In a former lifetime in which the person inhabiting the Oval Office had an actual vision based on facts, the arts were recognized as an integral measure of our society. President John F. Kennedy, for instance, said this about the arts: “We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda. It is a form of truth.”

Truth, of course, has taken a hit since 45 took office. That whole “alternative facts” bit. But numbers, or so the saying goes, don’t lie. So with that in mind, we took a quick look at the potential math implications of 45’s federal budget.

First the overview:

• Number of programs and agencies due for elimination: 62
• Number of programs within the Environmental Protection Agency alone: 50

Other programs due for funding cuts—or outright elimination—focus on everything from literacy to low-income home energy improvements to investigating chemical accidents. The enormous breadth and scope of impact on those least able to manage without these programs is breathtaking.

But since we’re an arts and culture magazine, we’re going to focus our hyperventilation on the potential impact of these devastating cuts to art and culture in New England. The proposed budget calls for eliminating all funding for the National Endowment for the Arts ($152 million) and the National Endowment for the Humanities ($155 million).

What NEA funding means to New England:

For fiscal year 2017, New England states received $2.591 million in NEA grants overall, according to the NEA website. Here’s who got what:

• Connecticut: 15 organizations, $310,000
• Massachusetts: 62 organizations, $1,672,000
• Maine: 11 organizations, $242,000
• New Hampshire: 6 organizations, $120,000
• Rhode Island: 9 organizations, $152,500
• Vermont: 4 organizations, $95,000

But the math adds up even less when you look beyond straight grants. Ann Wicks, communications manager for the New England Foundation on the Arts (NEFA)—one of six regional arts organizations funded by the NEA and private donations—explains. Arts organizations can potentially receive NEA dollars in three ways:

• an outright allocation of a grant the organization applies for itself
• an allocation from NEFA through NEA dollars provided to NEFA
• from NEA dollars given to state arts organizations, such as the Massachusetts Cultural Council

Wicks says about 15 percent of NEFA’s annual budget comes from NEA dollars. Beyond grants, NEFA uses those dollars to support artists in other, less direct ways, Wicks says. The Creative Ground Directory, for instance, is a free resource that lists artists and other creators around New England so that it’s easier to find appropriate collaborators for projects. In FY2016, NEFA made a total of 462 grants equaling $3.4 million. New England states received $829,947 of those NEFA grants.

In other words, the loss of funding to New England arts and humanities organizations could be even larger. “NEA support is very important to New England and the creative sector,” she says.

It’s a point that is echoed nationally. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), a national nonprofit that assists state arts agencies, offers this math about how NEA dollars improve the economy at large:

• The arts return $22.3 billion in tax revenue to federal, state, county, and municipal governments.
• Rural areas, low-income communities, and schools would feel the effects of this funding loss disproportionately from reductions. State arts agencies (using state and federal funds) award more than 25% of their grants to rural areas, 54% to low-income communities, and 45% to arts education projects.
• Every NEA dollar leverages more than $9 in matching funds, meaning that the impact of the NEA loss is just the beginning of the potential financial loss for arts organizations.

Cutting the NEA and NEH seem especially confusing given this math offered by NASAA: The NEA receives 0.004% of the total Federal budget, which is less than ½ of one hundredth of a percent.

That math also doesn’t add up when you consider the numbers presented by The Guardian. The British paper reports the following expenses incurred by taxpayers less than 50 days into 45’s residency:

• $56.6 million (or a cool $500,000 a day) to protect Trump Tower. That was through March 1. Assuming that Mrs. 45 stays until June for Mini-45 to finish school, that dollar amount could add another $46 million, bringing the total to $102 million.
• $3+million estimated cost for EACH weekend jaunt to golf work at his Mar-a-Lago Resort (a place where he doubled entry fees from $100,000 to $200,000 the day after he was elected).
• $97,380 for hotels for Secret Service to protect Eric Trump (that would be his son on those business interests 45 still hasn’t divested himself of) while he visited a condominium development in Uruguay. This is just one trip.

And finally this statistic: 45’s proposed military spending increase in his federal budget? $54 billion.

Something definitely doesn’t add up.

Does this irritate you as much as it does us? Here are a few links if you want to #TakeAction. See you on the streets.

Pen.org
artsactionfund.org
Change.org
The Official White House Petition to Save Arts Funding
Contact Your Representative
Arts Advocacy Day – Washington, DC
#SaveTheNEA

Top image courtesy Royal Talens

The post #TakeAction: Doing the NEA Defunding Math appeared first on Take Magazine.

