We will be announcing the winners of the 2011 New England Art Awards on Thursday, and we hope you’ll be there. The Art Awards Ball is at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 1, 2012, at the Burren, 247 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts. The event is free and open to all. Dress creatively! Dress to impress! The evening will include performances by The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band, Zayde Buti and Jessica Gath, plus a surprise.

The Art Awards are a contest we organize to honor the best art made here, local writing about local art, and exhibits of New England art organized here in 2011. It is an open-source, community project: anyone can make nominations, and anyone can vote. Winners were picked by the votes of 2,876 people (including art writers, critics and bloggers). The New England Art Awards. A fuller explanation of the process is here.

Voting is now closed, but the full ballot is below:

ARTIST
Book
Jacob Berendes editor, “Mothers News.
David Degrand, Bob Flynn and Dan Moynihan “Heeby Jeeby Comix #3”
Derek Fenner and Ryan Gallagher editors “Young Angel Midnight,” Bootstrap Press
C.F. “Sediment”
Beth Krommes, illustrator, “Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature,” published by Houghton Mifflin, 2011.
Riverbird Studios “Hellbound 2”

Career survey
“Will Barnet at 100” Portland Museum of Art
Paul Caponigro “The Hidden Presence of Places” Farnsworth Art Museum
“Edward Koren: The Capricious Line” Fleming Museum, University of Vermont
Annette Lemieux “The Strange Life of Objects” Worcester Art Museum
“Madeleine de Sinéty: Photographs” Portland Museum of Art
Rachel Perry Welty “24/7” DeCordova

Drawing, printmaking, collage
Sophia Ainslie “Inside Out” at Kingston Gallery
Pat Falco in Flourish: Works On Paper, Bakalar Gallery, Boston, MA
Steve Mumford “Embedded” Center for Maine Contemporary Art
John O’Reilly “Two Kindred Spirits” Howard Yezerski
Andrew Raftery, “Open House,” Fleming Museum, UVM
Jay Zehngebot “Our Sentry,” organized by R.K. Projects

Installation
Elizabeth Alexander “Keeping Up Appearances: The Mean Reds” in “Home Sweet Home,” Montserrat
Mark Cooper “More is More” Samson
Dan Dowd “Anna Hepler’s Head” Coleman Burke, Brunswick, Maine
Lauren Fensterstock at Ogunquit Museum and Aucocisco Galleries, Maine Soo Sunny Park and Spencer Topel “Capturing Resonance” DeCordova
Willa Van Nosstrand and Shawn Gilheeny at Dirt Palace

New media
Karen Aqua (1954-2011) “A Tribute to Boston Animator Karen Aqua” at Boston ICA, Sept. 25
Sid Ceaser “Muppet Wedding & Honeymoon”
Louisa Conrad in “Shifting Terrain: Landscape Video” Currier Museum.
Georgie Friedman “Above the Clouds,” Carroll and Sons and Anthony Greaney, Boston
Andrew Neumann “I’ve No Use for Flowers” MEME
Otto Piene “Lichtballett” MIT

Painting
Brian Chippendale in “In Habitat” at Buonaccorsi + Agniel
Tim Clorius in “Conversation Piece”, Aucocisco Galleries, Portland
Sam Duket “Among the Breakage” Brown
Jungil Hong in “In Habitat” at Buonaccorsi + Agniel
Scott Lenhardt “Good House” at BCA Center, Burlington
Ross Normandin in “Real Spider, Real Web,” Bromfield Gallery, Boston.
Arley-Rose Torsone “Mixed Messages” Craftland

Performance or spectacle
Dirk Adams “Memends Event” MEME
Bread and Puppet circus and pageant, Glover, Vermont.
Nell Breyer “A Dance Within Sol LeWitt’s Bars of Colors Withn Squares (MIT)”
Jessica Gath “For You I Feel Lucky” Hallway, Boston
Jamie Horgan and Alexander DeMaria “Frequency Deconstruction” “Middle Kingdom Presents…” Anthony Greaney
The Steel Yard’s annual Halloween Iron Pour featuring the Iron Guild, Providence

