artscope magazine: July/August 2007

Art Goes Wild: Innovation with Native Plants

Roanna Forman

Garden in the Woods

Framingham, MA

Through October 31

How is a garden planted? In the city, workmen come with flatbeds of little plants. They plant them. Then they come with trees – Japanese red maples, small dogwoods – in plastic bags. They plant them, too. They return with grass. Sometimes you notice, often you don’t.

In Framingham, 75 years ago, another extraordinary “garden” – a naturalistic landscape - was planted, cultivated and patiently expanded by two pioneering protectors of North American native plants, Will C. Curtis and Howard “Dick” Stiles. Now deservedly designated a museum with over 1,500 types of plants on 45 acres, New England Wildflower Society’s Garden in the Woods is celebrating its three-quarter century mark with “Art Goes Wild,” 11 unique installations by landscape architect W. Gary Smith. They add Smith’s mark to an already breathtaking site as they spark a gardener’s imagination and reduce a city dweller’s stress.

Niki Sarantos

Roanna Forman

Whistler House Museum of Art
243 Worchen Street

Lowell, Massachusetts

Through July 28

Creativity, Niki Sarantos says, is audacity. Her quickly painted canvases fill up each space with a daring that began three years ago, an odyssey to see how the journey of each canvas will end. She will celebrate her 81st birthday this July 22 at the reception for this, her début show, with paintings, mostly oil still lifes of flowers and fruit, that noisily burst, roll and grow with color. In the exhibit, you see a long pent-up urge being realized, with the increased intensity of moving against time.

Why did she wait so long to begin painting? “The love was there, but the time wasn’t,” she said. Yet as the wife of the Rev. John P. Sarantos, of the Greek Orthodox Transfiguration of Our Saviour Church in Lowell, she shared a deep love of art, and viewed European art on her many overseas trips. After a visit to the Byzantine mosaics of the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice, Niki and Rev. Sarantos conceptualized the installation of Byzantine mosaic icons on the walls and vaults of the Lowell church.

With her retirement in California, Niki had the luxury of time and the freedom to use it.

Pulp Function

Sarah E. Fagan

Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street

Brockton, Massachusetts

Through January 6

The Fuller Craft Museum has taken the plunge and dedicated nearly half of its space to a seven month exhibit - twice as long as a normal exhibit - devoted to paper. It may not seem like a stretch to connect paper and artwork as we’re used to seeing paper as a surface for works of art in museums. But what’s paper doing in a museum dedicated to the craft, a place that in the past has featured a show dedicated to art made out of trash, a place that will turn down the most exquisite painting on paper for a wall hanging made entirely out of woven gimp?

In “Pulp Function,” where the only “paintings” are those created with hand-colored paper pulp, the viewer enters a fantasy world of paper where wedding dresses are made out of facial tissues, suits are made out of diapers and a tower reaching to the ceiling is made entirely of paper bricks. The visions range from a giant toy train made out of newspaper and cardboard boxes (a mite better than what we used to make as kids, mind you) to a larger-than-life human statue made out of molded paper pulp whose existence barely seems possible to those of us used to wood and metal sculptures. Much of the work is functional, including lamps made out of cardboard and jewelry made out of cereal boxes. The craftsmanship is exquisite and in a show featuring several dozen artists, each work needs to be studied separately.

New Art Collective: Emerging Curators Select Emerging Artists

Gary Deuhr

Montserrat College of Art Gallery
23 Essex Street

Beverly, MA

Trough August 10

Creepy and pretty, sparkly and bleak, this exhibition takes the pulse of contemporary art-making in New England. And the diagnosis? Pretty much what you might expect from recent graduates who’ve been out in the world for five years or less: well-equipped artists each carving their own niche from the quirky/funny, haphazard/intense, scattershot field that is visual art at the turn of this century without any “isms” to guide it. So to judge from this show, new art in the region is alive and well, if not surprising or overly adventurous.

Gallery director Leonie Bradbury chose eight curators beside herself, who each picked one emerging artist to highlight. The curators are mostly independent, with a few working for other galleries. This pairing of nine curators/nine artists, without an over-arching curatorial theme, has made for some intriguing overlaps. In several cases, candy-colored hues get morphed into oozing pools or stamped into patterns, and apocalyptic visions peek out here and there.