Recently, it’s been the cultural trend to rope off the beginning of the year to catch up on all the moments, movies, music, and writings we missed last year. So, once you’ve caught up with Moonlight and/or finally get around to listening to the newest And The Kids album (released summer ’16), consider looking ahead to our Artists to Watch for 2017.

Though we do have favorites of our own, we could not adequately survey the region for artists to watch without consulting a few of our many trusted curators and friends: Abigail Ogilvy, Owner of Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston’s South End; Randi Hopkins, Director of Visual Arts at Boston Center for the Arts; and Ian Alden Russell, Curator at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery.

All of these artists sculpt, paint, record, and perform works worth following, especially considering our current social and political climate. Since we’ve recently been reminded that we cannot rely on the centralized leadership of our democracy to defend our integrity as human beings, or the integrity of thought through the defense of facts and mutual respect, we look to artists like these as our true cultural gatekeepers. The artists on our list are people we can trust to use bold expression, tenderness, and knowing imagery to question the status quo. Sometimes they hold up a mirror to our culture. Other times, they hold up a loudspeaker or a puppet mask, a paintbrush, a bouncy ball, or a digital camera.

These cathartic, sarcastic, pointed, paradoxical, and, most of all, inimitable artists are who we’re watching in 2017.

Nabeela Vega, Visiting Thahab (series, ongoing) | Photo courtesy Robin Allen LaPlante

Nabeela Vega | Boston, MA

Using photography, performance, and video, Boston-based artist Nabeela Vega creates immersive works that examine elements of our individual experiences of the social world as it intersects with identity, personal politics, and queerness. Oftentimes, the work calls into question our taken-for-granted notions about bodies, media, and gender. As Hopkins points out, “Vega’s rich exploration of the contemporary presence and experience of the Muslim femme takes forms that are performative, collaborative, generous, vulnerable, and exquisitely beautiful. The artist takes risks with their own body to think about our greater body as citizens and humans, work that feels vital and particularly brave today.”

Tanja Hollander | Auburn, ME

“This month sees the premiere of the entirety of Tanja Hollander‘s Are you really my friend? at MASS MoCA, the Maine-based photographer’s epic endeavor to photograph all 626 of her Facebook friends,” says Russell. “Bringing her across the nation and around the globe, the work probes the issue of friendship and connection in our digitally mediated age. Questioning the boundaries between personal, public, and online life, the project presents us with intimate portraits she took of the personal spaces and environments of the people she is connected to via social media.”

Teatime, 2016, Acrylic and mixed media on steel 18 x 12 in. | Photo courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

Katie Wild | Pawtucket, RI

“Wild’s striking, cinematic paintings transform the tradition of figure and portraiture to achieve a contemporary understanding of the human condition,” says Ogilvy. “In her most recent series, Steampunk, Wild references photographs she took of real people at a steampunk festivals. In 2016 she was a recipient of the Fay Chandler Emerging Artist Award in Boston, MA.”

Kai Franz | Providence, RI

“Originally from Cologne, Germany, Kai Franz makes sculptures and drawings that confront and complicate the relationships between process and artifact,” says Russell. “Testing and questioning the potential of computer-aided design while appearing as formal aesthetic statements in their own rights, Franz’s works and projects are strong examples of the tradition of critically and technologically-engaged art making in Providence.”

Mutsu Crispin, Mapping the Day, 2015, bouncy balls, plexiglass, stainless steel, 41″h x 41″w x 2.25″d | Photo courtesy Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts

Mutsu Crispin | Brattleboro, VT

Atlanta, Georgia transplant turned Southern Vermonter mutsu crispin (aka John DiGeorge) is a performance artist, filmmaker and. . .bouncy-ball sculptor? Last year, DiGeorge found a way to make those familiar, seemingly childish forms simultaneously fun and subversive. We’re sure we can find some comfort in these delightfully bright pieces as the year turns potentially darker. “. . . the balls float forward and back within their designs or wanderings, rhyming with their cast shadows, ghostly glows, nearby hardware and reflections,” says the artist. “These dear objects from our childhood are animated and transmogrified, speaking in a chorus at once lighthearted, humorous, mysterious, and ecstatic.

Matt Neckers, Crash Site, 2015, 72 H x 24 W x 24 in | Photo courtesy the artist

Matt Neckers | Eden, VT

“Neckers’ Portals hidden in forests, a rocket in a tree, a parachute caught in branches—Matt Neckers’ installations interrupt the serenity of the woods,” says Russell. “Fascinated by the impact of mechanization on our imagination, Neckers opens up earnest, generous, and sustained conversations about the world we inhabit, the others that may exist, and the precarious journeys between.”

