square to Harvard's Sackler Museum, which had some new photography acquisitions and a re-sorting of collections from Harvard's other art museums, the Fogg and the Busch-Reisinger, while they're renovating.

[Julius Faulhaber's Gas Station (photography), at the Sackler]

[Window in the lobby of the Sackler]

And, well, since I had a discount coupon for the Harvard Square Alsatian restaurant, Sandrine's, burning a hole in the zipper-pocket of my purse, we had a lovely early dinner before heading back to crash on D's couch. Sunday was, fortunately, more restful, despite being Super Bowl Sunday. D brought me home in the afternoon so I wouldn't be stuck in town late when the game got over, and he went back and had his buddies over. I was able to have a good night's sleep - luckily, as Monday was an all-out, mad, take-no-prisoners take-no-lunch-break scramble to meet a deadline by the end of the day. (sigh)

[2nd floor landing on the stairway, Sackler Museum]

If Wishes Were Horses

["Horsechild" celebrating the New Year at Axelle, Boston; 1/1/12]

We've seen Beth Carter's odd creatures in the Axelle gallery on Newbury Street a number of times. Minotaurs and animal-headed people, they seem to materialize out of fairy tales, somewhere between whimsical and creepy. You get the feeling they're calling to their brethren inside your unconscious, ready to romp about in your dreams. Or maybe that's just me. I found an interesting interview with the UK artist here, which ends with the intriguing revelation that "Every time I cast a new piece of sculpture, I put a secret message or a drawing inside. A kind of offering or a charm or a wish." I think she is trying to get inside your head.

Water+Fire+Crowds

[Bridge at WaterFire Place; 7/16/11]

WaterFire in Providence has become a very popular urban art installation and event. Which means that it's also utterly mobbed. I am spoiled for having seen my first WaterFire ten years ago on a slow evening, the event almost canceled by rain which let up just before. My friend and I wandered along the canals astonished. It was almost spooky - the odd piped-in music echoing over the water and off the canal walls, the candle-lit candelabras under the bridges throwing shadows from another century, a gondola ferrying people beside the burning braziers strung like jewels down the center of the canal. The elemental power of the water, fire, and music was magical and seemed to hush all the people there.

I went to a few other WaterFire events over the years when I lived at my condo, which was a little over a half-hour drive away. The crowds increased, although side events were added to siphon off some of the people to stages nearby. I could also stay late sometimes and wait out the crowds.

I hadn't been to a WaterFire event in 5 years, and D had never been, so we drove down from Boston on Saturday evening. Our first stop was Federal Hill, Providence's Italian neighborhood. We lucked into good parking and then into a great table outside in DePasquale Square. The cafes and the fountain seats were full of people and it turned out many were there on the warm summer evening to hear a pair of singers who soon arrived to sing oldies mixed with a few Italian-American classics to the crowd. It was fun. Our food was delicious - we both had garlicky rainbow trout with perfectly roasted potatoes and crisp-tender broccoli. Yum.

[DePasquale Square, Providence; 7/16/11]

After dinner, we headed over to WaterFire, which as I said was packed with people, who were quite noisy but seemed to be having a good time. I led D slowly through the crowds to see the highlights, and I think he enjoyed seeing it. It was Chinese culture night and the highlight for me came when a beautiful Chinese singer appeared to float atop the water like an apparition, her haunting song reverberating over the water and off the stone walls of the canal. (There was also this Renoir moment found later on my camera!)

[Chinese singer at WaterFire]

The Factory Girls

["Homage to Women" sculpture by Mico Kaufman, Lowell, MA; 7/26/09]

On Saturday night, D and I went to see a new musical theatre production,The Factory Girls, at the Boston Conservatory. The musical chronicles the lives of the young women who left New England families and farms for a new life working in the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 19th century. D found the show particularly interesting as, while mentoring CETA kids in Lowell for a few years in the '70s, he had them printing up historic photographs from a trove of glass plates that were sitting around in boxes at Lowell Technical Institute (now UMass-Lowell). The mills and the girls' boardinghouse have since been restored and turned into a national historic park.

The mill system started out well, offering good wages and an opportunity for the "girls" to get a bit of education for themselves, while most of the money went home to pay for their male siblings' education. Though their workdays were long and physically hard, toiling at ungodly loud machines, the women found time to write poems and stories and they published their writings in a company-sponsored newspaper, The Lowell Offering, which formed much of the basis for the musical's score. As the musical showed, conditions -- already severe by current standards --  further deteriorated; air quality became hazardous as windows were nailed shut to protect the textile thread, work was harder and longer, and wages were drastically cut during economic downturn. The women eventually (and largely unsuccessfully) organized strikes demanding better conditions, including reduction of hours to a 10-hour workday. You can read more about the New England Mill Girls in this excellent blog post and listen to an NPR story on the musical The Factory Girls here.

