Construction of Somerville’s ArtFarm Could Begin Next Spring
Disclosure: I’ve worked with the Somerville Arts Council to present festivals in the city. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *…Continue Reading →
‘Too Fat For China’: Phoebe Potts’s One-Mom Comedy About The Sordid, Racist Adoption Industry
“Every baby is born into a story of how they got there,” Phoebe Potts says at the start of “Too Fat for China,” her one-woman “comic look at the agony…Continue Reading →
Nina MacLaughlin’s ‘Wake, Siren’: A MeToo Retelling Of Ancient Greek And Roman Tales
Nina MacLaughlin says that she began her brilliant, lyrical, painful new book “Wake, Siren” when she took a stab at rewriting the ancient Greek and Roman tale of Callisto from…Continue Reading →
Maira Kalman: ‘If You Don’t Digress And Go Off The Point, I Think You Miss The Point’
“There’s absolutely nothing you can’t talk to children about. They want to know the truth,” author and illustrator Maira Kalman says during a tour of her new exhibition “The Pursuit…Continue Reading →
Bread and Puppet Theater’s ‘Diagonal Life’ Challenges Baby Jails, Global Warming, The Unthinkable
“Reality is either horizontal or vertical or both,” a woman explains early in Bread and Puppet Theater’s “Diagonal Life: Theory and Praxis,” which the Vermont troupe performed at First Church…Continue Reading →
In Sarah Gailey’s ‘Magic for Liars,’ Investigating Murder At A School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry
In Sarah Gailey’s “Magic for Liars” (Tor Books), a drunk, broke private detective gets hired to solve a murder at a version of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. A staffer at this…Continue Reading →
The Secret Art Of The Godfather Of Boston Punk, Willie Alexander
“It’s here. It’s life. It’s everything. Bam!” Willie “Loco” Alexander tells me as we tour a retrospective of his paintings and collages at the Manship Artist Residency + Studios in…Continue Reading →
Shepard Fairey Returns To Providence: ‘It’s Pretty Punk Rock To Try To Unite’
Shepard Fairey—one of the most famous street artists in the world, known for his “Obey” Andre the Giant graphics to his Obama “Hope” posters—has been in Providence this week to…Continue Reading →
Traveling Back In Time To Fight The Patriarchy In Annalee Newitz’s ‘Future Of Another Timeline’
Tess has time-traveled to 1992 to attend a riot grrrl concert at the start of Annalee Newitz’s new science fiction novel “The Future of Another Timeline” (Tor Books). She’s snuck…Continue Reading →
How Tape Art Made Murals For Rural Towns Without Big, Centrally-Located Walls
Note: I’ve been commissioned by the Essex County Community Foundation to help document/promote cultural projects from its Creative County Initiative, which is supported by Boston’s Barr Foundation. At the end…Continue Reading →