Arien Wilkerson | Hartford, CT

“I am Arien aka TNMOT AZTRO aka ARI AZTRO.”

Wilkerson is one of Hartford’s many young Renaissance Men. His list of current projects is too long to add here; suffice it to say that Wilkerson, at age 25, is an uber-accomplished dancer, film artist, activist, artistic director, and overall creative mastermind. In the words of our dear friends at Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, “He’s too black, too vocal, and too flagrant. He’s also one of the few indispensable figures in Hartford’s ever-continuous push to art and cultural prominence. Say hello to the city’s new brash monarch.”

Toby Sisson, 2015 Black Tears, Ink and beeswax on paper 7″x5.5″ each, approx. 6.5’x16′ overall | Photo courtesy the artist

Toby Sisson | Providence, RI

“Toby Sisson‘s encaustic paintings and drawings rigorously explore the metaphoric potential of abstract form,” points out Russell. “Often contrasting shades of black with shades of white, Sisson’s works are informed by personal narrative and her mixed race heritage. Her images and forms offer open-ended prompts for poetic reflection on the assumed oppositions and conflicts with which we struggle—personally, emotionally, and socially.”

Michael Stasiuk, Marco the Magician, 2012, 25″ x 24″ x 10″ metal crumber pan, darning egg, rhythm stick fragments, assorted wood fragments | Photo courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

Michael Stasiuk | Portsmouth, NH

“His multimedia sculptures assemble found objects into playfully illustrated characters,” says Ogilvy, “each with a unique personality. His choice of material imparts a sense of nostalgia and memory, imaginatively re-purposing everyday objects that accompany us throughout our lives.”

J.R. Uretsky and Scott the cat | Photo courtesy the artist

J.R. Uretsky | Providence, RI

If you read Take, you already know we’ve had a crush on J.R.’s awkwardly signature brand of brave, big-feeling, truth-telling performance for a long time. Yet it’s not only her magically strange, emo-queer performances to watch out for in 2017. Specifically, it’s J.R.’s puppets that will lend you space to emote and bring us all solace as 2017’s social and political climate sags and twists. “The characters that emerge through her performances are relatable yet also alien and non-specific,” says Hopkins, “forging an ambiguous space where emotion is the remaining constant.”

Titus Kaphar, Space to Forget, 2014, oil on canvas, 64 x 64 x 2 3/4 inches | Photo courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery

Titus Kaphar | New Haven, CT

Kaphar creates new histories with each work he paints and sculpts. It’s through his careful reinterpretation of the past, mixed with artful exclusion and deconstruction of specific images that makes his work powerful, “In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way.” says Kaphar “I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear, and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history.”

Inside shot of Love Shack instillation featuring video loop of “Waking Up And Getting Up Has Never Been Easy”, instillation and video by Coe Lapossy | Photo courtesy the artist’s website

Coe Lapossy | Boston, MA

Ever wonder what it’d be like to wake up in a super-cozy, literally endless bed? Well, Lapossy has theorized it, and has many more other immersive, speculative works ready for the upcoming year. “Lapossy brings feminist sass and romantic charm to smart sculptural and installation work,” says Hopkins. “Pop culture seeps into her artistic vocabulary with ease, for example weaving 20th-century art history together with early 90s romantic-fantasy film in a setting that evokes the vaudeville vibe of the magician’s trick.”

Nabeela Vega – Boston, Massachusetts
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Tanja Hollander – Auburn, Maine
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Katie Wild – Pawtucket, Rhode Island
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Kai Franz – Providence, Rhode Island
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Mutsu Crispin – Brattleboro, Vermont
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Matt Neckers – Eden, Vermont
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Arien Wilkerson – Hartford, Connecticut
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Toby Sisson – Providence, Rhode Island
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Michael Stasiuk – Portsmouth, New Hampshire
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J.R. Uretsky – Providence, Rhode Island
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Titus Kaphar – New Haven, Connecticut
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Coe Lapossy – Boston, Massachusetts
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VISITING THAHAB AT SUPERNOVA PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL | PHOTO COURTESY THE ARTIST

The post Artists to Watch 2017 appeared first on Take Magazine.