We've come a long way, baby. Compared to the lot of women in the 19th century, most of us have it extraordinarily good (speaking as a middle-class, educated American woman in 2011). Yet we still strive for a better life, less exhausting work, more meaningful work, more dignity and respect, better pay and job security, guaranteed healthcare, more time to enjoy the fruits of our labors, a better work/life balance. The fight always gets harder in tough economic times, as we have now. But it's good to remember that we have a lot more options today, much of it built on the sweat and tears of women who came before us.

One Thing At A Time

[Periwinkles, Commonwealth Ave, Boston; 5/7/11]

Sometimes it's good to notice the little things. Especially in an overwhelmingly busy environment, whether the teeming fecundity of Spring or the bustling panoply of city life. Where to settle the eye? Where to point the camera? The tulips compete for attention with passing dogs, the lofty greening tree canopy with blowsy cherry blossoms, the hipsters with the homeless. It mirrors the restless mind, jumping from this to that. Sometimes the only remedy is to focus, however briefly, on just one thing.

[White tulip, Comm Ave, Boston; 5/7/11]

On Saturday, we took the T over to South Station and walked from there to the Fort Point Channel Artist Community for their Spring Art Walk. Unfortunately, it began raining just as we were walking across the wind-swept bridge (I was once turned back by torrential rains trying to cross this bridge, but that's another story), so we didn't wander as much as we'd planned, just hopped into a couple of dry studios, dodging the light chilly rain, until we finally made it to the building where my old friends, photographer Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano and her husband, live (Sylvia's a wonderful photographer, doing both commercial work and fine arts work as well - you can check out her work at her website). We had such a nice time visiting with them we decided to skip the other open studios and head back to D's, hailing a cab.

 

Reflect

I couldn't resist snapping shots of these collage pieces by Boston-area artist Jane Maxwell in the windows of the Lanoue Fine Art gallery on Newbury Street last Saturday. First of all, they're stunning images, large and iconic, and intriguing. The series (which unfortunately we missed because we didn't go in and it closed this week) is titled "Reflect" and is populated by images of women -- the Hollywood poster image of the "perfect woman," according to the artist's statement.

The work often features multiple women in conversation, comparison or repetition, a patterning that underscores the role female camaraderie and competition play in the quest for the ideal figure, and highlights our culture's insistence on uniformity.

In the current series, “Reflect,” the women are contemplative. They sit. They peer in mirrors. They pose and ponder. The women are looking out or peering back. They are, in a way, both viewed and the viewer...both judged and the judge. This interaction calls into question the complexity and tension between how a woman feels inside, what she projects to the world, and how she is perceived.'

The Lanoue gallery is located at the expensive end of Newbury Street near the Public Garden. This end features fine art galleries and high-end shops (the boho/funkier end being the other direction towards Mass. Ave). Jane Maxwell's work manages to be both high-fashion and a commentary on it. Passing below these windows on this fashion-conscious street, there's quite a bit of uniformity as the young women repeat this season's styles: skinny jeans, boots, long sweaters. They look lovely, though. Despite the repetition of fashion themes, their bodies are different shapes, their faces reflect different ethnicities, different personalities. What they feel about themselves inside is a mystery from the outside.

--

Of course I also liked the reflections of the sky and other side of the street from the "Reflect" works. My own reflection in a doorway on Newbury Street seems to say my inner concerns are primarily about plumbing.

SoWa?

[At the SoWa Open Market; 8/8/10]

If Saturday was spent exploring the South Shore (see previous post), Sunday was spent exploring the South End - the SoWa Open Market to be precise. The SoWa Market happens in the "South of Washington Street" neighborhood of Boston's South End on Sundays from May through October. While the South End has been gentrified for umpteen years now, the SoWa area has only recently become trendy and it still has some dodgy parts. But first came the artists and then the galleries, restaurants, yoga studios, and condos. The SoWa Open Market is in its 7th year! And this is just the first time we've been. D, who's lived in Boston since the 1960s, was amazed at the whole area.

[SoWa Open Market]

The Open Market is behind brick buildings housing artist studios on one side and galleries and shops on the other. We wandered into a few open studios, which are too small for housing so set up only for work, and then down to the open market under 20 or so white tents. It was a mix of farmer's market and artisan's market, and we had fun browsing and talking to a few artists. Our favorite was the delightful "Queen of Green Art" Josephine Plaszewski, a painter who told us she works almost exclusively in paint reclaimed from the dump or mis-tints headed for the trash. Most of that, it appeared, was intended for kids' rooms by the color scheme of the work she had out. But such fun! And very inexpensive, too ($200-$400 it says on her website, though she quoted us $150), so if you're in the area and looking for fun art - especially for kids' rooms - find Josephine at SoWa!