Out of the Blue Gallery

James Foritano

106 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA

Clara Angelina Diaz’s solo exhibition “Mixed Dreams: New Creative Abstracts” started the month of June on the blue wall that serves as the Out of the Blue Art Gallery’s exhibition space. From there, a few of her pieces will probably join the paintings of the 40 to 50 artists which make a changing kaleidoscope of the walls of this small, box-like gallery.

Out of the Blue is a neighborhood art gallery just down the street from that confluence of avenues and diversity that is Central Square. It also has roots in a number of local coffee shops (the 1369 Coffee House) and restaurants (Brookline Lunch, Middle East Café, All Asia Cuisine & Cocktail Bar and the Harding House) that cluster around the square and exhibit on their walls those painting which would overflow the limited spaces of Out of the Blue.

As a neighborhood gallery, much of their publicity comes from the buzz of its frequent openings, classes, readings, and, not the least, the vibrant sidewalk presence created by their eclectic show-windows.

Robert Henry: Triptych Paintings, Elspeth Halvorsen: Constructions, Sky Power: Large Abstract Paintings, Selina Teriff: Drawings

James Foritano

Berta Walker Gallery
208 Bradford Street

Provincetown

July 20 through August 5

By taking advantage of the ferry from Boston to Provincetown, one is able to cover decades of artistic history in 90 minutes. In my mind this is the “providence” the Pilgrims meant when they landed here almost four centuries ago. This summer, the Berta Walker Gallery is convening a particularly vital locus of this history in the person of four artists who will enjoy solo exhibitions together.

Robert Henry and Selina Trieff followed their teacher and mentor Hans Hoffman to Provincetown from New York in the 1950s. He and they would take an avant-garde spirit and pursue it unflaggingly, with joy and commitment, in the burgeoning modernist community in an artistic colony already half a century old."

Trieff had studied at Brooklyn College with Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhart, impressed particularly by the spirit of self-examination that animated her mentors as they helped forge a new ethos with new painterly techniques. That ethos is still maturing in the figurative work Trieff does presently in the Wellfleet house/workshop she shares with husband Robert Henry. The figures in her paintings, though evolved through a rich mélange of influences, are Trieff’s alone.

Lalie Schewadron: Synthesis

Catherine Laferriere

Copley Society of Art
158 Newbury Street

Boston

August 2 through 25

Jet-setting artist Lalie Schewadron unveils a timely and compelling study of contemporary scientific discussion this summer at the Copley Society of Art. Pausing in Boston between ventures in Switzerland and England, Schewadron’s fusion of technology and nature explores the “artificial realities” created by genetic engineering and synthetic biology. Considering the current political climate and ongoing ethics debate, “Synthesis” couldn’t be more relevant. But besides providing a platform for academic conversation, Schewadron crafts a visually captivating and energetic body of artwork.

The creative process starts with a photograph of a subject from the natural world that exhibits properties of growth (saplings/trees) or transformation (water/ice). Schewadron divides the image into smaller units and uses digital tools to manipulate each piece. Most often the pieces are put back together in a rearranged fashion – effectively rendering a manipulated reality. The derived images serve as the basis for digital prints, painting, wall drawings and animations. Where some end results are abstracted almost completely from their former shapes, Schewadron’s major aesthetic successes come from those illustrations where the original image exerts a relatively stronger nuance over the finished product. The black and white prints are especially transfixing; the tangled tree branches emanate ghostly tranquility when stripped of time and season. At first I imagine these woods to be snowy, dark, and deep – but only until I spot signs of summery vegetation. Or is it foliage? In Schewadron’s nature-based menagerie, it’s exactly that evolution that counts.

Joel Janowitz: the Monotypes

Catherine LaFerriere

Victoria Munroe Fine Arts
179 Newbury Street

Boston, MA

Through July 21

Take a break from the sweltering frenzy that is Newbury in July with a dip into Victoria Munroe Fine Art. Headlining is Joel Janowitz whose cool-toned ‘Monotypes’ provide a refreshing and breezy escape from the Boston heat. In an intimate and hand-picked assembly, Janowitz’s study of light and composition is a simple summer treat.