As this past summer began to shed the last layers of New England cold, Rhode Island artist John C. Gonzalez presented his first mini-retrospective at Brown University, in the David Winton Bell Gallery. Curated by Ian Alden Russell, the exhibition was a quiet and beautiful collection of Gonzalez’s work, tied by a common thread of collaboration, the visibility of labor, and the capacity to create in unexpected places. The show, titled Works Well With Others featured multiple interdisciplinary works across the mediums of painting, sculpture, and performance. Most notably, Gonzalez worked collectively with a group of employees from Bel Terra Landscaping, a landscaping company contracted by Brown for maintenance of the campus grounds, as well as Verde Design + Horticulture, to build a lush indoor garden in the heart of the exhibition. Created by John C. Gonzalez along with Juan Reyes, Pamela Rodgers, Julin Sanchez, Philip Taylor, and Julin Vasquez, the garden produced a shared space for personal reflection and self-healing.

Home Depot House, 2013 | Designed and installed in collaboration with store employees inside Home Depot store in Providence, RI | Photo by Shane Godfrey

The Brown retrospective captured Gonzalez’s passion as an artist, his constant conversation with art and institutions of labor, the daily exchange of human interaction, and the ways in which creativity is promoted or stifled in a flourishing era of capitalism. “Works Well With Others was about embedding myself into spaces where self-expression is not always encouraged or productive,” says Gonzalez, whose interest in working collectively with laborers stems from his own experience as a tradesman and retail worker. “In these spaces, I wanted to create moments for creativity and exploration.”

In 2013, Gonzalez was commissioned by the deCordova Biennial to create his project, Home Depot House (2013-14). Employed in Providence by the giant home improvement retailer at the time, he worked with his fellow co-workers to build a house. “In a place like Home Depot, you do not really have an opportunity to be super creative,” he acknowledges. “It is not really designed for that space because it is a retail environment. So for me, to work with management to be able to make something that was ours was subversive, because the power structure didn’t initially allow for it. And for me, art is a powerful thing.” From building a home to building a garden, Gonzalez stretches the space between formal art and craftsmanship, enabling art to have a broader sphere and wider accessibility to those who may not consider themselves artists.

Several works from Painting Library, 2017. Part of an installation where visitors may borrow paintings from the collection for the duration of the exhibition at Essex Art Center in Lawrence, MA | Photo courtesy the artist.

Outside of his collaborative sculpture and performance work, Gonzalez is a painter at heart; along with being a full-time father of two, he works at a paint shop by day. Finding collectivity in the seemingly mundane is central to Gonzalez’s artistic approach. “As artists, anytime we buy supplies for our work, like paint, someone had to make that, which leads to a transaction. Every time we find things or buy things, there is always a collaborative relationship, no matter what you do—like buying gas or buying clothing. For me, it is something that shouldn’t be overlooked, but instead be put at the forefront. It makes us reexamine all of these relationships we have every day with people, because we are all creating and doing.”

In June, Gonzalez will be presenting Painting Library, a solo exhibition at the Essex Art Center in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where visitors will be able to borrow paintings from the show for the duration of the exhibition. That same month, he’ll also be featured in a group show curated by John Finnerty and Francisco Gonzalez at The Wurks in Providence.

Portrait of John C. Gonzalez in studio | Photo courtesy the artist

John C. Gonzalez – interdisciplinary artist
Providence, Rhode Island
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Top photo Collaborative Garden, 2016 | Designed and installed in collaboration with Bel Terra employees inside David Winton Bell Gallery in Providence, RI | Photograhy by Jesse Banks III

This post has been updated to reflect recent changes.

The post Let’s Build a House Together appeared first on Take Magazine.

The painted wooden sign was one of New England’s earliest art forms, starting back when colonial innkeepers lured customers with bold hand-lettering and eye-catching imagery such as bulls, lions, and goblets.

Portland, Maine artist Will Sears has a thing for wooden signs. His company Better Letter Hand Painted Signs makes signs for restaurants, shops, farms, and other small businesses that evoke the look of commerce in the early 20th century. But when it comes to Sears’ art, the medium is the message.

“My fine art is very closely tied to sign painting,” he says. Recent works involve sawing his own hand-painted, pre-weathered wooden signs into pieces, then re-assembling them to create really cool Americana-inspired abstract patterns.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, the 27 year old also does paintings and collages that cheekily combine hand lettering with old newspaper images, business stationery, blueprints, pornography, and photos from CPR manuals. Shortly after graduating from Syracuse University in 2010, he landed in Portland via a residency for young artists led by prominent sculptor John Bisbee.

“I really loved New England – my dad grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire,” says Sears, who also spent summers at Camp Belknap on Lake Winnipesaukee. “Before I knew it, it was home.”