Photography
Scott Alario “Our Fable” AS220
Kelly Burgess “Notes on Change” Splash, Boston
Heather Gray “Pin-Up” Falls Gallery, Winoosky, VT
Jon Levitt “GrassDoe” Gallery 37-A, Portland
Mark Marchesi “Slack Water: Photographs of the Portland Waterfront” Space
Laura McPhee “Something About Love” Carroll and Sons

Promising new talent
Buck Hastings in “We’re Going to Make Some Big Decisions…” Providence
Ethan Hayes-Chute “Stopgap and Steadfast” at Center for Maine Contemporary Art
Rachel Herrick “Museum for Obeast Conservation Studies” ICA at Maine College of Art
Jae Rhim Lee in “Artistic Research” MIT
Laura Swanson, “Homemade Bull” 2011 RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition
Jay Zehngebot “Our Sentry,” organized by R.K. Projects

Public exposure (public performance, sculpture, street art, scandalous arrest, etc.)
Banditos Misteriosos “Choose Your Own Time-venture” Boston
Damian Cote “Mass Militia Banners” hung from regional highway overpasses
Craigslist ad: Will trade missing LePage sign for labor mural
Tim Devin “Broadsides” posted around Boston
Neil Horsky and Urbano “The Freedom Trail on Trial” Urbano
Occupy Boston, Occupy Providence, Occupy Maine etc.
Arley-Rose Torsone “R.I. Blows,” “We hate gay people”

Sculpture
Antoniadis and Stone “Animal Mother” Sherman Gallery at BU, Boston, MA
Alisa Dworsky, “Drawing Strength” BCA Center, Burlington, VT
Joshua Enck “The Gesture Contained” University of Maine Museum of Art
Carly Glovinski “Decoy” June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Maine
Randy Regier “Dime Star” SPACE, Maine
Cody Thompson “Witch Doctor” Craftland

Solo show by a local artist (or collaborative)
Antoniadis and Stone “Animal Mother” Sherman Gallery at BU, Boston, MA
Jacob Berendes editor, “Mothers News”
Mark Cooper “More is More” Samson
Lauren Fensterstock at Ogunquit Museum and Aucocisco Galleries, Maine
Carly Glovinski “Decoy” June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Maine
Annette Lemieux “The Strange Life of Objects” Worcester Art Museum
Otto Piene “Lichtballett” MIT
Cody Thompson “Witch Doctor” Craftland

Standout work by a local artist in a group show
Elizabeth Alexander in “Home Sweet Home” Montserrat
Philip Brou in “2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial”
Brian Chippendale in “In Habitat” Buonaccorsi + Agniel
Samantha Fields in “Home Sweet Home” Montserrat
Jungil Hong in “In Habitat” Buonaccorsi + Agniel
Pippi Zornoza in “Building Expectation” at Brown

ART WRITER
Book by a local writer about local art
Debra Bricker Balken, “John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury”
Leonie Bradbury “Home Sweet Home”
Carl Little, “Eric Hopkins: Above and Beyond”
John Maeda with Becky Bermont, “Redesigning Leadership” : Design, Technology, Business, Life”

Essay by a local writer about locally-made art
Edgar Allen Beem “Wyeth Family Genius” The Saturday Evening Post
Sarah Hwang “Flush with the Walls at the Museum of Fine Arts” Berkshire Fine Arts
Annie Larmon on Lauren Fensterstock
Caleb Neelon “Bread and Puppet” Juxtapoz
John Pyper “Otto Piene and Hans Haacke at MIT” Dailyserving
Lucas Spivey “Embedding Experience”

CURATOR
Concept/theme show
Nina Bozicnik, “Shifting Terrain: Landscape Video” Currier Museum
Leonie Bradbury “Home Sweet Home” Montserrat
Maggie Cavallo, “Holy Ghost” Montserrat
Shawn Gilheeney “Were Going to Make Some Big Decisions…” 1 Sims Ave., Providence
Viera Levitt “We Talk About Architecture, Architecture Talks Back” Community College of RI
Joanna Marinova Jones, “Anonymous Boston” at Fourth Wall Project, Boston
Liz Munsell “Close Distance” BCA

Historical show
Debra Bricker Balken, “John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury,” Portland Museum of Art
Susan Danly, “Maine Moderns: Art in Seguinland, 1900-1940” at Portland Museum of Art
Thomas Denenberg, “Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection” Portland Museum of Art
Trevor Fairbrother, “John O’Reilly & Marsden Hartley: Two Kindred Spirits” Howard Yezerski
Kevin Salatino and Diane Tuite “Edward Hopper’s Maine” Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Nathaniel Robert Walker “Building Expectation: Past and Present Visions of the Architectural Future,” Brown University’s Bell Gallery.