“Because the show is focused on monotypes [Janowitz] can work on a technique that he loves. Once a week he spends an entire day on monotypes – all year round,” noted Munroe, who has worked with the artist since the early 1980s in both her New York and Boston galleries. The dedication to this technique makes for a remarkably productive artist, this being his second show at Victoria Munroe in as many months. It also makes for a mastery of the form. In “Monotypes,” Janowitz affords glassware the inexplicably compelling quality reserved for repeated, commonplace subjects. Like haystacks under a moody French sun, Janowitz’s glasses morph and ripen under various offerings of light. Glittering and effulgent, glassware never looked so good.

A World in Grosz Disarray: Works on Paper by George Grosz

George Gerard

Pucker Gallery
171 Newbury Street

Boston, MA

July 28 through September 2

This unique opportunity to experience the work of George Grosz will hold 20 pieces of Grosz's ink and watercolors, ranging from his time in Berlin to the United States of America. The exhibition is composed both from pieces that are for sale as well as from private collections.

Grosz's artwork is rooted in the history of the Weimar Republic of Germany. He was a fundamental member of the Expressionist and Dada movements, training first in Dresden and then Berlin. Disillusioned with Germany, he became a social critic, reflecting an erosion of values in his political cartoons, paintings and drawings from both pre- and post-World War I. He gained the reputation as a harsh critic, which lead to his eventual flight from Nazi Germany.

His work during his time in Germany was outspoken and controversial, often graphically depicting political and economic figures in a caustic and satirical environment.

Michael Kenna: Hokkaido

George Gerard

Robert Klein Gallery
38 Newbury Street

Fourth Floor

Boston, Massachusetts

Through August 18

Hokkaido is known for its harsh winters and captivating natural landscape. It remains the least developed island of Japan, making in an attractive choice for landscape photography. It is no wonder then that Michael Kenna chose Hokkaido as the subject for his latest exhibition. Kenna is internationally recognized for his ability to produce stunning portraits of windows into our environment. He has been featured in several museums and galleries around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, The Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

"In "Hokkaido," Kenna creates gentle and polished photographs, leaving the viewer with the understanding of a wealth of context. Each piece has a level of detail that warrants pursuit. Under scrutiny, the work sheds its passive demeanor and takes a vibrant hold on the imagination. It feels as though other worlds have opened to landscapes that form a new intimacy within visual experience.

Jane Deering Galleries

Chet Williamson

Gloucester

Studio 412A
450 Harrison Ave

Boston

Her home is her gallery. In the months of July through September, Jane Deering turns her summer home in the little Gloucester village of Annisquam into a showcase for the work of British, Irish and German contemporary artists, especially those living and working on Cape Ann.

“I want people to see that they can have a diversity of art within their home,” Deering says. “It’s an alternative to a gallery space that doesn’t have anyone living in it. This really is a home environment. So it shows how one’s personal things work with art.”

The exhibitions, held July through September, include paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture and select furniture designs; viewings are by appointment only at 978-281-8051.

Somerville Madonnas: Photographs of Religious Iconography

Franklin W. Liu

Paradise Lounge Gallery
967-968 Commonwealth Avenue

Boston

Through July 20

Three years ago when Josh Michtom took a meandering walk in his neighborhood in Somerville, he saw countless lawn statues of the Holy Mary, Jesus and Joseph nestled in people’s yards. Fascinated by the abundance of these religious icons, he has repeatedly snapped away with his digital camera, amassing a collection of 241 photographs. Twenty-eight of these sacred images are currently presented in “Somerville Madonnas, Photographs of Religious Iconography.”

The photographs are presented with a down-home charm, as one would see flipping through a family photo album; they are precious personal memories preserved. Such was Michtom’s intention; the photos do not strive for the sensitivity and a mythical symbolism that one would expect to see in an Ansel Adams or Robert Mapplethorpe photograph hanging in the permanent collection of major museums.