Sears helped design the Oxbow Brewery’s taproom in Portland. Photo by Bret Labelle Photography

Sears is entrepreneurial, moving comfortably in and out of the commercial and artistic worlds. That’s also true of some of his clients, a major one being the local Oxbow Brewing Company of Newcastle and Portland. These days, where there is an art scene, there is usually also a craft brewery (or three). The artisanship behind Oxbow’s Belgian farmhouse ale-inspired brews is reflected in Sears-designed labels, as well as wall murals in the Newcastle brewery and, in the Portland taproom, barstool tops made from – you guessed it – wooden signs.

Sears is excited to be co-curating a show this summer called Ode to Letters through the Biddeford, Maine art collective Engine. “It’s a three-part show of work – graffiti art, sign painting, and letterpress – that exhibits a love for letters,” he explains. And he and his girlfriend, artist Tessa Greene O’Brien, recently received a grant through the Space Gallery’s Kindling Fund to start a mural initiative in Portland – one with a focus on contemporary art.

“It’s a chance to bring contemporary art, which might not be found outside of a museum or a gallery, to a public forum,” Sears says. Now, that’s a good sign.

The artist with his installation of sculpture and signage at Portland’s Space Gallery. Photo by Bret Labelle Photography

The article first appeared on the Take site on February 18th, 2015.

Will Sears and Better Letter Hand Painted Signs are on Instagram and facebook.

The post It’s a Sign appeared first on Take Magazine.

Jason Cornell, aka BRZOWSKI, has been a fixture of the New England rap scene for almost two decades, traveling all over the country and parts of Europe to perform his specific brand of thoughtful, progressive rap. BRZOWSKI and his labelmates at Milled Pavement create work that challenges industry norms related to genre, song length, and style, which they believe will be particularly in demand given our current political climate.

Cornell’s career as a rapper started in the Providence and Boston scene, when he found a way to parlay the skills he developed while earning his BFA in Painting to the craft of producing rap music. “I was attracted to the single, solitary creative figure, alone in the studio, who goes to teach college during the day to make a few bucks then goes back to the womb and creative isolation of a solo artist,” explains Cornell. “Rap provided that same womb-like, self-determination, studio environment.”

Though painting is still among Cornell’s creative practices, it is not his primary mode of creative expression. He prefers the thrill of live performance, and the way in which rap connects the audience and performer. “I think I shifted focus because it’s really hard to get 200 people to show up, drink beer, and yell at a painting on a Tuesday night in Missoula, Montana,” he quips. “But rap music can do that.”

32French had a very successful year with Milled Pavement | Photo courtesy Milled Pavement website

Instead of moving to Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles, or farther south to Atlanta, all places with historically vibrant rap scenes, Cornell chose to move to Portland, Maine to continue his rap career. For Cornell, this move made sense for a lot of reasons. “It was sort of a natural choice to gravitate towards a scene that was young, fertile, progressive, and was big enough to have everything in a city that you would want,” he says. “Like I could get a vegan pizza at one in the morning.” In addition to a lower cost of living, vibrant scene, and dairy-free, late-night za, living in New England is great for Cornell and other rappers due to the region’s many urban centers; adjacency to New York City and Philly makes touring fairly easy to plan.

Cornell’s rap as BRZOWSKI differs in a few key ways from most of the rap you’re likely to hear on the radio. BRZOWSKI as an individual isn’t a sleekly designed product of a multi million dollar record label like Drake or Action Bronson, though the production value is top notch. His raps are dense with meaning, intensely political, and more poetic than lyrical. Think Nas or Aesop Rock, telling stories while sharing a specific worldview that seems dim, yet realistic. His raps are cathartic and revealing, inviting listeners to face his demons alongside him. Some of his songs do have catchy moments and choruses, but most of his raps urgently fly fast past listeners and are always worth a read-along while listening.

Vinyl Cape’s 2016 release | Photo courtesy Milled Pavement website

BRZOWSKI’s label Milled Pavement features all kinds of artists who are challenging our notions of genre and song structure, while also looking to respond to our current political climate. “We range from people that could probably be called ‘commies’ all the way to center right,” says Cornell “There’s a lot of people all over the spectrum; but generally, the reaction [to the election results] was horror. Collectively the people who lean right feel like we failed a national IQ test, and a lot of our overseas friends have sent us messages and emails of condolences.”

Though Cornell and several of his labelmates share in the collective fear that many artists have about the upcoming administration, he remains confident in his ability, and the ability of other artists, to challenge the status quo and hold a mirror up to our sometimes sordid society. “It’s our duty as artists, with our creative mouthpiece, to speak truth to power whenever possible,” he says. “That’s why artists have always been considered subversive and dangerous: we’re always ready to tell the inconvenient truth.”