Solo show
Leonie Bradbury, “Small Spaces: Chelsey Tyler Wood” Montserrat
Debra Bricker Balken “John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury,” Portland Museum of Art
Nicholas Capasso and Lexi Lee Sullivan “Rachel Perry Welty: 24/7” DeCordova
George Kinghorn, “The Gesture Contained Recent Sculptures by Joshua Enck” and João Ribas “Otto Piene: Lichtballet” MIT

From our review of “Taoist Gods from China” at Brown University and “From the Land of the Immortals” at RISD:

As China marked the beginning of the Year of the Dragon with lion and dragon dances and fireworks last month, Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology was debuting “Taoist Gods from China: Ceremonial Paintings from the Mien” [one of the banners is pictured at left] as part of Brown’s “Year of China” programs, which aim to illuminate the country’s past and future. In concert with Brown’s project, the RISD Museum is exhibiting “From the Land of the Immortals,” a show of 18th- and 19th-century Chinese Taoist textiles.

Like many faiths, Taoism is, as RISD explains, “concerned with both the position of humanity in the cosmos and the attainment of longevity and immortality, physical or otherwise.” The RISD and Brown shows are small, one-room introductions to their topics that provide brief intros to Taoism that will leave the uninitiated somewhat bewildered. Instead, we’re mainly invited engage the paintings and textiles in the language of aesthetics.

But, wow, what aesthetics.

Read the rest here.

“Taoist Gods from China: Ceremonial Paintings from the Mien,” Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, 21 Prospect Street, Providence, January through summer 2012.

“From the Land of the Immortals,” RISD Museum, 224 Benefit Street, Providence, Jan. 13 to April 22, 2012.

We want you to help us pick the winners of 2011 New England Art Awards, a contest we organize to honor the best art made here, local writing about local art, and exhibits of New England art organized here in 2011. Vote via the online ballot here. Time is running out. Votes must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, to be counted.

Everyone is welcome to vote here. Winners will be chosen by (1) local active art writers and (2) anyone else who wants to vote – and will be announced in terms of these two categories of voters. You must follow that link above to vote. Votes submitted as comments will be ignored.

Winners will be announced at the 2011 New England Art Awards Ball at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 1, 2012, at the Burren, 247 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts. The event is free and open to all. Dress creatively! Dress to impress! Entertainment will include a marching band, plus surprises!

More details here.

From our review of “2012 RISCA Fellowship Exhibition” at Machines With Magnets:

Mary Beth Meehan’s color photos reveal the homes of undocumented (or shall we say, illegal) immigrants in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. “The work tries to pierce that obscurity with a kind of document that brings these people into view,” Meehan writes. Two pairs of sandals rest next to the bed of an immigrant from Guinea draped with a blanket decorated with an eagle and American flag [pictured above]. Other photos show rooms with televisions, flags, photo portraits, pictures of saints, a poster of Snoop Dogg and Tupac. The matter-of-fact photos evoke a feeling of peeking in on empty rooms. They prompt us to imagine these lives lived between memories of the old country and unsteady, surreptitious beginnings in the new.

Read the rest here.

“2012 RISCA Fellowship Exhibition” at Machines With Magnets, 400 Main Street, Pawtucket, RI, through February 2 to 25, 2012.

The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research’s Greg Cook was recently awarded third place in the “Arts and Entertainment Reporting” category of the New England Newspaper and Press Awards for his Nov. 17, 2010, essay in the Boston Phoenix “OMFG: The new MFA – Museum And Gallery: Great finds – and what’s still missing.” The press association said: “…meticulously detailed trip through this new museum wins from bottom to top.” More here and here.