Jessie Morgan: New Paintings

Brian Goslow

Ernden Fine Art Gallery
397 Commercial Street

Provincetown

July 12 through July 25

Some exhibitions can be captured in a title and others, like this show featuring Marblehead painter Morgan, you’ve got to trust your intuition – and imagination – and venture into your subconscious and that of the artist and come up with your own description.

“I do like the idea of being a vehicle to take people to another place, whether it’s a place you remember or a place you’re imagining,” said Morgan, who more often then not, labels her work with numbers to leave the viewer with more freedom to interpret what they see. “I definitely like to keep the openness.”

Ron Rosenstock: Hymn to the Earth

Brian Goslow

Hallmark Museumm of Contemporary Photography
Turners Falls, MA

July 5 - September 23

Timing is everything. I’m talking with Ron Rosenstock right after he’s returned from whirlwind series tours of the Galapagos Islands, Morocco and Iceland. During his two weeks “off,” he’s putting the final touches on the 60 photographs that compose “Hymn to the Earth,” a 40-year retrospective of his career on display from July 5 through September 23 at the Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography in Turners Fall, Massachusetts.

The Holden, Massachusetts resident will be at the July 7 opening; but first, Rosenstock’s off to lead a how-to photographic tour of Ireland. Participants in the “In the Light of Ireland, County Clare and County Mayo” tour will stay at Hillcrest House, his second home. “I bought that home about 25 years ago,” he said. “I’ve brought so many people there I’ve been made an honorary citizen.”

The retrospective, which will have an accompanying book, will be comprised mainly of black and white vintage prints with 10 digital color prints. “All my works fall under the umbrella of landscape and architectural photography,” Rosenstock said. “I see it as reverential.” The show’s most memorable photograph may be one he took of the Taj Mahal encapsulated in fog in 1996. “No one’s ever done that before,” he said. “I had a vision in a dream six months before I went there. I made one exposure and that was it.”

Varujan Boghosian - A Survey: Collage, Watercolors, & Sculpture

Brian Golsow

Through July 19
BigTown Gallery

99 North Main

Rochester, Vermont

August 10 - 26
Berta Walker Gallery

208 Bradford Street

Provincetown

It doesn’t matter that 81-year-old Varujan Boghosian is celebrating 55 plus years as an artist this summer with a survey of his career from 1963 to the present at the BigTown Gallery and a collection of more recent work at the Berta Walker Gallery – or that his house already holds two rooms of potential artifacts for his multi-media collages. The 81-year-old Hanover, New Hampshire artist is still in a constant search for new materials.

“Yesterday I drove to Keene a hour and a half away,” he said. “There’s three terrific antique shops there I visit at least once a month. Three or four times a week I’ll visit a flea market area in Timber Village that has maybe 100 dealers. There’s always new stuff coming in. You look for material that some time over the years, you can use.” Lately, he’s been searching for horseshoes, inspired by a painting by trompe l’oeil painter John Frederick Peto. “I look for ones with the nails still in it.”

Inside/Outside/Small/Tall

Rick Agram

Through September 8

9th Annual Invitational Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit

Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden

Through October 20

236 Hopkinton Road

Concord, New Hampshire

Whether you are drawn to figurative or futuristic, dremel-polished or chainsaw-wrought, something three-dimensional awaits you in Pam Tarbell’s gallery and gardens. Mill Brook’s rural surroundings, with pines, pastures and a horseshoe-shaped half-moat are a delightful place to visit."

"Beaumont Sculpture Center’s founder, Jean Dibner shares with Tarbell, “I believe everyone does have some creative response to life.” As principal teacher, sculptor Dibner assembled the work of six artist/protégés, all who came to artmaking later in their lives to explore creative sides dormant and recently reignited. They’ve filled the upstairs gallery with figurative work: carved, cast in clay, bronze, concrete, and resin. Dibner, a classically schooled artist who retired from hi-tech into a creative space of her own making, is a great role model. She feels, “Part of my success as a teacher will be a measure of their achievements.”"

