April Newsletter

Green City Growers is developing an agriculture and sculpture hub for Cambridge Arts' FLOW project.

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Announcing The Artists For Our 2018 Community Supported Art Program

In March, we picked the new group of artists who will be part of our 2018 Community Supported Art program. Artwork by the seven participants is pictured above. Top row, left to right: Jessica Caponigro, Peter McCarthy.  Middle row: Emily Cobb, Susan Murie, Cory Shea. Bottom row: Leah Pillsbury, Xian Ho. Learn more about them.

Community Supported Art takes the model of buying a farm share to help support local agriculture and adapts it to supporting art-making in our community. Participants make art to sell, while also getting training in the business of art.

Consider buying one of our CSArt shares. You get fresh, high-quality art at a reasonable price. Your purchase supports local artists, your neighbors, working right here in Cambridge. Which helps keep Cambridge creative.

In the news:
Our Community Supported Art program was featured in an article in the online magazine Artsy:
9 Communal Art Programs That Pay Artists to Create Experimental Work.

Artist updates:
• Deide Tao has a solo exhibit of paintings called “A Sense of Place” at Dome Gallery at Reservoir Church, Rindge Avenue and Middlesex Street, Cambridge, from April 1 to May 20. Viewing is by appointment: jbeltsmith@gmail.com.
• Anne Plaisance will exhibit her art in the exhibition “Collage ²” at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts from April 10 to May 8, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on April 12. Details.
• Cicely Carew is having a closing reception and printmaking workshop at Northeastern Crossing, 1175 Tremont St.,Roxbury, on April 18 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Details.
• Miriam E. Bucheli's “Art in Support of Diversity in Amazing Cambridge” is hosting a "Creative Mind Awareness Talk + Printmaking Workshop” at Gallery 263, 263 Pearl St., Cambridge, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. April 26. Register here.

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Thanks to everyone who joined us at the reception for "In:Accessible" last week. The exhibition, on view at the Cambridge Arts Council's Gallery 344 through May 31, showcases projects created by students of Cambridge’s NuVu Studio addressing ways to make our community more accessible for all.

Thursday, April 26, 2018, 5:30 pm

"Accessibility: A Teen Perspective." Cambridge Arts presents a screening of short documentaries created by middle and high school students of NuVu Studio about access to fresh foods, healthcare for undocumented immigrants, services for re-entry after mass incarceration, and mental health counseling for adolescents. Join us on Thursday, April 26, at 5:30 p.m., at Cambridge City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway, 2nd Floor Community Meeting Room. The screening is part of the exhibition "In:Accessible" at Cambridge Arts' Gallery 344 as well as part of the Disability Reframed community film series, which is co-sponsored with Cambridge Commission for Persons with Disabilities. Popcorn and light refreshments will be provided. Free.

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Cambridge Arts is excited to work with our City colleagues to help develop an Arts Overlay District for Central Square. 

Last week the Cambridge City Council passed a policy order: “That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to work with the Assistant City Manager for Community Development, the Executive Director of the Cambridge Arts Council, and the City Solicitor with a view in mind of drafting of an Arts Overlay District ordinance that would achieve the goals of creating and preserving spaces for the arts in the Central Square Cultural District.”

Cambridge Arts is looking forward to partnering with the Cambridge City Council, Administration, and the local business community to continue to develop strategies for Central Square and other areas of the City that will benefit local artists, makers, and arts organizations and ensure that they can continue to live, produce work, and thrive in Cambridge.

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Free “Poetry Circle” Workshop

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Cambridge poet and artist Monica Raymond invites you to be a part of the Poetry Circle workshop on Monday, April 30, 2018, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Cambridge Arts Gallery 344, 344 Broadway, 2nd floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Bring a favorite poem (40 lines or fewer) by you or someone else to read together and then use as a source of inspiration for new writings.

“We'll alternate between periods of reading poems out loud, and quiet times for writing, thinking and dreaming,” Raymond says. “Sharing the new works created at the circle is welcomed and encouraged, but is always optional. Not comfortable reading aloud or don’t have a favorite poem to bring?  No worries, that’s fine too.  Join us anyway. Readings are voluntary and a selection of poems will be available at the event to browse and choose from for inspiration.”

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Cambridge Arts is looking for sponsors, volunteers, community groups and vendors to be part of the annual River Festival along the East Cambridge waterfront from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 2.

Sponsors
Looking for a fun and engaging way to connect with new clients and constituents? With audience numbers of 175,000, this event offers a wide range of sponsorship opportunities that connect businesses with potential patrons face to face and is a great way to promote your brand and engage with the community. Join us in building a unique and mutually beneficial partnership with unparalleled outreach potential!

Volunteers
We need your help to make this one-of-a-kind arts and culture event a success. Valuable volunteers like you make entertaining 175,000 festival-goers possible. No experience is necessary and all are welcome. This is also a wonderful team building and/or corporate volunteerism opportunity. E-mail crf_volunteers@cambridgema.gov to sign up.

Community Tables
At the festival site, there will be a designated area for local arts and cultural organizations, community groups, and other Cambridge-based nonprofit organizations to promote their programs and events free of charge. Use the link below to apply.

Vendors
The Arts Bazaar is a curated marketplace for a wide range of items both domestically made and imported from around the world that are representative of the many ethnic and cultural backgrounds found in Cambridge. We accept vendors who sell unique, high quality, one-of-a-kind, original and/or handmade works.