Our friends at the Union Square Round Table are presenting “Implosions (from the Art Hole),” featuring visual art and performances at Aviary, 48 South St., Jamaica Plain, Boston, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, February 25 and 26, 2012. Stage show starts at 7 p.m. The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research’s Greg Cook will be there drawing caricatures of visitors from 3 to 7 p.m. Saturday (and perhaps even longer). Come by and say hello. The Round Table explains the plan like this:

“ART, right? The restless experimentation of a Picasso. The flat Playboy nail salon rose sniffers of a Patrick Nagel. Whoever Jasper Johns is. What is this mystical force that compels them to make stuff all that stuff and then come up with the wrong name for it? And where do their ideas come from? What is art? We at The Union Square Round Table endeavor to answer this question every day of our lives, but especially with our very own display of this bamboozling form, with a show called ‘Implosions (from the Art Hole).’

“This February 25th and 26th The Union Square Round Table will take over the Aviary Gallery in luminous Jamaica Plain for two days of new works and performances. During the normal daytime hours the gallery will be home to new works by a variety of artists as well as long form performance pieces, including a redolent re-imagining of Marina Abramovic’s ‘The Artist Is Present.’ The evening hours will be a slightly more traditional stage show, or at least as traditional as the Round Table gets, with art as the theme. And art as the journey. And art as infinity. … This February 24th and 25th Implosions (from the Art Hole) occurs, you definitely Centre Pompidon’t want to miss it.”

Museum director search continues

George Wachter, a 1973 Brandeis University alum and chairman of Sotheby’s North and South America and co-chairman of Old Master Paintings Worldwide, has been named chair of the board of overseers of Brandeis’s Rose Art Museum.

“I love Brandeis, so I said I would help in any way I could,” Wachter said in a statement released by Brandeis. “I am delighted that the Rose and the university are moving forward. The museum has an extraordinary collection that is a great draw and I’d like to help maximize what the museum can be. We want to excite students and the campus community, the Waltham community, Boston and beyond.”

Meanwhile Malcolm Sherman – “a leading retail liquidator,” according to the New York Times, who was chairman of the university’s board of trustees when it announced plans to close the museum and liquidate its collection in 2009 – remains chairman of the trustees.

The Rose is still searching for a new museum director. “The search committee has been working for several months and we have some extraordinary candidates, so we’re very optimistic,” Scott Edmiston, director of Brandeis’ Office of the Arts and chair of the search committee, said in a prepared statement.

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 7 p.m.
A “community gathering for artists who create socially engaged work” at MassArt, room N181, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston. Presented by www.artistsunderthedome.org, Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, New England and Mass College of Art and Design’s Godine Family Gallery and the Center for Art and Community Partnerships.

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 1:30 p.m.
Artist Caitlin Berrigan presents a workshop on “Spirulina and Science Fiction” as part of “The Garden Lab” project at MassArt’s Brant Gallery, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 5 p.m.
Maine’s Beehive design cooperative talks about “running a collaborative of artists and activists” at MassArt, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 7 p.m.
Artists in Context hosts a roundtable discussion on “The Power of Mapping” with “critical cartographer” Denis Wood and artist Catherine D’Ignazio of the Institute for Infinitely Small Things at Design Studio for Social Intervention, 1946 Washington Street, 2nd floor, Boston.

Thursday, Feb. 23, 6 p.m.
Amber Davis Tourlentes speaks at Harvard’s Carpenter Center, Room B-04, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Thursday, Feb. 23, 7 to 9 p.m.
Art historian Shawn Hill and artist Jesse Thompson speak about “Craft/Anti-Craft,” the allure and rejection of craft in contemporary art, at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.

Saturday, Feb. 25, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Boston conceptual artist Jessica Gath presents “For You, [W]Rapper” at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Gath accepts, wraps and returns objects to visitors. “DeCordova invites you to bring a gift for a friend or a loved one so you may participate in Gath’s performance.”

Saturday, Feb. 25, 6 p.m.
Artist Michael Bell-Smith speaks at Maine College of Art, 522 Congress St., Portland. Free.

Monday, Feb. 27, 7 p.m.
Boston Phoenix reporter Chris Faraone discusses his book “99 Nights with the 99 Percent,” about his travels around the country to visit various Occupy movement camps, at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St., Brookline, Massachusetts. Free.