Still Life - Wild Life

Rick Agran

Through July 22

Water Ways
July 29 through August 26

Coolige Center for the Arts

Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion

375 Little Harbor Road

Portsmouth, NH

It’s not often you can wander the grounds of an old seaside compound where John Singer Sargent spent summers dandling the host’s children, carousing and painting. Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion, bequeathed to the state of New Hampshire by a Coolidge in 1954, is now an estuarine state park with an historic house tour.

Because its long tradition entwines with the fine arts, they’ve established a summer gallery there. Curator Dody Kolb has a reliable group of accomplished artists she rotates through thematic shows like an artistic ringmaster. Every so often she folds new ingredients into the mix and two newcomers are painters Sydney Bella Sparrow and Soo-Rye Yoo.

Sleight of Hands: Contemporary Hooked Rugs

Sarah E. Fagan

Slater Memoral Museum

180 Crescent Street

Norwich, Conneticut

Through September 2

"The Slater Memorial Museum is located in a Romanesque Revival building dating to the 19th century. The origin of the craft on display this summer, hooked rugs, dates from the same time period. Charming New England craft? Perhaps, but don’t be completely fooled. This show, taking place in the Converse Gallery, is not without a contemporary twist. These rugs and other hooked artworks are part of a twofold international exhibition devoted to modern craft.

One half of the show is a Regional Invitational featuring artists from the northeast, many of whom have learned the craft as it is passed down in their families. Included in this bunch is Norwich Mayor Ben Lathrop, who hooks rugs in his spare time. He displays a rug in the design of a prominent Lincoln banner hanging in town hall.

But this show’s reach extends much further. The second component features works from a traveling exhibition, The “Art” of Playing Cards, which has traveled the world and is just now appearing in Connecticut. Featured are both local and international artisans with some unlikely designs - all interpretations of playing cards. The idea behind this homage to a universal pastime was to contain 57 different rugs from different artists -one for each playing card, including jokers, a card back and two collaborations.

Making it New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy

Greg Morell

Williams College Museum of Art

15 Lawrence Hill Drive

Williamstown, Massachusetts

July 8 through November 11

Picasso, Cocteau, Hemmingway, Diagalev, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Leger, Cole Porter, Archibald MacLeish, and Man Ray, all shared a friendship with a wily and outlandish American couple, Sara and Gerald Murphy.

The Murphys were cultural bees buzzing across the Atlantic as champions of American Jazz and lovers of the new, innovative, excitingly different, fashionably chic, and the provocative that percolated in the salons, studios, and bistros of Parisian France in the ‘20’s.

These mavens of the modern were reputedly the inspiration for the American couple maligned in “Tender is the Night,” one of Fitzgerald’s last novels. Wealthy, iconoclastic, stylish, living on the fringe in the south of France and breaking all the rules, Fitzgerald’s fictional couple mirror the real-life Murphys.

Summer Preview: Four Bigh Higway Highlights in the Little State of Rhode Island

Chet Williamson

Various locations throughout Rhode Island

An international film festival, honky tonk angels and a tribute to Betty Blake and her historic collection that includes such giants of 20th modern art as Jim Dine, Klaus Oldenberg and Robert Rauschenberg, all take center stage in Rhode Island’s artful summer.

The Forest Hills Cemetary Educational Trust and Contemporary Sculpture Path

Roanna Forman

The paths are not direct, and it can feel like you’ll never leave – not that Henry A.S. Dearborn, Mayor of Boston in 1848, meant to design Forest Hills Cemetery as such an obvious metaphor for the afterlife. His intention was to give Bostonians a place to stroll, amble and unwind among landscaped burial grounds.

Since 2001, the Forest Hills Educational Trust has revived Dearborn’s objective with its Contemporary Sculpture Park. Recipient of a $26,000 award from National Endowment for the Arts for its last exhibit, the Trust nurtures highly creative individuals with focused, yet open-ended, exhibit themes like “Spirits in the Trees,” “The 4 Elements,” or “Dwellings.” The artists’ personal statements, from the serious to the whimsical, move unobtrusively through the landscape, with wit, respect and excellent craftsmanship.

