Art Review: COLOR at City hall

Somerville's latest mayor is either (a) a DemiGod of Community Outreach, (b) sucking up to us something fierce or (c) has no life.

Job: Mayor. Hobby: Mayor.

I'm not sure. He shakes my hand at nearly every public Somerville event I attend. He turned up with DPW when a tree fell on hauntmeister's street. (I'll even take a furtive look around The Diesel before I greet Sprout as Mr. Mayor. You never know when Handshake Man will appear.)

Ok, I guess Dot was everywhere too. Or, at least her name was. Maybe his is too and it's merely not as noticable as labeling everything "Gay". (Thank SO Much, Junior High School Indoctrination! sigh)

Among his solid good points is hosting regular art shows at City Hall, to showcase our scads of resident artists. Somewhat less impressive now that I know the offices are open late on Thursday anyway. Still, there's neat Official Mayor Swag in his office, even if the art bores. (Lots of stuporbowl stuff this time.)

::

Having the theme be "color" is broader than, say, "rectangular", at least if the requirement is akin to "must contain color" as opposed to "must be about color", which it seemed to be. Nattering about the cohesiveness of theme obliged inward chuckles.

Not that it wasn't nice work, livening up institutional walls (and windows).

Daniel Maher's stained glass pieces were nice, but his work is more about playing with light (which makes night viewing suboptimal), or working with recycled glass to create a narrative.

There were pieces in the stairwells that seemed mostly black and white, with orange accents. Colorful, I guess. They seemed too odd to truly "brighten the dwindling days of winter". Several pieces inferred insects, which would be reasons to lament the arrrival of spring.

However, the show did introduce me to the works of Resa Blatman, specifically a piece called In the lush. Check out the well-done web site. The overly abstract pieces don't grab me, but I rather like the plant studies. Brightly colorful, cheery and springlike, which was what I expected from the entire show.

Perhaps I'm just still bitter about arriving too late to see the Somerville Gates when they were brought there last week...

Art Review: COLOR at City hall

Somerville's latest mayor is either (a) a DemiGod of Community Outreach, (b) sucking up to us something fierce or (c) has no life.

Job: Mayor. Hobby: Mayor.

I'm not sure. He shakes my hand at nearly every public Somerville event I attend. He turned up with DPW when a tree fell on hauntmeister's street. (I'll even take a furtive look around The Diesel before I greet Sprout as Mr. Mayor. You never know when Handshake Man will appear.)

Ok, I guess Dot was everywhere too. Or, at least her name was. Maybe his is too and it's merely not as noticable as labeling everything "Gay". (Thank SO Much, Junior High School Indoctrination! sigh)

Among his solid good points is hosting regular art shows at City Hall, to showcase our scads of resident artists. Somewhat less impressive now that I know the offices are open late on Thursday anyway. Still, there's neat Official Mayor Swag in his office, even if the art bores. (Lots of stuporbowl stuff this time.)

::

Having the theme be "color" is broader than, say, "rectangular", at least if the requirement is akin to "must contain color" as opposed to "must be about color", which it seemed to be. Nattering about the cohesiveness of theme obliged inward chuckles.

Not that it wasn't nice work, livening up institutional walls (and windows).

Daniel Maher's stained glass pieces were nice, but his work is more about playing with light (which makes night viewing suboptimal), or working with recycled glass to create a narrative.

There were pieces in the stairwells that seemed mostly black and white, with orange accents. Colorful, I guess. They seemed too odd to truly "brighten the dwindling days of winter". Several pieces inferred insects, which would be reasons to lament the arrrival of spring.

However, the show did introduce me to the works of Resa Blatman, specifically a piece called In the lush. Check out the well-done web site. The overly abstract pieces don't grab me, but I rather like the plant studies. Brightly colorful, cheery and springlike, which was what I expected from the entire show.

Perhaps I'm just still bitter about arriving too late to see the Somerville Gates when they were brought there last week...

TheaterZone Gallery

I also went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead last night. (Oddly, I've never seen the show, or made it farther into reading the play beyond "Heads. Heads. Heads.") A puzzler friend is in the cast, so it shouldn't've surprised me to bump into luckylefty or Ucaoimhu.

The gallery show (which I can't find mention of anywhere online -- their own site is out of date) was sort of folkart nightmares about what America has become since September 2001. Really cheery stuff. Um, yeah.

The show was well-performed. Although I don't know if I'm too simple or too jaded for the philosophy of the play.

TheaterZone Gallery

I also went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead last night. (Oddly, I've never seen the show, or made it farther into reading the play beyond "Heads. Heads. Heads.") A puzzler friend is in the cast, so it shouldn't've surprised me to bump into luckylefty or Ucaoimhu.

The gallery show (which I can't find mention of anywhere online -- their own site is out of date) was sort of folkart nightmares about what America has become since September 2001. Really cheery stuff. Um, yeah.

The show was well-performed. Although I don't know if I'm too simple or too jaded for the philosophy of the play.

Art Reviews: Copley Society & Matt Clark

Since I'd decided to lunch at LUSH anyway... (and didn't pick anything up for fangirl715, and she's trying to get my tickets to NIN today, ergo I suck. I suppose I could bring her back after the ticket line...)

There I was, back on Newbury Street...

The Copley Society has some wonderful photos by Adrianne (and Jamie) Fernandez. The current exhibit is in the process of being taken down, giving it an extra-special transient quality.

However, Matt Clark's work at the Kidder-Smith is just going up. (The reception is tonight, but... I'll be commiserating over the NIN stuff by then.) It's a bunch of mostly single-colored canvases. Big brushstrokes, real yawners of pomposity in most cases.

Not this time.

Because of this piece.
Sure, a big azure expanse sucked me into the gallery, and I did scrutinize edges of the canvases to figure out how many layers of other colors there were underneath...

But that rusty brownish one will Mess With Your Head. You can almost tell from the photo. It looks like deep layers of wax and glaze over rust and wood and... minutes pass while you try to figure when today someone slipped hallucinogens in your food. It's wicked!

(Kidder-smith also had a copy of the Gallery Guide, which might help with these lunchtime art forays.)

Art Reviews: Copley Society & Matt Clark

Since I'd decided to lunch at LUSH anyway... (and didn't pick anything up for fangirl715, and she's trying to get my tickets to NIN today, ergo I suck. I suppose I could bring her back after the ticket line...)

There I was, back on Newbury Street...

The Copley Society has some wonderful photos by Adrianne (and Jamie) Fernandez. The current exhibit is in the process of being taken down, giving it an extra-special transient quality.

However, Matt Clark's work at the Kidder-Smith is just going up. (The reception is tonight, but... I'll be commiserating over the NIN stuff by then.) It's a bunch of mostly single-colored canvases. Big brushstrokes, real yawners of pomposity in most cases.

Not this time.

Because of this piece.
Sure, a big azure expanse sucked me into the gallery, and I did scrutinize edges of the canvases to figure out how many layers of other colors there were underneath...

But that rusty brownish one will Mess With Your Head. You can almost tell from the photo. It looks like deep layers of wax and glaze over rust and wood and... minutes pass while you try to figure when today someone slipped hallucinogens in your food. It's wicked!

(Kidder-smith also had a copy of the Gallery Guide, which might help with these lunchtime art forays.)