Winners were announced at the New England Art Awards Ball in Somerville, Mass., March 1, 2012. Full results 
After Vollis Simpson retired, he began filling his North Carolina property with astonishing, giant, graceful whirligigs. “When I built it, I didn’t know anything about art; I still don’t,” he said in 2010 of the first one he constructed. An incredible artist. And a great inspiration to us here. He died Friday evening at his Lucama farm, at the age of 94. Goodbye.
Goodbye, Mr. Simpson
June 2nd, 2013Can a curator make it big by looking locally?
May 27th, 2013Answer: Former Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art chief curator Paul Schimmel, Jori Finkel writes in The Los Angeles Times,
“made his name for championing important L.A. artists such as McCarthy, Chris Burden, Mike Kelley and Charles Ray and taking on big, sweeping themes in contemporary art. His ambitious, generation-defining surveys for MOCA include the 1998 performance-art extravaganza ‘Out of Actions,’ the 2005 altered-states show ‘Ecstasy’ and the 2011 survey of the 1970s Californian art diaspora, ‘Under the Big Black Sun.’ In addition, Schimmel organized major traveling shows of artists Robert Rauschenberg, Willem de Kooning and Takashi Murakami. L.A. Times art critic Christopher Knight has called Schimmel ‘a prime reason for the museum’s stellar international reputation. No curator working in the United States today has a more impressive record of exhibitions and acquisitions in the field of art since 1950 than Schimmel.’”
Wake Up the Earth Festival
May 4th, 2013
The 34th annual Wake Up the Earth Festival was held today at Southwest Corridor Park near the Stonybrook T stop in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. It featured a parade and maypole dance, as well as music and vendors. As organizer Spontaneous Celebrations notes, the festival “began in 1979 when a group of local neighbors and activists banded together to stop the Interstate 95 expansion into Jamaica Plain. The festival began as, and still is, a celebration of what can be accomplished when people of all traditions, cultures, ages, and beliefs come together.”
Photos by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research.
Previously: Our photos of the 2010 Wake Up the Earth Festival.
Victoria Shen’s “Modernist Manicures”
March 25th, 2013
From our report on Victoria Shen’s “Modernist Manicures”:
“It was really meant to be a tongue-in-cheek thing,” Somerville artist Victoria Shen tells me.
Through March 30, the 23-year-old School of the Museum of Fine Arts graduate is taking appointments for free “Modernist Manicures” at the Howard Art Project in Boston’s Fields Corner neighborhood. (For booking, e-mail ModernistMani@gmail.com.) “Each manicure is an opportunity to meditate over the Modernist legacy,” the announcement explains, “while sprawling canvases of the early 20th century are recreated in miniature on your hands.”
At this pop-up nail spa, you can select abstract paintings by star 20th century artists—Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann, Kazimir Malevich, Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly, Piet Mondrian—that Shen will copy onto your nails.
Read the rest here.
Photos by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research.
Poor Yokelist’s Almanack: Upcoming Events
March 25th, 2013Monday, March 25, 6 p.m.
Patricia Hickson, contemporary art curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, speaks at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts’ Mission Hill Building, 160 Saint Alphonsus St., Boston.
Tuesday, March 26, 12:30 p.m.
Bill Arning, director the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and formerly curator at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center, speaks at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Alfond Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Tuesday, March 26, 6:30 p.m.
Futurefarmers founder Amy Franceschini speaks at Boston University’s Morse Auditorium, 602 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. Free.
Wednesday, March 27, 6:30 p.m.
Photographer Neal Rantoul speaks about his recent work at Boston University’s College of Arts & Sciences, room 522, 705 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. $10.
Thursday, March 28, 12:15 p.m.
Local artist and filmmaker Roberto Mighty screens his short film “First Contact” at Old South Meeting House, 301 Washington St., Boston.
Thursday, March 28, 12:30 p.m.
Painter Thomas Eggerer speaks at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Alfond Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Thursday, March 28, 6 p.m.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts curator Elliot Bostwick Davis speaks about “The Art of the Americas Wing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Designs of the Past, Present and Future” at the Boston Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon St., Boston.
Friday, March 29, 11:30 a.m.
Artist Mr NVR speaks at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.
Friday, March 29, noon
Filmmaker Stacey Steers speaks at Tufts University’s Fung House, 48 Professors Row, Medford, Massachusetts.