Summer Theater on the Coast

Greg Morell

The Arimde; Barn Playhouse

207.985.5552

Our Mediterranean neighbors traditionally celebrate summer by rolling up their awnings, closing their offices and making the entire month of August a respite for rest and relaxation at the beach or at a cool mountain retreat. Here in New England, weekends at the beach are more the norm, a manageable northern exodus to the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire on Interstate 95.

New England Summer Theater, once a thriving arts cooperative circuit featuring touring stock companies performing in renovated barns and town hall stages, has gone the way of the dinosaur. They are challenged by the blockbuster thrills of “Pirates of the Caribbean III” or the latest version of “Spiderman,” the graying of its audience and the new wave of digital entertainments. Threatened by extinction, today’s summer theaters are reinventing themselves and struggling to survive. For those who still yearn for live footlight entertainment, an interesting variety of endeavors anxiously await your ticket purchase.

Sharp Lines and Mystyc Shadows: The Vision of Two Physicists

Britt Beedenbender

Cultural Center of Cape Cod
307 Old Main Street

South Yarmouth

Through July 29

In this evocative and intellectually engaging exhibition, scientific investigation and aesthetic interpretation merge. This joint exhibition of the sculptural works of Fielding Brown and the photographic prints of Paul Wainwright offers up abstracted realities that invite analysis and contemplation.

Brown holds a PhD in experimental physics from Princeton University and has been creating sculptures in wood and multimedia since his retirement from Williams College six years ago. Wainwright, who holds a PhD in experimental physics from Yale University and was a research scientist at Bell Telephone Laboratories, began creating photographs more than 40 years ago as a way to connect to others. Less than two years ago the artists met through the Cambridge Art Association. Recognizing their shared backgrounds and the complementary nature of their work they began discussions about a joint exhibition.

artscope Capsule Previews

Brian Goslow

Gallery Anthony Curtis, 186 South Street, Boston, has teamed up with the Mass Audubon Society for its next exhibition. “Kathleen Cammarata and Nancy Selvage: This is about us” opens on July 10 and continues through August 4. Cammarata’s recent paintings study how humans affect the planet, whether by plan or through overuse of its resources. The landscape of “Night’s Invention” is reduced to a bonelike scene with the planets hovering overhead as if they’re waiting to see if we’ll survive. The tiny flashes of green on the end of the earthly objects suggesting there’s still hope for reversing recent environment damage – if we act in time. Sculptor Selvage’s ceramic map vessels series communicate her social and environmental concerns as well; “Cathyall” utilizes a map of Massachusetts Bay to convey her concern on over fishing there while “Aridzona” captures a dry Arizona scene with lightning overhead that could be a forbearer of rains that could bring it back to life – or wash it away for ever.

Staying with the environmental theme, Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell Street, Lewiston, Maine, is presenting “Green Horizons” through December 9. The organic exhibition is designed to study the nature and politics of greenness and sustainability via a combination of works by internationally renowned artists, including Alexis Rockman, whose “Manifest Destiny” portrays Manhattan in the year 5000, Maine artists Karen Adrienne, Mark Silber, Michael Shaughnessey, the Beehive Collective, and Bates students and organizations.

The first show in seven years by Boston Museum School graduate Lee Newton: “Large Paintings and Intimate Notebooks” opens on July 20 and remains on view through August 12 at the Redmond Bennett Gallery, 1283 Main Street, Dublin, New Hampshire. The notebook works portray daily life through sketches, poems and musings while her canvas paintings capture her life in nearby Petersborough. Andrew Newman’s “Old and New” is a 10-year retrospective of the former Washington D.C. attorney’s paintings (he’s been a full-time artist since 1994) that document his progression from figurative portraits to landscapes and more recently, abstract canvases; it’s on display at Redmond Bennett from August 17 to September 4.

A longtime Lyme Academy College faculty member who passed away in 2005 has been honored with a career retrospective at the school’s Chauncey Stillman Gallery, 84 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, Connecticut. “Drawn to Life: The Work of Deane G. Keller” can be seen through September 5. Keller was head of the Lyme’s life drawing and anatomy department for over 25 years as part of a four decade career; his teaching continues posthumously through his book, “Draftsman’s Handbook: A Resource and Study Guide for Drawing from Life.” His work is in the collections of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Brandywine River Museum and Slater Memorial Museum as well as a number of institutional galleries. Work by Lyme Academy students are being shown in a coinciding show at the Sill House Gallery.