Jason Cornell is a painter and rapper living in Portland, Maine. Listen to one of his newest EPs here, follow him on Facebook and Twitter, and be on the lookout for a new album from BRZOWSKI this summer to be released through Milled Pavement.

Top photo Jason Cornell in Vienna, Austria | Photo by David Višnjić

The post Now, More than Ever appeared first on Take Magazine.

When I first met Kristine Roan back in 2012, her mouth was stained from eating six popsicles in a row for breakfast. Thankfully, not much about her personality has changed since then. She can always be found wearing an assortment of soft textiles, fluorescent spandex, and one of her many sculpture necklaces, an eclectic hodge-podge reflecting her artistic style and playful sensibility to the world around her.

perennial grasses, 2016 | found material, polymer clay, and spray paint | Photo Kristine Roan

As a multidisciplinary artist, Roan engages with painting, sculpture, and collage, creating a neon dreamscape from objects that she obsessively collected over the years from various thrift stores. “I collect objects with curious surfaces and shapes—usually mimetic of organic material—which can easily be decontextualized from their original use,” she explains. Objects that you might recognize in everyday life, such as deconstructed children’s games and toys, plastic fruit, seeds, discarded metals and wood blocks, are all repurposed to create small sculptures. It’s a process that she refers to as “formaliz[ing] unexpected friendships…between the natural and artificial, the austere and goofy.”

Her current work focuses on sculpture and “para-painting,” a self-actualized collaging method that involves layering and piecing together various flat materials, such as placemats and paper scraps, that have been sanded down to reveal their layers and are then sometimes painted upon. Roan refers to this work as “para-painting” because she feels that it is more adjacent to painting than collage. “Para means beside…like paranormal,” she says playfully, adding that she spends far more time gluing these orphan objects together than focusing on the process of painting, which she considers only a microcosm of her work as an artist.

flappery, 2016 | found material, spray paint, acrylic, and paper on wood panel | Photo Kristine Roan

Kristine notes that the layered, textural landscape of her work often makes viewers want to touch the art. “Shelf-life,” her curated series of found objects and sculptures that, at first glance, looks like a shelf of plants, inspires onlookers to interact, to want to hold and rearrange. “I want [my work] to whisper, Come closer. Look closer,” she says. While her art is not interactive, Roan enjoys the tension between familiarity and curiosity in her found objects. Her practice also enables her to preserve objects that were once loved and later discarded, keeping them both out of landfills and in the minds of her viewers.

Roan’s work will be making an appearance at Distillery Gallery for an anti-Trump pop up show on inauguration day, but future shows are temporarily on hiatus. Since the election, she has felt slow to work, spending her time reading and reflecting, contemplating what direction she will move in as an artist. With the new year, however, she plans on jumping back on the artistic wagon.

stone, seed, and shriveling, 2015 | found material and polymer clay | Photo Kristine Roan

Kristine Roan is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Beverly, Massachusetts. Follow her on Instagram for more of her strange magic.

Top photo Kristine Roan | Photo by Jena Tegeler

The post Come Closer appeared first on Take Magazine.

When we talk about paintings, we often talk about their surface. What never much seems to matter are the materials that support the painting: the substructure, the varnish, the glue or screws that subtly frame and uplift the work. But what if a painting’s support materials were essentially the same as its surface materials? Artist Duncan Johnson uses the same pieces of wood, sourced from the same country landfills, for the fronts and backs of his works; it’s how those pieces integrate that determine which piece fits what role, separating support from surface, and raw wood from beautifully repurposed fine-art constructions.

Born in Barre, VT, Johnson returned to the Green Mountain State from Brooklyn, NY three years ago, buying a three-story, former paper mill depot turned thrift store in the small town of Bellows Falls and transforming it into a dynamic, functional studio. Moving from a revitalized urban area with very little space or source material to a state filled with forests and dilapidated, old New England houses was a big benefit to a craftsman working with found wood. “Vermont has such better access of options,” says Johnson, “things just not available in the city, even in the poorer neighborhoods. Those have been gobbled by real estate investors; it’s impossible for some kinds of artists to thrive.”

Found materials

Johnson is technically an assemblage artist, though he thinks of his current body of work as paintings. He uses regional materials, planes them down, then sets them together into new constructions. The pieces in his studio are like orphanages: each one a collection of abandoned waifs that had been rediscovered by Johnson, brought home and given a new life, a new family, and a new way of expressing themselves. “Each strip of wood has its own set of needs,” he explains, “and does its own kind of dance. I’m sort of a medium go-between, helping each piece figure out how to become part of the larger whole. Sometimes the pieces don’t want to comply, but it’s my job to convince them.”

