In ‘Small Worlds,’ Artists Fashion Tiny Models Of Dreams And Nightmares
In “Small Worlds: Miniatures in Contemporary Art”—at the University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum of Art in Burlington from Feb. 13…
Remembering Cambridge Animator Karen Aqua With Live-Soundtrack Screening Performed By Her Husband
“Once I saw my drawings move, it was a big magical connection,” Cambridge animator Karen Aqua told The Boston Globe…
Bees, Sad Trees, Suns, Migrating Birds: Greg Cook's Banners and Installations
For the past decade, Greg Cook, the editor of Wonderland, has been painting large banners—used in parades and festivals and…
Fox, Bear And Deer Mural Is Part Of The Public Art Sprouting In Arlington
Families of fox and bears and deer meander around the brick exterior of Arlington’s Fox Library in Eileen de Rosas’s…
Keaton Fox’s ‘Green Screen Dreams’: ‘If You Could Paint Anything, What Would It Be?’
“If you could paint anything, what would it be?” a voice from off-screen asks. In Keaton Fox’s “Green Screen Dreams”…
New $15K Prize For Boston-Area Women Artists. Deadline April 8
A new biennial prize—the $15,000 Prilla Smith Brackett Award—aims to honor outstanding woman visual artists based in the Greater Boston…
Toledo Museum Director To Lead Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum
Brian Kennedy (pictured above)—director, president and CEO of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio since September 2010—has been named…
Prints By Kerry James Marshall, Martin Puryear, Gee’s Bend Quilters And Other African American Artists At Northeastern
“Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press,” at Northeastern University’s Gallery 360 in Boston from…
Monumental Hugging Arms Selected As Memorial To MLK On Boston Common
“The Embrace”—a pair of monumental hugging arms—has been selected to become a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta…
Transgender Soul Music Pioneer Jackie Shane Recorded Her Biggest Hit In 1960s Boston
Jackie Shane—the electrifying soul singer, black cult heroine, and transgender pioneer—died this week in Nashville at age 78. “Any Other…
The Earth Expedition Of Sun Ra, Jazz Visionary And Afrofuturist Pioneer
“There’s no limit to the things that you can do,” go the lyrics to jazz visionary Sun Ra’s “Space Is…
Winners Of 2018 Boston Music Awards
Below are the winners of the 2018 Boston Music Awards, which were announced at Boston’s House of Blues on Dec.…
Photos: Honk Festival Parade 2018
In this afternoon’s Honk Parade, dozens of bands and activist and community groups marched from Davis Square in Somerville to…
Honk: Our Totally Biased Guide To This Weekend’s Festival Of Activist Marching Bands
The 13th annual Honk—the infectious street party and festival of activist bands—arrives in Somerville and Cambridge this weekend, featuring an…
Photos: Oompa And Cliff Notez Perform At Somerville Hip Hop Fest
Oompa and Cliff Notez performed at today’s Evolution of Hip Hop Festival in Somerville’s Union Square. Photos copyright 2018 Greg…
Can Sex Cure Bourgeois Boredom? Leila Slimani's 'Adele' Tries To Find Out
“Adele,” the 2014 novel by French-Moroccan writer Leila Slimani, finally arrives in translation for the United States. Adele is bored…
In Karen Thompson Walker’s Novel “The Dreamers,” People Just Stop Waking Up
After a night of partying, a college student doesn’t wake up the next morning, or the next. She just sleeps…
With ‘Stuff Of Stars,’ Ekua Holmes Wins Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, Again
This week the American Library Association announced that Boston artist Ekua Holmes had again won its Coretta Scott King Illustrator…
Ed Emberley’s Classic How-To-Draw Books Inspire Cambridge Library Mural By Caleb Neelon
In 1970, “Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals” was published, the first in a long line of how-to draw books…
Favorite Reads Of 2018, According To Boston Public Library
At the end of each year, the Boston Public Library releases its list of the year’s most borrowed books, offering…
‘Cloud on a Mountain’: Franklin Einspruch’s Comics Poems From Mount Greylock
“Attention Massachusetts/I have ascended above you,” Franklin Einspruch writes across a watery painting of clouds that opens his book “Cloud…
Is Harvard’s American Repertory Theater Leaving Cambridge?
A $100 million donation “will enable Harvard to imagine a 21st-century research and performance center in Allston,” the Cambridge university…
‘Ajijaak On Turtle Island,’ Heather Henson’s Puppet Spectacle With Indigenous Roots
“Ajijaak on Turtle Island”—by Heather Henson (daughter of Muppets creator Jim Henson) and IBEX Puppetry—is an environmental fable, Henson says,…
Sandglass Theater’s Refugee Stories: ‘Is It Our Responsibility To Help Everyone?’
Woven through “Babylon: Journeys of Refugees” by Sandglass Theater is a version of the American debate about immigrants and migrants…
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company Partners With Right Wing Federalist Society
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company is again partnering with the right wing conservative Federalist Society for this year’s “Shakespeare and the Law”…
‘Is There An African American Puppetry?’ Exhibit Surveys An Often Overlooked Art
“Is there an African American puppetry? That’s the question we’re trying to answer with this exhibit,” says John Bell, director…
Puppet Show About Lynching Asks Audience ‘Are They For Justice Or Do They Just Let Things Happen?’
