There’s a great new website for Joseph Smolinski’s Tree Turbine which is a new site specific work commissioned as part of Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape. Badlands opens May 25, 2008 but you can come see the turbine getting installed in our Courtyard C over the next few weeks.

Sue Killam gave birth as the sun rose on Sunday, April 27 at 5:53am to a bouncing red haired baby boy (9 lb, 6 oz, 22 inches!) Heartiest congratulations to Sue and Kevin!

 Eclipse Mill artist Ralph Brill along with nine RPI undergraduate and graduate students have created a light display titled River Revival that will embellish the Hoosac River chute between the Holden and Marshall Street bridges with 200 feet of fiber optic cables and a color-changing LED luminary. This Saturday, April 26 from dusk to 11 PM.

Downstream, across from the Porches Inn, more artists will install light displays to highlight the river.

Stop by Cafe Latino in the MASS MoCA complex for dinner (seating until 9 PM) or a drink (bar open until 11 PM) before or after taking in the light show.

Drummer Kenny Wollesen and his band Himalayas have been at MASS MoCA since Tuesday making instruments out of discarded objects, parading through the community, and sharing their music with anyone and everyone. Here are a few photos from the past two days.

You can still join in on the fun! Wollesen and crew will offer one more workshop on Friday, April 25, at 11 AM, and a blow-out jamboree will take place in the Hunter Center on Saturday at 4 PM! For more information call the MASS MoCA Box Office 413-662-2111.

  

 For more photos of the Kenny Wollesen workshops visit the MASS MoCA Flickr group. Also check out the MASS MoCA You Tube page to hear and see the workshop bands in action.  

MASS MoCA, MCLA’s Berkshire Cultural Resource Center, and Pittsfield’s Office of Cultural Development – partnering under the umbrella of Berkshire Creative – are launching Assets for Artists, a pilot initiative aimed at helping artists throughout Berkshire County who wish to become home owners and/or receive small business training and assistance.

Pre-application forms for the “Assets for Artists� program are due Friday, April 25, 2008, and can be downloaded at www.mcla.edu/bcrc (where you can also find more information about the program). The brief pre-application form must be accompanied by a resume or bio detailing your artistic and other career experience and accomplishments.

Artists in all disciplines living in Berkshire County are welcome to apply. For more information on eligibility for the Assets for Artists program and the services to be offered, contact Blair Benjamin at MASS MoCA (413-664-4481 x8104 or blair@massmoca.org).

Jeremy Goodwin proffers his thoughts on Friday’s show in the Berkshire Eagle. Thanks for the shout out to our future potentially legendary shows.  We aim to please!

We could not be more delighted at the news that our dear friend David Lang, one of the co-founders of Bang on a Can who spends every summer right here in North Adams at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA is this year’s recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for music. He’s pictured above in the center of this photo by Peter Serling with Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe. A bouquet of roses (from Quadland’s) for you David!

We are heralding the recent arrival of the LeWitt team. We’ve got 24 master artists plus 12 apprentices. The masters — senior and seasoned assistants who worked with the artist before his death in 2007 — include Tomas Ramberg, Nikolai Angelov, Takeshi Anita, Michael Vedder, Sachiko Cho, Elizabeth Christ, Megan Dyer, Lacey Fekashacey, Gabriel Hurier, Sarah Heinemann, John Hogan, Nick Kozak, Roland Lusk, Hideni Namura, Amy Rashbone, Emily Ripley, Anthony Sansotta, Mio St. Clair, Wim Starkenburg, Andrew Colbert, Chip Allen, Chris Cobb, Nobutu Suga.

Under the direction of Tomas Ramberg and Anthony Sansotta, teams of installers have been created with one of the master artists leading the interns and apprentices. The process of taking LeWitt’s original instructions for a wall drawing through to completion requires great attention to detail, and fosters a strong sense of camaraderie among the installers, who will be in residence through September 2008. In addition to intensive technical instruction, interns will benefit from lessons in art history each week and a behind-the-scenes view of the work of museums. Special gallery tours and seminar sessions will be given by MASS MoCA, Williams College Museum of Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery.

Apprentices, who are recent graduates with studio arts training, and who will be trained extensively in all techniques, are: Emily Arauz from Wellesley College, Sylvia Birns-Swindlehurst from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Lexie Bouwsma from Hampshire College, Matt Capezzuto from Yale School of Art, Emily Colman from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (welcome back to Emily who was the marketing intern here last year!), Julia Isenberg from Mt. Holyoke College, Aran Jones from Hampshire College, Heather Jones from Truman University, Sam McCune from Trinity Christian College, Courtney McIlhenney, a North Adams resident, Anna Pickens from Alfred State College, Amanda Sciullo from Savannah College of Art and Design, and Jordan Starr-Bochicchio from University of Southern Florida.

WELCOME ALL. We’re delighted you’re here! Remember April is the cruelest month, but there’s nothing like summer in the Berkshires!

We’re delighted to have more than a dozen artists from The Miss Rockaway Armada in residence working on their installation which will be open to the public starting April 19. Check their blog for photos documenting their search for materials in the unrenovated buildings on the MASS MoCA campus. They’ll offer a FREE performance great for all ages on April 12 too.

Ian Nelson from Daily Collegian weighs in on Malkmus, the Jicks, and John Vanderslice.
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