Friday, March 29, 1 p.m.
Debora Wood speaks about “Bits on Paper: A Survey of the Digital Print” at the University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum, 61 Colchester Ave., Burlington, Vermont.
Tuesday, April 2, 11:30 a.m.
Artist Bob Staake speaks at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.
Tuesday, April 2, 12:30 p.m.
Lead Pencil Studio of Seattle speaks at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Alfond Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Tuesday, April 2, 6 p.m.
Artist Ann Hamilton speaks at MassArt’s Posen Center for Interrelated Media, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Greg Cook cartooning workshop
March 4th, 2013
If you happen to live in Malden, Massachusetts, and are a teen (or have a convincing fake ID), join NEJAR’s Greg Cook for a free cartooning workshop on Monday, March 18. Sign up by sending a note here. It’s part of the city’s “Malden Reads” project.
Poor Yokelist’s Almanack: Upcoming Events
March 4th, 2013Monday, March 4, 6 p.m.
“Life in the Art World: Life Magazine and Modern American Art” at the Nichols House Museum of the American Meteorological Society, 45 Beacon St., Boston.
Monday, March 4, 6:30 p.m.
“Designing an Institute for Performance” with Marina Abramovic and Shohei Shigematsu of OMA, NYC, at Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Monday, March 4, 6:30 p.m.
Photojournalist Ellen Shub, who “has been documenting women making history for 40 years,” discusses her work during an opening reception of her exhibit “Women Making History: Portraits and Protests, 1974-2013” at the Connolly Branch of the Boston Public Library, 433 Centre St., Jamaica Plain. Free. The exhibit runs from March 1 to 30, 2013.
Tuesday, March 5, 6 p.m.
Jay Gordon, co-founder of the Bodega boutique in Boston, speaks at Artists For Humanity EpiCenter
100 West Second Street, Boston. Free.
Wednesday, March 6, 6:30 p.m.
Zaha Hadid speaks at Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Wednesday, March 6, 11:30 a.m.
Mary Kosut speaks at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.
Wednesday, March 6, 6:30 p.m.
Andi Sutton and Jane Marsching of Plotform host “Stitching the Shore,” an evening to collaborative crocheting to consider how global warming is affecting Boston Harbor, at Boston University’s 808 Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. Free. Details: http://www.plotformplot.org/stitching-the-shore-event/
Wednesday, March 6, 7 p.m.
Sound artist Stephen Vitiello speaks at Brown University’s Kooper Studio in the Granoff Building, N430, 154 Angell St., Providence. Free.
Thursday, March 7, 12:30 p.m.
Painter Julia Jacquette speaks at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Alfond Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Thursday, March 7, 6 p.m.
Janet Marie Smith, a Red Sox executive who oversaw the preservation of Fenway Park, speaks about the architecture of public spaces at the Boston Public Library central branch’s Rabb Lecture Hall, 700 Boylston St., Boston. Free.
Thursday and Friday, March 7 and 8
“Putting Public Space in its Place,” Harvard Graduate School of Design Conference on public space. At Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Saturday, March 9, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
“Creative Feminisms: Art, Activism and Everyday Action” conference at URI Providence Campus, 80 Washington St., Providence.
Sunday, March 10, 2 p.m.
David Lasry, founder of Two Palms Press in New York, and master printmaker Craig Zammiello discuss the process of producing prints such as those featured in “Stone, Wood, Metal, Mesh: Prints and Printmaking” at the Addision Gallery, Phillips Academy, 180 Main St., Andover.
Monday, March 11, 6 p.m.
Amy Sadao, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, speaks at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts’ Mission Hill Building, 160 Saint Alphonsus St., Boston.
Tuesday, March 12, 6 p.m.
Hina Hirayama, Associate Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Boston Athenæum speaks about “With Éclat: The Boston Athenæum and the Origin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” at the Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon St., Boston.
The Boston Urban Iditarod
March 2nd, 2013
“We’re all about running,” Jessica Downey said, “and drinking and looking ridiculous.”
“It’s like volunteer Halloween,” added Amanda Estano, her teammate on the “Fitness Fiesta” crew (pictured above), which had arrived at Whiskey’s Steakhouse on Boylston Street after completing the first leg of the Boston Urban Iditarod this morning.
