Tattoos: Ferdinand The Peaceful Bull
Photographer Ryan Williams of Granby arrived at the opening day tour of the exhibition “Under the Cork Tree: The Story of Ferdinand” at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book…Continue Reading →
‘Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams’ At Pao Arts Center
“This space could have become parking garage, but it didn’t,” Anita Yip explained as she presented “Still, We Gather” at Metropolitan Courtyard on Oak Street, in Boston’s Chinatown, on May…Continue Reading →
Was Celebrated Picture Book ‘Ferdinand,’ A Pacifist/ Communist/ Socialist/ Fascist/ Gay Plot?
I first encountered the celebrated 1936 picture book “The Story of Ferdinand” not as a child, but as a young cartoonist trying to figure out how to draw with a…Continue Reading →
How Did They Do That? ‘Photorealism in Focus’ at Brandeis’s Rose Art Museum
The paintings and sculptures in the survey exhibition “Photorealism in Focus” at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum in Waltham from Feb. 11 to May 31, 2026, dazzle with the handcraft…Continue Reading →
‘Chroma Zone’ At Blue Triangle
If there’s a color of the moment, “Chroma Zone” at Blue Triangle Gallery in Union Square, Somerville, from Feb. 20 to May 1, 2026, made me think again that it’s…Continue Reading →
Nell Blaine’s Gloucester
In the late 1950s, Nell Blaine’s art career was on the rise. She was profiled in the May 1957 Life magazine article “Women Artists in Ascendance” alongside “notable artists who…Continue Reading →
Heidi Whitman’s ‘Ahab’s Head: American Vengeance’
Blood. And destruction. Those are the central elements of Heidi Whitman’s 2025 one-room installation “Ahab’s Head: American Vengeance” at the New Bedford Whaling Museum from Dec. 13, 2025, to May…Continue Reading →
Christopher Frost’s Revolutionary War Insurgents
Under a 19-foot-tall granite obelisk at the center of Arlington’s Old Burying Ground, off Pleasant Street, are the bodies of 12 locals killed during the first day of fighting of…Continue Reading →
Somerville Arts Council Director Greg Jenkins Honored
A party was held last night to honor my friend Greg Jenkins, who was pushed out of his role as director of the Somerville Arts Council in February. The “Arts…Continue Reading →
Goodbye, Pearl Fryar, Topiary Gardener
In the early 1980s, Pearl Fryar began transforming his home in Bishopville, South Carolina, into a fantastic topiary garden, often using plants rescued from the compost piles of local nurseries.…Continue Reading →