[Josephine Plaszewski, "Queen of Green Art" - at SoWa]

There's also a vintage market that opened this year in the brick building that houses the SoWa Artists Guild.

[SoWa Vintage Market]

We were overwhelmed with all there was to see, both at SoWa itself and checking out the neighborhood. We found this open structure being used as a parking garage that must have some history to it that we've yet to uncover.

[Parking garage, 500 Harrison Ave]

We skipped the 1st annual Food Truck Festival in another parking lot near the SoWa market and headed over to check out the Ginger Park restaurant. A friend had forwarded me an architectural magazine bit on the place with photos of the amazing ceiling and we'd been planning to check it out. In fact, a trip to the SoWa market came as an afterthought to visiting the restaurant after seeing those architectural photos. Alas, my friends had to bail out on Sunday's planned SoWa/Ginger Park trip, so D. and I went ahead anyway. The restaurant was right around the corner on Washington Street and served up a delicious brunch, which we enjoyed along with fresh watermelon lemonade - yum!. (They also appear to have good cocktails, ladies, should we reschedule...)

Busy weekend!

Rain Maker

[Chahk, Mayan rain deity; photo from PEM website]

The clouds were ominous, to say the least, as we headed up to Rockport on the coastline north of Boston on Saturday afternoon. White wispy clouds flew incongruously below a heavy blue-black mountain of cloud -- not a good day for wandering the seaside streets. So we made a quick decision to get off the highway and go to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, which is featuring Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea. We arrived just as the downpour was getting underway and had to dash in from the parking garage located across the street from the PEM.

So we were safely ensconced in the galleries while the storm dumped 2 to 4 inches of rain and caused flash floods across the Boston area, submerging cars in underpasses and requiring rescues from car rooftops. Blame it on Chahk, the Mayan god of rain and storms, who is the first thing you see when you enter the Fiery Pool exhibit. Aha! we said as soon as we saw him, sticking his tongue out at us all.

The Fiery Pool is a small, but captivating exhibit, featuring world-turtles (likening a turtle shell to living on a land surrounded by sea), frogs and toads (harbingers of rain and renewal), crocodiles (the world begins with the slaying of the giant ocean crocodile), and various fish and birds, not to mention the occasional bloody sacrifice.

We also took in an exhibit of Richard Avedon portraits (and contact sheets) taken of John F. Kennedy and Jackie and the children soon after the Kennedys moved into the White House. Another photography exhibit featured beautiful black and white prints of imprints of dinosaur and human tracks over sparse landscapes. And we had fun in the interactive nature center with exhibits that trick the eye.

By the time we left the museum, the rain had stopped and though there were large puddles and some minor street flooding, we had no idea how much flooding had gone on in Boston. We wandered the waterfront a bit, then headed to my favorite Salem restaurant, Cilantro, for a yummy dinner.

[Derby Wharf Lighthouse, Salem, MA; 7/10/10]

[Dinner at Cilantro, Salem, MA]

Arts in Cambridge

[At this year's Cambridge Riverfest; 6/5/10]

Last weekend, it felt more like mid-August than early June, at least up until the storm Sunday afternoon chased out the oppressive heat and humidity with a cool blast of fresh air. Before that, on Saturday, we ended up for a few hours at the Cambridge Riverfest along the Charles River and closed-to-traffic Memorial Drive near Harvard Square.

I browsed the jewelry and crafts stands and found a couple of nice inexpensive things for myself -- an African paper bead strand and a beaded scarf. Elsewhere along the festival route, there were lots of oddball, do-it-yourself public art and street performance going on, but also a few old pros. Sidewalk Sam, who has been around Boston forever, was there with a chalk rendition of a Georgia O'Keefe painting. Although he's now confined to a wheelchair since an accident in the '90s, it was good to see that he still finds a way to do his art.

[Sidewalk Sam and his Georgia O'Keefe chalk painting]

Another pro at the festival was Stan Strickland, performing under a concert tent with John Lockwood on bass and Laszlo Gardony on piano. Like many of the excellent jazz musicians around town, Strickland teaches at the Berkeley School of Music, so he's local.

 

As I said, there was a lot of weird art, but we particularly liked these jellyfish, which reminded us of the jellies we saw at the New England Aquarium last winter.

This weekend will be more sports than art, since we're planning to watch the World Cup match between the US and England tomorrow. And then the next Celtics-Lakers (game 5 in the championship series) is on Sunday night. At least the weather should be seasonable, around 70° (F) during the day, with a chance of showers. Enjoy the weekend, everyone!