The madcap race is inspired by the famous annual Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska. Except instead dogs and sleds, it’s teams of four to six costumed competitors pushing a decorated shopping cart on a 3 ½ mile course around downtown Boston.
Read the rest and see more photos here.
All photos by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research.
Poor Yokelist’s Almanack: Upcoming Events
February 27th, 2013Wednesday, Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m.
Mark J. Stock, “a scientist, programmer, and artist who creates still and moving images combining elements of nature, physics, chaos, computation, and algorithm,” speaks about “Generative Art Using Computational Physics” as part of the Art Technology New England Salon Series at Boston Cyberarts Gallery, 141 Green St., Boston. Free.
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 12:15 p.m.
Artist Faiza Butt talks to Tom Bourdon, director of the Tufts LGBT Center, about “gender, politics and sexuality in contemporary Pakistan” at Tufts University, Alumnae Lounge, near 40 Talbot Ave.,
Medford, Massachusetts.
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 6 p.m.
Alison Saar speaks at MassArt’s Tower Auditorium, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 12:30 p.m.
Artist Andrea Geyer speaks at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Alfond Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 4 p.m.
Artist Faiza Butt speaks at Tufts University’s Aidekman Arts Center, 40 Talbot Ave.,
Medford, Massachusetts.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 4:15 p.m.
“Are Arts Relevant in a 21st Century World?,” a panel discussion with Jim Bildner, Carol Colette, Lawrence McGill and Dennis Scholl, Harvard’s Kennedy School, Taubman, NYE A, 5th floor, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 6 p.m.
Larua Frahm presents “Gropius Stereoscopic Slide Performance,” a “mini-talk on the Bauhaus and the Carpenter Center,” at Harvard’s Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 6 p.m.
Artists Louise Lawler and Haim Steinbach, along with David Joselit and Helen Molesworth speak about the exhibit “This Will Have Been” at the ICA, 100 Northern Ave., Boston.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 7 p.m.
Johan Cederlund, director of the Zorn Collections in Mora, Sweden, speaks about “Zorngården: Anders Zorn’s Artist Home” at the Gardner Museum, 280 the Fenway, Boston.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 7 p.m.
Artists Kristin Breiseth, Mark Stock and Laura Wulf speak about their show at 13 Forest Gallery, 167A Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, Massachusetts.
Monday, March 2, 7 p.m.
Reenactment of Boston Massacre at Old State House, State Street and Washington Street, Boston.
Sunday, March 3, 2 p.m.
Artist Stephen Prina speaks at the Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave., Boston.
Monday, March 4, 6 p.m.
“Life in the Art World: Life Magazine and Modern American Art” at the Nichols House Museum of the American Meteorological Society, 45 Beacon St., Boston.
Monday, March 4, 6:30 p.m.
“Designing an Institute for Performance” with Maria Abramovic and Shohei Shigematsu of OMA, NYC, at Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Monday, March 4, 6:30 p.m.
Photojournalist Ellen Shub, who “has been documenting women making history for 40 years,” discusses her work during an opening reception of her exhibit “Women Making History: Portraits and Protests, 1974-2013” at the Connolly Branch of the Boston Public Library, 433 Centre St., Jamaica Plain. Free. The exhibit runs from March 1 to 30, 2013.
Poor Yokelist’s Almanack: Upcoming Events
February 18th, 2013Monday, Feb. 18, 7:30 p.m
Sprout holds a spaghetti dinner and discussion on the theme of “Trash” at 339R Summer St., Somerville, Massachusetts.
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 12:30 p.m.
Filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson speaks at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Remis Auditorium, 465 Huntinton Ave., Boston.
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1 p.m.
The Massachusetts Cultural Council presents its 2013 Commonwealth Awards at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 5 p.m.
Bruce Brown, Suzette McAvoy and Edgar Beem speak about the exhibit “Maine Women Pioneers III” at the University of New England Art Gallery, 716 Stevens Ave., Portland, Maine. Free.
Wednesday, Feb. 20, 12:15 p.m.
Performance artist Adina Bar-On speaks at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, room b-209, 230 The Fenway, Boston.
Wednesday, Feb. 20, 7 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts curator Eliot Bostwick Davis and Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists Director Edmund Barry Gaither speak about “Lois Mailou Jones as Pioneer and Friend” at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Thursday, Feb. 21, 6 p.m.