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 11:30 a.m.
Artist Reese Inman speaks at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.

Tuedsay, Feb. 28, 12:30 p.m.
Artist Cat Mazza speaks at Maine College of Art, 522 Congress St., Portland. Free.

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 6 p.m.
Photographer Vera Lutter speaks at Harvard’s Arthur Sackler Museum lecture hall, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Free.

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 7 p.m.
New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, authoer of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe” speaks about “how the arts can impact the perception of climate change issues” at MassArt’s Pozen Center, near 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

In December, the Cambridge public art duo Mags Harries and Lajos Heder debuted “Terpsichore for Kansas City,” a sound and light installation in a new four-story, 1,000-car, city-funded, public garage at the new Kauffman Center for the Arts in Missouri. (Architect Moshe Safdie of Somerville, Massachusetts, designed the Kauffman Center, which debuted in September. That two Boston-area firms worked on the neighboring projects is just a coincidence, Heder tells us.)

“Terpsichore”’s main feature is the “Light Organ,” seven vertical bands of programmable LED lights running up a stairwell in the building, and which can be seen from the exterior, that flash white and blue. (See video above.)

“These patterns choreograph sound composi­tions playing in the stairwell,” the duo explains. “Sound from 112 speakers, activated by mo­tion sensors, also plays all through the garage for people to experience as they move in the space. Composers David Moulton, Roberta Vacca, and Kansas City’s own Bobby Wat­son were commissioned to create the sound works for this project. The sound design for the Garage was developed in collaboration with composer David Moulton. Matt Harter is the system programer.”

Harries may have more public art on view around Boston than any other artist. Her permanent (or at least long-term) local art projects for government entities include: “Asaroton [Unswept Floor]” (1976) for Boston’s Haymarket; a 1983 gateway inside Cambridge’s Longfellow Elementary School; “Glove Cycle” (1984) for the MBTA’s Porter Square station in Cambridge; “Ben’s Circular Tower” (1994) in Mission Hill for the city of Boston with funding from the city’s Browne Fund; and “Drawn to Water” (1997-2002) at Cambridge’s Water Treatment Plant.

The 2011 New England Art Awards is a contest to honor the best art made here, local writing about local art, and exhibits of New England art organized here in 2011. And we want you to help us pick the winners by voting via the online ballot here.

Everyone is welcome to vote here. Winners will be chosen by (1) local active art writers and (2) anyone else who wants to vote – and will be announced in terms of these two categories of voters. You must follow that link above to vote. Votes submitted as comments will be ignored.

Winners will be announced at the 2011 New England Art Awards Ball at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 1, 2012, at the Burren, 247 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts. The event is free and open to all. Dress creatively! Dress to impress! Entertainment will probably include a marching band, plus surprises!

How to vote: 
Voting is automated – and our robots are standing by to receive your picks. You are welcome to vote in as many categories as you like or to leave lots of blanks. Please invite your friends to vote too. Votes must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, to be counted. The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research will tally the votes. Nominees with the most votes in each category will win.

Voting will only be accepted via the robot voting form. We ask each voter to submit a name and e-mail address to prevent fraud. Cheaters will be banished. If you spot factual errors in the ballot, please send us corrections.
The aim of the awards, which are organized by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, is to promote a more exciting local art scene by encouraging and celebrating the work of artists, curators and art writers active in New England (except Yalies).

What’s happened so far:
 The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research invited everyone to make nominations in January and around 500 things were nominated. (Thank you.) We asked readers to volunteer to help us cull the nominations and recruited a couple more folks to pitch in. This team – artist Juniper Friedman of Massachusetts; Daniel Fuller, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art; Liz O’Connell of Massachusetts, Tabitha Piseno of R.K. Projects in Rhode Island (thank you) – ranked their top six picks in each category. The final ballot features the top vote getters in each category from each of these advisors plus The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, with us breaking ties as necessary. (Note: These kind folks were not allowed to vote for themselves or their institutions.) Some nominees were disqualified because they did not follow the guidelines requiring all nominees to feature art made and shared in New England—for example: the artist did not reside in New England, the art was not exhibited in New England in 2011, or, in the case of curators and art writers, the subject was not art made in New England, etc.