The World of Food is one of the most popular attractions at the festival. It features international cuisines, healthy choices, and festival favorites. We prefer vendors who sell just a few items, arranged to be served quickly and efficiently.  

Learn more: cambridgeartscouncil.org/riverfestival

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FLOW Program Brings Art To The Port

Monday night Cambridge Arts held a meet-up for the artists taking part in our FLOW program, which will bring 11 cultural projects to Cambridge’s Port neighborhood (previously known as Area Four).

Green City Growers has begun installing garden beds (pictured below) for the urban agriculture and sculpture hub they’re developing with artist Mark Cooper at Cambridge’s Moses Youth Center.

Another project will create “Mathscapes,” affixing life-size animal footprints to playgrounds to invite children to run and leap like animals to begin to learn math concepts like measurement and pattern recognition. The organizers of that project are co-hosting a “Math Talk” hackathon with M.I.T. on April 10 from 6 to 9 p.m. at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. Using ideas from high school and middle school students, MIT students will work with community members to create “Mathscape” models.

FLOW was also featured in the latest issue of Scout Cambridge:

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Cambridge Rindge and Latin School students perform in the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild’s Boston Theater Celebration in 2014.

Each year, Cambridge Arts makes financial grants to foster arts and cultural programs from puppetry to hip hop history, from Capoeira to ceramics. During our current 2017-2018 grant cycle, we’re supporting 40 projects with $89,830 funding—$70,000 of that contributed by the City of Cambridge itself. Below are some of those projects that you can take part in during April:

• New Repertory Theatre’s educational outreach program Classic Repertory Company presents Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” at April 12 at Farr Academy.

• Shelter Music Boston performs a classical chamber music concert at CASPAR Emergency Shelter on April 17.

• Cambridge Youth Gamelan performs a concert of Balinese music on April 21 at 8 p.m. at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. To learn more, email cambridgeyouthgamelan@gmail.com or visit their website.

• Five teen apprentices from Jean Appolon Expressions’ dance program (specifically folkloric Haitian and modern) will present their final performances at the Boston Children’s Museum on April 22 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

• “Art in Support of Diversity in Amazing Cambridge” is hosting a "Creative Mind Awareness Talk + Printmaking Workshop” at Gallery 263, 263 Pearl Street, Cambridge, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. April 26. Kit Rawlins of the Historical Commission will present an illustrated talk about the rich history of Cambridgeport. And MireliBooks Artist will offer a printmaking workshop. Register here.

• Cambridge Wildlife Puppetry Project presents “Kids, Bugs, Art” in which kids can make a mask or puppet of a local insect or other arthropod, and the whole family can participate in a global citizen science project, uploading photos of wildlife species they find to iNaturalist on the spot, using the iPhone app. April 28 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Magazine Beach; April 29 from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at Danehy Park; and April 29 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Fresh Pond. Info: https://cambridgeoutdoors.org/cnc/

• The Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild’s Boston Theater Celebration takes place at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School’s Fitzgerald Theatre on April 28. Eight high schools will each present a play of their own creation. After each show, students are given live, in-the-moment feedback.

• Make Music Boston, the annual free music festival, is looking for performers for its June 21 festival: https://matchboston.makemusicday.org/

• Midday Movement Series offers dance classes at The Dance Complex every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Details: middaymovement.org

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Cambridge Arts has partnered with Cambridge’s Freepoint Hotel via our Creative Marketplace Exhibitions program to feature art by Cambridge artist Miriam E. Bucheli, working under the artist name MireliBooks, on the hotel’s courtesy transportation van. Look for it parked outside of the hotel in northwest Cambridge when it’s not transporting hotel guests to and from the airport.

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Our friends at the Cambridge Public Library have all sorts of great programs planned for April, including:

April 12, 6:30 p.m.: Journalist and Brandeis professor Robert Kuttner discusses his new book “Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?” at the Main Library.

April 23, 7 p.m.: William Rawn, founding Principal of William Rawn Associates, Architects, the firm that designed the Main Library and the new Valente Branch Library (scheduled to open in 2019), speaks at the Main Library.

April 24, 6:30 p.m.: Anthony Charles Graves discusses his book “Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement and 12 Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul.” It’s about the 18 years he spent in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The event, at the  Main Library, is part of the library’s Our Path Forward series.

April 25, 6:30 p.m.: David Woolner talks about his book “The Last 100 Days: FDR at War and at Peace” at the Main Library as part of the library’s Our Path Forward series.

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Cambridge Arts is the River Festival, Open Studios, Gallery 344, Sidewalk Poetry, Summer In The City, Community Supported Art, grants to artists, street performers, more than 280 works of contemporary public art in every neighborhood of the city, and a conservation program to preserve them for the future.
 
We’re the Cambridge Arts Council, a city agency that funds, promotes, and presents high-quality, community based arts programs for the benefit of artists, residents, and visitors in Cambridge. Active since 1974, Cambridge Arts is one of the most dynamic local arts agencies in the country. Cambridge Arts exists to ensure that the arts remain vital for people living, working and visiting Cambridge.
 
The City of Cambridge does not discriminate on the basis of disability.  We will provide auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternate formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures to persons with disabilities upon request. 

For information contact Cambridge Arts: cambridgearts@cambridgema.gov, 617-349-4380 or TTY: 617-349-4621.