“Adorned & Embellished: The Art of Accessories 2” which opens on July 5 and remains on view through August 15 at the Concord Art Association, 37 Lexington Road, Concord, Massachusetts, features artists that create wearable art accessories. “We will be exhibiting a range of items, from elegant hand-dyed shibori silk wraps and kimonos to whimsical straw hats, as well as jewelry made with precious metals, flower petals and leaves and pencils,” said marketing manager Deborah Plunkett. “We will also be exhibiting mirrors (an accessory every fashionista can't live without) created by sculptors and woodworkers.”

“form.a.t.: Drawings, Paintings, & Books works by Matt Aaron Templeton” features works by the Art Institute of Boston (AIB) at Lesley University graduate that recreate images of scientific and natural phenomena that leave the viewer pondering what’s real and what’s possible if nature’s elements collide. Using traditional inks, pigments and digital media, Templeton mixes his personal experiences with that of his scientific studies, in the past, he’s integrated in research text in a creative way that enhances the intensity of his work. The show can be seen from July 12 through August 25 at the AIB Gallery at Porter Exchange, 1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge.

The annual Blue Ribbon Members’ Show hangs in the Bancroft and Dillon Galleries from July 20 through September 2 at the South Shore Art Center, 119 Ripley Road, Cohasset, Massachusetts. “It's an annual members show - each member puts in one piece,” said executive director Sarah Hannan. “There are four blue ribbons awarded by a judge (TBA) and several awards of merit. We typically have 200 or so pieces and the show is hung salon style in both galleries.” The show becomes a spectacular backdrop for a post-concert reception with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops after the orchestra’s July 28 appearance at the South Shore Music Center. The event benefits the SSAC’s education and exhibition programs.

“The Faces of Rosie’s Place” feature self-portraits made by participants of the shelter’s art@rosie’s place program over a five-month period under the guidance of Kathy Parkinson and Sarah Kelley. Over 40 painted and drawn portraits are joined by a dozen quilts in the show that can be seen through July 27 at the Haley House Bakery Café, 12 Dade Street, Dudley Square, Roxbury, Massachusetts. The exhibit was the idea of Brett Cook and Clara Wainwright of the Faith Quilt Projects, an Allston based group devoted to bringing people of diverse faiths and beliefs together through quiltmaking. The Women’s Craft Cooperative Boutique at Rosie’s Place, 889 Harrison Avenue, Boston is open Tuesday through Thursday from 1 to 5 p.m. All works are built around buttons and allow the artisans staying at Rosie’s to get a feeling of self-empowerment and salary. What better way to celebrate the power of art?

Edward Hopper at the Museum of Fine Arts

James Foritano

Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Avenue of the Arts

465 Huntington Avenue

Through August 19

As Chaucer's pen, tipped with irony and mischief, sang the earthy virtues, the rascally hypocrisies of the rising middle classes, the merchants, priests, pilgrims, millers (and authors) of his time, so did Hopper both celebrate and rattle the cornucopia of America's burgeoning 20th century middle classes with his houses, landscapes and well-fleshed buxom women. At least those members of the middle classes, like him, had the sensibility to feel the angst of progress and the means to assuage that angst with travel and leisure.

CURATOR’S CORNER - Carol Troyen on the MFA Boston's Hopper Exhibition

Brian Goslow

Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Avenue of the Arts

465 Huntington Avenue

When did the process of putting the Edward Hopper exhibition together being?

It began about four years ago. That's the point at which I proposed the exhibition to the director, Malcolm Rogers, and got the green light. From that point, I started refining my ideas and traveling and looking at as many Hoppers as I could. Once the National Gallery in Washington and the Art Institute of Chicago were lined up as our partners, the curators at those institutions started traveling as well, often with me. We started talking about what pictures we thought were good, which ones were essential to the exhibition and as we looked, our ideas of what we wanted to do became refined.