To those of you who received nominations but did not make the final ballot, please keep at it. We want you to kick ass in 2012 and be on next year’s ballot.

Previously:
The 2010 New England Art Awards winners.
2010 New England Art Awards photos.
The 2010 New England Art Awards nominees.

The 2009 New England Art Awards winners.
2009 New England Art Awards photos and press.
The 2009 New England Art Awards ballot.
The 2009 New England Art Awards nominees.

The 2008 Boston Art Awards winners.
2008 Boston Art Awards photos.
The 2008 Boston Art Awards ballot.
Vote for the 2008 Boston Art Awards.
Seeking nominations for 2008 Boston Art Awards.
Planning the “2008 New England Art Awards”?

Poster at top by Kari Percival.

In Boston artist Michael Lewy’s “City of Work: Office,” projected in a back gallery at Carroll and Sons gallery, a man in a suit (the artist himself) wanders an empty office, walks along the back wall past three pairs of desks, sits down at the fourth, types on the computer, writes on some paper, reads some papers, gets up, pours himself some coffee. And so on.

In fact, the whole scene is actually the artist performing in front of a green screen and dropped into a digitally created, 3D-modeled world. Which is why he takes oddly long to emerge from behind the columns he passes as he crosses the room. It’s the virtual office.

Act one, he’s killing time in an office flooded with sunlight. Act two, repeat in the same office at sunset under flickering fluorescent lights. Act three, repeat in the same office at night. Then begin again.

“I was trying to make something where nothing happens,” Lewy says.

“City of Work: Office” aims to channel the soul-killing, Dilbert tedium often associated with office work. And, boy, it does do that.

Michael Lewy, “City of Work: Office,” Carroll and Sons, 450 Harrison Ave., Boston, Jan. 4 to Feb. 18, 2012.

From our review of “Valentined” at Craftland in Providence:

These missives don’t have the swooning, steamy, bodice-ripping passion of romance novel covers. There are no salacious double entendres. The one-of-a-kind and limited edition valentines in “Valentined” at Craftland (235 Westminster Street, Providence, through March 3) are sweet, a bit nerdy, cute, funny, kind of chaste, kind of cozy, affectionate, and adorable. This is about geek love, about wooing you with demonstrations of endearing smarts. They had me at hello.

Or maybe it was the puns. Alec Thibodeau’s pen drawing “I Wanna Give You a Squeeze” [pictured above] depicts a little boar being squeezed by the coils of a python. Morgan Calderini and Arley-Rose Torsone, the married ladies behind Ladyfingers Letterpress, offer a white card that appears blank at first, but look closely and you see it’s embossed by letterpress printing with the line: “You’ve Made an Impression on Me.”

Craftland’s Deb Dormody and Jen Corace’s roundup of 30 artists — a mix of locals and national folks — is a perfect match of concept and artist community. Craftland has ended up one of the liveliest local galleries because, in addition to good taste, the store’s crafty bent aligns so well with Providence’s do-it-yourself, handmade style.

Read the rest here.

“Valentined” at Craftland, 235 Westminster St., Providence, Feb. 2 to March 3, 2012.

Jill Colinan “Pine”

Deb Dormody “Organ Donor”

Lois Harada “Ishihara Heart”

Jen Corace “Paper Doll”

Delia Kovac “Flag”

Mark Pedini “Rad Valentine”

Pippi Zornoza “Double Sided Valentine Print”

Jason Tranchida “On Fire 1 (Be Mine, Madonna),” “On Fire 2 (Be Mine, Dolly Parton)” and “On Fire 3 (Be Mine, Blue Oyster Cult)”

Hilary Treadwell “An Anatomy of Love”

Monday, Feb. 13, 7 p.m.
Michael Corris, professor and chair of Studio Art, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, talks about “What Do Artists Know? Contemporary Responses to the Deskilling of Art,” at MIT’s Art, Culture and Technology Cube, Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Part of MIt’s “Experiments in Thinking, Action and Form” lecture series.

Monday, Feb. 13, 7 p.m.
Toby Lester speaks about his book “Da Vinci’s Ghost:
Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image” at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts. Free.

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 11:30 a.m.
Printmaker Rhoda Rosenberg speaks at Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly, Massachusetts. Free.

