The Fine Arts Center

Hello Everyone!

I just wanted to remind everyone that Maggie Nowinski’s exhibit ‘Swallowed’ is still going on in Hampden ’til February 23. We invite you to come and visit if you haven’t yet!

Maggie Nowinski: Artist Statement

Plastic water bottles exist in the daily periphery of our environments, like the tap, tap, tapping of a leaking faucet, the ticking of a clock counting down to a dangerous event. As they assimilate into the corners of our environments, we swallow the methods of the bottled water industry that manufacture and advertise their contents using notions of purity and health.

Obsessed by an awareness of plastic water bottles I started collecting and working with them. Since late 2007 I have been developing a project that explores my relationship with the plastic water phenomenon. Looking at my own discomfort about participating in the world I live in, physically and psychologically, as I continually adjust to the sensation of impending doom that comes from living in today’s world, I explore the internalization of anxiety, the absorption of customary practices as normal and the impact of social and commercial processes on the individual. When I drink bottled water, the process is paradoxical – rejuvenating yet emotionally numbing. Swallowed will culminate in an installation including hundreds of photographs, thousands of plastic water bottles, video projects, audio recordings and drawings.

When we drink water we experience a somatic moment at the site where the external and internal meet – a primitive experience of a basic need being met. Plastic bottling has invaded this moment. We drink plastic water, part of a system that extends beyond the simple and immediate practice of drinking water. The residue of this process leaves internal traces in the body as it passes through our bodies – evidenced in the quenching of thirst, urinating and sweating.

When:
Wednesday, January 21 – Monday, February 23

Tuesday, February 16
First Churches, Northampton 7:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public.

In anticipation of the L.A. Theatre Works’ Tuesday, February 23 presentation of RFK: The Journey to Justice, the Fine Arts Center is hosting a public forum during which panelists will reflect on the role that RFK played in the Civil Rights movement, and on the continuting legacy of his involvement. Please join us for this community event featuring a non-traditional panel of speakers and performers who will touch on Robert F. Kennedy’s political legacy.

To date, panelists include Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the People’s Campaign for the Constitution, Adrienne Williams, Director of RFK’s Child Welfare Services, Dr. Arlene Rodriguez, Dean of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences at Springfield Technical Community College, and Phil Johnston, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Action Corps. Moderator will be local attorney Bill Newman, who practices Civil Litigation; Civil Rights; Labor and Employment, and Criminal Law, and is also director of the Western Regional Office of American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. The panelists will speak to the historical role of the arts in social change and the civil rights issues that we face today—another pivotal moment of American history.

Presented by the UMass Fine Arts Center in collaboration with The RFK Children’s Action Corps.

Thursday, February 18

Augusta Savage Gallery from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Free and open to the public.

In conjunction with the L.A. Theatre Works’ Tuesday, February 23 presentation of RFK: The Journey to Justice, the Fine Arts Center will be screening a documentary film on Thursday, February 18 at the Augusta Savage Gallery in New Africa House.

Utilizing interviews and archival footage, this film offers an inspiring portrait of the influential leader—from his visionary politics to his interpersonal relationships and the tragic 1968 assassination that cut short a brilliant life and promising career. Featuring extensive interviews with family members, friends, journalists, Washington insiders, and civil rights activists, American Experience: RFK chronicles the pivotal role Robert Kennedy played in many of the major events of the 1960s—the Cuban Missile Crisis, the civil rights movement, and the war in Vietnam.

The film looks closely at Kennedy’s complicated relationships with some of the leading figures of his day, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson, among them. And it reveals much about his personal world, his role as family mediator, and his overwhelming grief and guilt following the assassination of his older brother. Produced by David Grubin, the award-winning director of FDR and LBJ.

Saturday, January 30
The Hotel Northampton – Black tie or festive best from 6:30 pm to 11:30 pm
$100, with a $25 tax deduction; Individual sponsor is $150; Corporate sponsorships are available starting at $500.

Thursday, February 11 – Tuesday, March 9
Augusta Savage Gallery

Fully-engaged and totally original, Kelly Moore lives in Santa Fe, where he can be found painting on canvas and paper, as well as on other more unlikely surfaces such as used tubes of paint, discarded paint brushes, wooden boxes, and electrical wiring. His dolls, hung along the sides of his flea market vendor’s booth, pop up between paintings of faces, crows, hillsides, and a range of references, marks and gestures that emerge from deep places inside him. His works have a poetic quality, giving back to us what we bring to them. About himself, he says: these are my words eye was born a black crow on the 13th day of a scorpio moon in the foothills of the arkansas ozark mountains to my scottish irish parents dismay… they took me in nonetheless, fed me, clothed me, sent me to schools and tried to domesticate me… eye attempted to live a normal life… finding employment, trying to marry and even voting regularly but failed mostly and when eye reached full crow adulthood realized eye could no longer deny my coyote nature and immediately began turning over tables and rattling the cages folks immediately said eye was crazy and lots complained eye should stop what eye was doin (those is the folks that let you know you is doing something rite) eye knew this was an important breakthrough and immediately started looking for matches and kerosine and have been settin fires ever since thank you for reading my words

Thursday, February 11
UMass Fine Arts Center Concert Hall 7:00 pm
General Admission $20; $10 for students and youth 17 and under

Tickets available for purchase online now
The UMass Marching Band (tent.) The Young at Heart Chorus, Tehillah (St. Johns Congregational Gospel Choir, Joe Velez Quintet, UMass Jazz Ensemble I, FlavaEvolution Jazz Quartet
And Special Guests

All proceeds to benefit Partners in Health. PIH has been working on the ground in Haiti for over 20 years. PIH works to bring modern medical care to poor communities in nine countries around the world.