The cardboard pickup truck drives through the audience, blinding people with its headlights, in Tarish “Jeghetto” Pipkins’s puppet show “Just…
Vigil for Victims of New Zealand Mosque Attacks: ‘That Could Have Been Me’
“That could have been me. That could have been my brother. That could have been my own family,” Farida Moustafa…
Youth Climate Strike: 'Climate Now, School Later'
“Hey, hey, ho, ho! Climate change has got to go,” chanted hundreds of people at the Youth Climate Strike at…
'One Gun Gone': Turning Guns Into Art To Buy More Guns Off The Street
For years, Providence photographer and sculptor Scott Lapham has taught art to teens and young adults. “Four of my students…
The Year In Photos: Art And Activism In 2018
Art and activism across Boston and New England as I witnessed it in 2018. All photos copyright 2018 Greg Cook.…
Landmark AIDS Memorial Quilt Joins Annual Boston AIDS Vigil At BCA
Twenty sections from the landmark AIDS Memorial Quilt frame this year’s 27th annual “Medicine Wheel” AIDS vigil. The event begins…
Boston Rally To Protect Mueller Investigation: ‘Trump Is Not Above The Law’
“We are here today because we believe in the rule of law and we have a president who does not,”…
In Gloucester, Celebrating Purim With Costumes, Stories And Beer: ‘It Is A Mitzvah’
As is traditional, the families gathered at Gloucester’s Temple Ahavat Achim for their annual celebration of the Jewish holiday of…
Vigil for Victims of New Zealand Mosque Attacks: ‘That Could Have Been Me’
“That could have been me. That could have been my brother. That could have been my own family,” Farida Moustafa…
Gragger Retells The Jewish Purim Tale As A Radical, Queer Burlesque
Gragger—Boston Workmen’s Circle’s annual, grown-up “evening of gender-bending, ancestral-healing, world-transforming Purim festivities”—is named for the clacker or rattle traditionally used…
Youth Climate Strike: 'Climate Now, School Later'
“Hey, hey, ho, ho! Climate change has got to go,” chanted hundreds of people at the Youth Climate Strike at…
Photos: Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration In Malden
Chinese Culture Connection hosted its annual Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration at Malden High School on Jan. 26, 2019. All…
Patriotic Skeletons
Window of Semper Vi, 304 Essex St., Salem, Jan. 9, 2019. Copyright 2019 Greg Cook)
In Gloucester, Celebrating Purim With Costumes, Stories And Beer: ‘It Is A Mitzvah’
As is traditional, the families gathered at Gloucester’s Temple Ahavat Achim for their annual celebration of the Jewish holiday of…
Gragger Retells The Jewish Purim Tale As A Radical, Queer Burlesque
Gragger—Boston Workmen’s Circle’s annual, grown-up “evening of gender-bending, ancestral-healing, world-transforming Purim festivities”—is named for the clacker or rattle traditionally used…
New Orleans Second Line Parades Photographed By Pableaux Johnson
“My goal with these photographs is to capture in a single frame what it feels like to be in the…
Photos: Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration In Malden
Chinese Culture Connection hosted its annual Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration at Malden High School on Jan. 26, 2019. All…
The Best Christmas Decorations (And A Lobster Trap Menorah) Around Boston
Below is Wonderland’s guide to dazzling holiday decorations around greater Boston, from Attleboro to Somerville (listed by community, in alphabetical…
Lighting The World’s Only Lobster-Trap Menorah: ‘We Need Light In Darkness’
“This is a time when we need light in darkness,” Rabbi Steven Lewis of Gloucester’s Temple Ahavat Achim told the…
Fox, Bear And Deer Mural Is Part Of The Public Art Sprouting In Arlington
Families of fox and bears and deer meander around the brick exterior of Arlington’s Fox Library in Eileen de Rosas’s…
Monumental Hugging Arms Selected As Memorial To MLK On Boston Common
“The Embrace”—a pair of monumental hugging arms—has been selected to become a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta…
Pioneering Video And Performance Artist Joan Jonas Draws At The Gardner
During Joan Jonas’s 2017 residency at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the pioneering 82-year-old video and performance artist found herself…
Walsh To Veto Landmark Status For Citgo Sign As Real Estate Deal Protects It
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh will veto the Boston Landmarks Commission’s vote to grant landmark status to the Citgo sign in…
Boston Shouldn’t Give Kenmore Square’s Iconic Citgo Sign Landmark Status
There’s no question that the Citgo sign that shines above Kenmore Square is one of the landmarks of Boston. But…
Where To Find The Creepiest Halloween Decorations Around Boston
Halloween is a most wonderful time of year—that season when the lengthening nights make us suspect that the boundaries between…
The 5-Year-Old’s Guide To ‘Space’ At Boston’s Museum Of Science
Twice this fall, the 5-Year-Old visited “Space: An Out-of-Gravity Experience,” which is on view at Boston’s Museum of Science through Jan.…
The Dazzling ‘Rockefeller Beetles’ Debut At Harvard’s Natural History Museum
The earth is home to 450,000 species of beetles, Brian Farrell, the Harvard University professor and curator of entomology, told…
Fall Bike Ride: Through Lynn Marshes Via The Northern Strand Community Trail
Between Lincoln Avenue and Summer Street in Lynn, there is a dirt stretch of the “Bike to the Sea” Northern…
Dogwood Seedling From Starting Over Festival Sprouts
At the Starting Over Festival that I helped organize in Somerville on April 22, we gave out seedlings. A month…
Photos: Alewife Migrating Upstream Along Mystic Lake
Alewife migrating upstream at the Upper Mystic Lake Dam fish ladder in Winchester, Massachusetts, May 27, 2018. Photos copyright Greg…
Do Crocodiles Make Good Pets And Other Important Facts We Learned At The Museum Of Science’s New ‘Crocs’ Exhibit
Crocodiles, alligators and other crocodilians have flourished for more than 200 million years and now they’ve come to Boston’s Museum…