The surface of Johnson’s finished artwork brings to mind a litany of master artists, including Piet Mondrian, Andy Goldsworthy, Louise Nevelson, and Richard Diebenkorn. It’s Diebenkorn, in particular, whose use of color, tonality, spacing, and pressurized weight that Johnson’s more recent work seems most indebted to. That said, Diebenkorn never worked with found wood, and was never forced to use what his walks in the country provided—making Johnson’s work all that much more remarkable given the limitations of chance (“I can only work with what I find”) that underlie his constructions.

Newport Tartan, 2016

Johnson’s current work, the Tartan Series, focuses on laying wood strip over wood strip in an organic grid pattern, building a three-dimensional depth to his art that marries his earlier sculptural pieces with his current flatter, more painterly constructions. “It has multiple entry points.” says Johnson. “You can like the material, or the found color with nothing added to it. Old, new, rough, smooth, it’s tight, it’s loose. When artwork has a lot of layers, even contradictions, we’re drawn to it. It’s surprising to us.” Again, chance underlies these pieces, as does each strip’s almost conscious point of view as to what it is and how it wants to play along. “There’s control and there’s no control. Pieces take on a life of their own. Letting go of your ego—I find that fascinating. Maybe there’s a certain laziness, but I just like to let the process take over.”

Duncan Johnson can be found on Instagram.

All images courtesy of Duncan Johnson

The post Into the Wood appeared first on Take Magazine.

The Museum plans to add, “…three object-study rooms, a sweeping public reception space, and a number of stunning new galleries, along with renovations to the existing Charles Moore galleries.” Hood Museum estimates the project will continue through 2018, culminating with a spectacular reopening gala in 2019, Dartmouth’s 250th anniversary.

Laetitia Soulier: The Fractal Architectures on view at Hood Downtown | Photo by Alison Palizzolo

Fortunately, due to the efforts of John Stomberg and many other folks working for Hood, the museum will continue exhibiting art in a newly opened space on Main street in Hanover New Hampshire named Hood Downtown. Though the space is a bit smaller than the soon-to-be-expanded Hood Museum, Hood Downtown will use its central location and strategic space as a platform for global contemporary art, or, as Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, curator of African Art, said, “We’re interested in showing living artists from all over the world. We wanted to make this inviting, bringing the global to the local.”

Smooth is the curator of the second exhibition to enter the new downtown space featuring Iranian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Bahar Behbahni titled Let the Garden Eram flourish. Mostly through painting, but also through objects and video, Behbahni captures the fraught majesty of these Persian or Iranian gardens and lends her own subjective, specific historical context to the green spaces. Filling Hood Downtown with redacted documents, paintings, and depictions of reimagined historical timelines, Bahar seeks to show not only her work inspired by the reality of the gardens but also, according to Smooth, “the objects that served as an inspiration for the exhibition.”

Bahar Behbahani, Chronicle of the Garden, from the Let the Garden Eram Flourish series, 2016

Hood Downtown will continue with programming contemporary art for Dartmouth students and the broader community until the expansion at the Hood Museum is complete. Until then, keep track of their Upcoming Exhibitions at Hood Downtown. 

Hood Downtown is a new, temporary exhibition space on 53 Main Street, Hanover New Hampshire. Let the Garden Eram Flourish will be on view at Hood Downtown January 12, 2016 through March 12, 2017. Check out the Hood Museum at Darthmouth’s Facebook page for updates on the expansion and up-coming exhibitions.

All photos courtesy Hood Museum

The post Hood is Downtown…For Now appeared first on Take Magazine.

Victor Pacheco, one of our artists to watch in 2016, impressed Take Magazine and executive director of Real Art Ways in Connecticut Will K. Wilkins with his imaginative and informative paintings. Back in our December/January 2016 print issue, we highlighted some of his artistic renderings of natural gas wells which, according to Wilkins, “captures awe-inspiring technology and raises discussion about the environmental impact of our search for carbon-based energy.”

It’s about time we check in with Victor.

Sculpture by Victor Pacheco for the Worcester Water Infrastructure Project

In 2016, Pacheco, raised in Hartford, Connecticut continued this artistic analysis of our built environment through his sculpture project in his new home – Worcester. Always half artist, half researcher, Victor used a materials grant from the ArtsWorcester to create sculptures based on the city’s winding scheme of pipes. His work comes at a pivotal time for the city given its current issues with water resources, “I started to do some work looking at water systems where I live, looking at Worcester’s water infrastructure, and developing some larger scale work around the water system…this year particularly was pretty bad year in terms of drought.”