Sponsored by the UMass Fine Arts Center, UMass Office of Student Development, The UMass Amherst Springfield Initiative, the UMass Dept. of Music and Dance, UMass Haitian Student Association. WFCR/WNNZ, WGBY, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Valley Advocate, and the Northampton Arts Council.

Opening Reception: Sailing the Barbarous Coast
Central Gallery
Thursday, February 11, 4-6pm

Thursday, February 11 – Thursday, March 11

In the two person exhibition, Sailing the Barbarous Coast, Anthony Smith Jr.’s gestural sequential painting is paired with Colin Matthes’ flat, brusque, obsessive drawing- based work to form an exhibition that reflects a sense of uncertainty in the midst of economic calamity, social unrest, and global disruption.
Both artists create work influenced by war and consumption, sex, race, and well as the current global fiscal crisis. This work naturally draws connections between militarism, consumerism and economic hardship. With an eye to humor, irony, and mischief, the artists combine representations of global events with imagery sparked by personal experiences in their own roller-coaster like lives.

About the Artists

Anthony Smith
Anthony Smith’s paintings combine abstract expression with epic narratives that explore human will, slavery, and love.
Anthony’s paintings have recently been exhibited as part of “Icograms” at the Newton Art Center (Newton, Massachusetts) and at the Holland Area Arts Council (Holland, Michigan). He was a contributing artist to the critically noted “Harlem World” exhibit at the Studio Museum of Harlem in 2004. From 2000 to 2003, his work was displayed in studios and galleries in Michigan, New York and Texas.
Anthony moved to New York City where he currently resides in the Inwood section of Manhattan.

Colin Matthes
Colin Matthes, an artist based in Milwaukee, WI, works across a range of media including drawing, sculpture, installation, public art, print, and self-publishes the zine Ideas in Pictures. His artwork has been exhibited in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Denmark, Spain, and Austria. In 2009 Matthes completed a solo-exhibition at the University of Texas-Pan American, created an installation at the Armory Gallery (Milwaukee, WI), and made a wall drawing for a group exhibition at the Haggerty Museum (Milwaukee, WI). 2010 exhibitions include two-person shows with Anthony Smith at The New Art Center, Newton, MA and at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.

He works on collective art projects including Justseeds, Street Art Workers, and Cut and Paint zine (www.cutandpaint.org). For more information: Ideas in Pictures

Free and open to the public

Wednesday, February 10 – Sunday, May 16
University Gallery

This exhibition is the third annual exhibition at the University Gallery in which artists are invited to integrate their own works with pieces they select from the University Gallery’s works-on-paper collection, which includes over 2600 contemporary prints, drawings, and photographs.

This year’s exhibition features the work of an artists’ “collective”—Northampton artists Raphy Griswold, Ali Osborn, and Teddy O’Connor—who will position their work alongside works they select from the UMass permanent art collection and place them in direct dialogue with one another. Griswold, O’Connor, and Osborn are relatively new to the local art community, having had their first group exhibitions in 2007 and 2008 at A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton. For these three artists, banning together does not entail artistic collaboration, but rather, helps address a broad range of practical concerns, including access to materials, living and work space, exhibition opportunities and funding.

Wednesday, February 10 – Sunday, May 16
University Gallery

This exhibition is designed to deepen the public’s understanding and use of “green” design and to demonstrate how the key elements of sustainability can be accessible to all. In its relatively short history, sustainable architecture has been the purview of highly trained individuals and organizations devoted to energy efficiency or technological innovation often shortchanging the design aspects of sustainable architecture. This has begun to change in the past couple of years with many architects now thoroughly engaged in sustainable design when it comes to the building of new homes and places of work and public congress.

As the concept of sustainable architecture requires broad systemic thinking, issues around economic, social, and environmental sustainability inevitably play a critical role. The exhibition addresses these issues with commentaries, dialogue and thought provoking questions. In addition to visual inspiration the exhibition explores the accessibility and availability of green materials from local vendors, architects, contractors and builders.

The exhibition will showcase a variety of architectural models, videos, and plans of existing buildings throughout the valley that marry sustainable contemporary design with sustainable contemporary technology.

Highlights will include a display of locally available green material; panel discussions; “The Green Lounge” – a meeting area within the gallery for informanl public conversations; “Family Days” – in collaboration with the Hitchcock Center for the Environment; continuing education credits provided by the Western Massachusetts chapter of the American Institute of Architects; guided tours of select buildings; and a day-long symposium featuring prominent professionals and artists in the field.

Exhibition guest curated by architectural historian Margaret Vickery.