You can’t find out for sure until November, but you can see a great band by that name at Cafe Latino on Friday, August 1 at 10 PM. Next President, a post-punk, modern rock band from North Adams will be joined by indie-rock duo Morpholino from Bennington, VT. No cover, just come on down.
Our friends over at Berkshire Creative have been keeping busy busy busy doing what they do best! Yesterday they announced the participants for the first Assets for Artists program (first mentioned in this post) which helps artists throughout Berkshire County become home owners and/or receive small business grants, training and assistance. Also be sure to join the next popular SPARK event happening at Shakespeare and Company on Wednesday August 13th.
More information about the Assets for Artists program and SPARK can be found over on the Berkshire Creative blog, a great place to keep informed about what’s happening around the creative sector in the Berkshires.
If Eastern Standard sparked your interest in art in China our curator Susan Cross recommends these recent Times pieces about art in China, one from today on woman artists in China and one from Sunday on Beijing hutongs.
Many children who come to Kidspace may have aspirations of picture coloring and that will keep them content. Their parents may be looking for an oasis where the kids will be occupied for a few minutes and they can move on to the “real art”. As an intern here for the summer I found so much more than coloring pictures and parents resting while their children ran circles around them…I found an actual children’s contemporary art gallery.
In all honesty, the first lesson I learned here was that we do not make crafts. We make and exhibit real art at Kidspace. Kids come to the gallery to learn about art and to make a project that reflects what they have learned. When I say art, I mean challenging art that makes them think and is relative to their life. Interpretations, the current show at Kidspace, is made out of over 40,000 spools of thread hung upside down throughout the gallery. The images are reproductions of classics like the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and American Gothic. As an art student I thought it was pretty clever. As an education intern, I didn’t know how we were going to talk to kids about this work. I mean at first I thought, what is a 5-year-old going to get out of this exhibit?
With these questions swimming in my head, I began preparing for my first official Kidspace tour. We broke down the work by asking kids questions such as what is a pixel and why does the art have “crystal balls” propped up in front of them? (hint, they are not to swing around on). After the kids thoughtfully examined the work that we showed them, they dug into making their own pixelated images. The things that they came up with were fantastic. Not only did some of the pixel drawings have a story behind them, but some were upside down like the artist’s work, some were a copy of the Mona Lisa. Kids were starting to pick up and run with the theme of Interpretations: they were interpreting art in their own unique way.
As my time here at Kidspace wraps up, I’ll be giving a tour to a group of middle school students. Once we are done discussing American Gothic and The Girl with a Pearl Earring, I will get to watch them create inspired images. Maybe after that I’ll be more inspired in my own art. Trust me; I won’t be working on any crafts.
-Erin Dougherty, Kidspace Summer 2008 Intern
Graduate Student, Arts Education, College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN
Eric Kerns, our manager of Foundation & Corporate Grants wears an additional hat on campus. Here he reports on his second job:
As MASS MoCA’s renewable energy/conservation/recycling/energy efficiency wonk, I’m glad for the return of the sun after the monsoon-like rains of the past week.Our 52 kW solar array is churning out the juice today after getting a 1-year check up from our friends at Berkshire Photovoltaic Services.You can view real-time data from our solar array HERE.Since going online last May, our panels have generated an impressive 68,000 kWh, helping to offset our formidable utility costs.If you are unsure of what a kilowatt hour is … you are not alone.Here’s a little perspective.This chart was produced by the Rural Electrification Administration in 1938.
We’re also starting a massive retro-fitting project for all of our HVAC gear, installing new automated, super-efficient equipment that will leverage sizeable savings as energy prices continue to rise.
Artist Michael Oatman has been on-site this week, working on a top-secret artwork related to our solar project.If you have not seen his “teaser” work currently exhibited in the MASS MoCA lobby – come check it out.And if you have questions about solar energy at MASS MoCA, feel free to contact me at ekerns@massmoca.org.