Victor’s work we highlighted last year, and his sculpture work with the City of Worcester, attempt to use art as a means of communicating complex ideas about resource use and the impact humans have on the environment. Pacheco’s work artistically analyzes systems, using expression as a means to illuminate portions of our built environment that we cannot see, or choose to ignore. “There’s a huge series of pipe systems that go underground and into our house that we don’t really think about. The network of pipes that deliver and transport water in and out of our homes is a crucial element in our everyday routine. Because our water infrastructure is so vast, it doesn’t feel real.” said Victor, “…these sculptures show that on a manageable scale for someone to look at.”

Sculpture by Victor Pacheco for the Worcester Water Infrastructure Project

Over the next year, Victor plans to create work that’s a bit divergent from this creative look at infrastructure. The artist hasn’t exhibited a lot this year because he’s planning and preparing a massive installation for 2018. Victor plans to create many large-scale multimedia works that explore how technology is changing the way we interact with each other, using frogs as a creative stand-in for humans.

“I started using frogs in my work about three or four years ago. I did a series on small frogs based on some commission work and people really took an interest to it – which was a really refreshing to me since I do a lot of serious work…work that is theoretical and based on research. Making frogs and using frogs totally changes the way in which people approach art…it’s more welcoming.”

Having already unveiled a five-foot cyborg frog, Take eagerly looks forward to what Victor Pacheco plans for the next year…or two.

Unfinished sculpture for Victor Pacheco’s 2018 exhibition

Victor Pacheco is a multi-media artist from New Haven Connecticut. Follow Victor on Facebook and Twitter for all cybor-frog-related updates. 

All photos courtesy of the artist

The post The Art of Science with Victor Pacheco appeared first on Take Magazine.

There are plenty of places throughout New England where art junkies and collectors can access work from important and popular artists, alive and dead. Abigail Ogilvy offers patrons of her Boston gallery and art collectors a different experience; the opportunity to show, see and purchase art by our region’s emerging artists. She’s our direct line to these soon-to-be-famous artists and provides space for developing artists first individual or group show – those crucial moments of initial exposure in an ever-changing art market.

Mini Panda Yeux Violets, 2015 | 10.2 x 10.6 x 3.1 in., 3,600 straws

After graduating from Dartmouth with a degree in art history, Abigail began her career in the art world working for two galleries in Florence, Italy where she learned the art and science of representing living artists. After spending some time working in other adjacent industries and startups, Abigail decided it was time to start her own thing – a contemporary art gallery that focused on emerging and mid-career artists.

Abigail started by doing at least two to three studio visits a week, building mutually beneficial relationships with local artists. Now, after just one year of operation, Abigail’s dedication is paying off, “In just one year, three artists made it into the museum of fine arts summer auction,” said Abigail, “our artists [have been] picked up by other galleries and have been featured in other shows around the city…another one of my artists received the Fay Chandler Award.”

Framed Blue, 2015 by Katie Wild | Oil and acrylic on Plexiglas with paper collage and mixed media, 72 x 36 inches

In addition to showing and representing emerging artists, Abigail seeks to make the downtown Boston arts scene more accessible to all kinds of people. She accomplishes this through her programming at the gallery, hosting over 40 events in the last year ranging from artists talks to flower arranging classes. According to Abigail, it’s all a part of her strategy to diversify and enliven the Boston arts scene, “having events that aren’t necessarily just about the art – a combination of some sort of programming and the art, it get’s people in the door.”

In addition to broadening her audience of arts patrons and makers, Abigail also strategically works to lend gravity and importance to her emerging artists in the wildly competitive, nebulous art market. When curating group shows, Abigail mixes in lesser-known artists’ work with the work of more popular artists as a way to prioritize and legitimate the work of her emerging and mid-career folks. This selective and strategic arrangement asks audiences to contextualize the work of the undiscovered with that of the well-respected, “…it’s strategic in that I want people to think very highly of our gallery and our artists because they truly deserve that recognition.”

Town + Country, 2015 by Holly Harrison | 14 x 11 in., Mixed Media on Wood Panel

Over the next year, Abigail plans to bring her work outside the walls of her gallery and into other parts of Boston’s South End. She wants to bring her signature programming and novel artists’ work to new spaces all over the city like the Millennium Tower. It is in these new spaces where Abigail will engage new audiences and continue her invaluable work – ensuring the success of our next generation of artists.

Abigail Ogilvy is the curator and owner at ABIGAIL OGILVY GALLERY in Boston Massachusetts. Be sure to keep up with her rigorous line up of events and numerous exhibitions via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

All images courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

The post The Art of Emergence appeared first on Take Magazine.