Beatriz Colomina speaks on “Towards a Global Architect” at Harvard’s Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Friday, Feb. 22, 11:30 a.m.
Artist David Gatten speaks at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.
Friday and Saturday, Feb. 22 and 23
“WinterFest” in Lowell, Massachusetts, includes “National Human Dogsled Competition.”
Monday, Feb. 25, 6 p.m.
Los Angeles artist and curator Young Chung speaks at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Room 112, Mission Hill Building, 160 Saint Alphonsus St., Boston.
Tuesday, Feb. 26, 6:30 p.m.
French landscape designer Michel Desvigne speaks at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Tuesday, Feb. 26, 12:30 p.m.
Nayland Blake speaks at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Alfond Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Poor Yokelist’s Almanack: Upcoming Events
February 11th, 2013Thursday, Feb. 12, 11:30 a.m.
Artist Justin Durrand speaks at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.
Tuesday, Feb. 12, 4 to 6 p.m.
The Camden Philosophical Society meets at the Camden Public Library, 55 Main St., Camden, Maine, to discuss the writings of philosopher Lucian Krukowski and artist Robert Motherwell. The society’s monthly readings this year “are concentrating on philosophy and art in preparation for their 2013 conference on that theme.”
Saturday, Feb. 16, 11 a.m.
Photographers Tillman Crane, Alan Vlach, and Brenton Hamilton discuss “combining the latest in digital technologies with a variety of historic processes available during Winslow Homer’s lifetime to create original photographs” at the Portland Museum of Art, 7 Congress Square, Portland, Maine.
Saturday, Feb. 16, 1 p.m.
Marc Tyler Nobleman speaks about his book “Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman” at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, 125 West Bay Road, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Saturday, Feb. 16, 1 to 4 p.m.
Artist Daniel Cooney speaks about “The Business of Art: Careers in Comics” at the Norman Rockwell Museum, 9 Route 183, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. $25.
Sunday, Feb. 17, noon and 4 p.m.
The Somerville Arts Council’s “Copy Cat Festival” celebrates “the profound cultural contributions of cats” with cat videos—produced locally and globally—but also cat stories, cat limericks and a slideshow of local cats. At Arts at the Armory, 191 Higland Ave., Somerville, Massachusetts.
Sunday, Feb. 17, 3 p.m.
Pat Hills speaks with Danforth Museum Director Katherine French about artist John Wilson at the Danforth, 123 Union Ave., Framingham, Mass.
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1 p.m.
The Massachusetts Cultural Council presents its 2013 Commonwealth Awards at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
Wednesday, Feb. 20, 7 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts curator Eliot Bostwick Davis and Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists Director Edmund Barry Gaither speak about “Lois Mailou Jones as Pioneer and Friend” at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.
Dang! Snow*ennial CANCELLED
February 10th, 2013
Unfortunately because MBTA train and bus service “remains suspended on all modes” today, we’re going to have to cancel this morning’s planned snow sculpting “Snow*ennial.” Much to our shame and regret. But the truth is we’d be unable to get there ourselves without public transit as Boston’s Dewey Square is rather far from from The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research’s New England headquarters in Malden. Sorry for any inconvenience. Stay warm and safe.
If no public transit tomorrow, we’ll have to postpone Snow-ennial
February 9th, 2013
Update: We’ll have to postpone tomorrow’s snow sculpting “Snow-ennial” if MBTA public transit is not up and running Sunday morning. We contacted the MBTA to ask whether trains will be running tomorrow, and an MBTA spokesman told us right before 5 p.m.: “No decision has been made at this point, but you should not expect it.” We’ll check in with the MBTA early tomorrow morning and then confirm our plans with an announcement here. Stay warm, everyone.
More snow business
February 9th, 2013
In addition to our Snow-ennial planned for tomorrow, some other snowy events are going on this weekend around Boston.
Banditos Misteriosos, the folks behind annual giant pillow-fight, have invited folks to Somerville’s Seven Hills park today to build “lots and lots of snowmen … to fulfill our destiny: building a snowman army.” (Pre-event model pictured above.)
And some folks are trying to organize the “Biggest Snowball Fight in the World” at noon tomorrow on Boston Common.
And today Artisan’s Asylum got people together for “Post-snowstorm Playtime” in Somerville’s Union Square today.