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 1:30 p.m.
Ben Silva presents “Wheatgrass Propagation and Juicing 101” as part of “The Garden Lab” project at MassArt’s Brant Gallery, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 6 p.m.
Caitlin Berrigan presents her interactive performance “Spectrum of Inevitable Violence” at the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, 539 Tremont St., Boston. Free.

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m.
The Somerville Arts Council presents “Behind the Animated Gif: Digital Art and & Identity” at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville, Massachusetts. Curator Jacy Edelman presents the work of PrincessDie, Yassy Goldie and the Golden Jasmine Yeti Dancers, and Vela.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 4:30 p.m.
Dalila Scruggs, Mellon Curator for Diversity in the Arts; Sandra Burton, Lipp Family Director of Dance and Senior Lecturer in Dance; Leslie Brown, Associate Professor of History; and Vince Schleitwiler, Assistant Professor of English, discuss the exhibit “African Americans and the American Scene, 1929–1945” at Williams College Museum of Art, Main Street, Williamstown. Free.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 5:30 pm.
Agata Michalowska speaks about her art at AS220 Project Space, 93 Mathewson St., Providence. Free.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m.
Annette Lemieux speaks with curators Lelia Amalfitano and Susan Stoop speaks at Harvard’s Carpenter Center, Room B-04, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.
MassArt art history professor David Nolta speaks about the aesthetics which determine the juxtaposition of images in museum “hangs” at MassArt’s Trustees Room, Tower Building, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston. Free.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.
Artist Caitlin Berrigan will be joined by Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez, curator La Galeria at the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, and James G. Ennis, associate professor of sociology at Tufts University with an expertise in social movements to discuss subjects surrounding Berrigan’s installation “Spectrum of Inevitable Violence” at the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, 539 Tremont St., Boston. Free.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.
Art historian Robert Hobbs, who has held the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair at Virginia Commonwealth University since 1991 and has been a visiting professor at Yale University since 2004, speaks at Maine College of Art, 522 Congress St., Portland. Free.

Saturday, Feb. 18, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Boston conceptual artist Jessica Gath presents “For You, [W]Rapper” at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Gath accepts, wraps and returns objects to visitors. “DeCordova invites you to bring a gift for a friend or a loved one so you may participate in Gath’s performance.”

Sunday, Feb. 19, 1 p.m.
Kadir Nelson speaks about his book and exhibit “We Art the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball” at Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art,” 125 West Bay Road, Amherst, Massachusetts.

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 7 p.m.
A “community gathering for artists who create socially engaged work” at MassArt, room N181, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston. Presented by www.artistsunderthedome.org, Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, New England and Mass College of Art and Design’s Godine Family Gallery and the Center for Art and Community Partnerships.

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 1:30 p.m.
Artist Caitlin Berrigan presents a workshop on “Spirulina and Science Fiction” as part of “The Garden Lab” project at MassArt’s Brant Gallery, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 5 p.m.
Maine’s Beehive design cooperative talks about “running a collaborative of artists and activists” at MassArt, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 7 p.m.
Artists in Context hosts a roundtable discussion on “The Power of Mapping” with “critical cartographer” Denis Wood and artist Catherine D’Ignazio of the Institute for Infinitely Small Things at Design Studio for Social Intervention, 1946 Washington Street, 2nd floor, Boston.

Boston University has posted this photo of its 808 Gallery in the Fuller Building at 808 Commonwealth Ave., comparing it with 1956 when it was a car dealership. And they’ve got a whole essay on when Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue was Boston’s original “Auto Mile” here.

808 is hosting a cool show right now, “Calendar’s Tales: Fantasy, Figuration & Representation,” but the exhibition programming there is spotty. And the facilities (clamp lights?!?) need improvement. The right vision could turn this space, one of the largest in the area, into a major new museum. It would be a great venue to do a big, blowout survey of the conceptually-driven sculpture and installation art (Andrew Mowbray, Deb Todd Wheeler, Jane Marsching, John Osorio-Buck, Doug Weathersby, Antoniadis and Stone, Joe Zane, Andrew Witkin, and so on) that has been prominent around Boston over the past decade.

Photo from BU by Kalman Zabarsky and Robert Dolan. Via UniversalHub.