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Thursday, October 15
Amherst Cinema 7:00 pm
Tickets: $10; $5 for students and seniors. Online at click text and at the Amherst Cinema box office.

Tickets available for purchase online August 1

Join us for the Western Massachusetts launch of the 2nd annual state-wide Massachusetts Poetry Festival! Simultaneous readings around the Commonwealth on Thursday evening will ring in two days of festivities based in Lowell on October 16 & 17. James Tate, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and the William Carlos Williams Award, and author of over twenty books of poetry and prose, Ellen Doré Watson, author of three books and poems, and James Haug, author of five books, will read from new and selected work. Presented in collaboration with the UMass MFA Program for Poets and Writers, the Juniper Initiative, the Amherst Cinema Arts Center and the UMass Fine Arts Center.

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Joyce Conlon: Coming of Age Artist’s Statement

Like a shadow cast or an image reflected on water, my work involves the transformation of form on a surface. I locate my work within the tradition of modern American landscape artists and others like Thomas Nozkowski who have been inspired by nature and its intersection with culture.
This series, Fence, began with a walk in the woods where I came across a neglected antique wire fence. I was and continue to be struck by the sculptural beauty of the forms that were once so similar and now bend and distort. The fence, that had stood straight and determined to mark the boundary between one side and another, sporadically recalls its former shape and purpose. Looking through the fence, the landscape is, in a sense, annotated for me.
Like many artists, I attempt to represent my subjective experience. As with the fence, I am affected by change both short and long term. Working with acrylics on board, I begin work by seeking and creating pattern as an organizing principle. I am interested in disrupting and reasserting connections with pattern and scale. Using a process of building up layers and sanding to reveal what lies beneath, I am able to burnish the surface and bring out aspects of buried history or palipsis.
I am interested in what happens when I let go of borrowed form and allow it to become altered much like what occurs when we grow and transform our identities over time.

When:
Thursday, October 15 – Thursday, November 12
Free and open to the public

Opening Reception of Joyce Conlon: Coming of Age

Thursday, October 15 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Fine Arts Center wants to know: What are you thinking?

From Marcia R. Wise’s artist statement: Whether working en plein air or in the studio, I am aware of the connection between art, spirit, and life. My focus is on color. I work to create visual brilliance by allowing the drama of light and color to shape my compositions while I experiment with color placement and color relationships. I begin with a sketch on prepared hardboard panels, and I apply the first layer of paint with brushes, creating a cohesive value study under-painting that serves as a value skeleton for successive applications of color. With a palette knife I apply one layer of paint at a time, while also scraping paint away, letting each layer dry between applications. I work toward a smooth finish on my surfaces, yet I want them to visually appear textured. Each layer of color is allowed to show through in the finished piece.
I love a deep, direct gaze. As I add and subtract paint, this process takes me out of time and deep within. It is there that I discover some part of myself within the intimate landscape of the other. This is the discovery that holds me captivated. Here I find glimpses of spirit within where any feelings of being separate fade into a sense of connection.
I find the same mystery and self-discovery while painting the landscape, and most always work en plein air so I can experience a connection with the spirit of the land. It is this process, this inner journey that speaks to me. As I recreate Nature’s beauty and mystery, I too, am recreated.

When:
Thursday, October 15 – Thursday, November 12
Free and open to the public

OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, October 15 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Working from her dream journals and historical/pop cultural symbols, she creates works that stir up something familiar and already know within us. Layering mixed mediums and media, she reflects the dark and quirky world around us and illuminates it.
Ludwig’s work is included in Cribs to Cribbage at Mass MoCA and her Scab Nation related works will be featured in a solo exhibition in NYC at Jack The Pelicans in October

When:
Thursday, October 15 – Thursday, November 12
Free and open to the public

OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, October 15 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Let me know what you thought of it!

An exhibition of student works from the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts in South Hadley, MA
Organized and curated by PVPA Art Instructor, Petula Bloomfield
Tuesday, September 29 – Thursday, October 29
Central Gallery

Curator’s Statement: For the last six years, I have had the great pleasure and privilege to teach and work with an extraordinary group of young people from 7th to 12th grade at PVPA. During this time, I have watched students who claimed to have no creative ability or who lacked confidence, progress to find ways to express themselves with astonishing visual eloquence. It is a testament to the discovery of the rich and rewarding efforts of people working together with the creative process.

About the curator: Petula Bloomfield has been an exhibiting artist in galleries and museums since 1990. She has a Master of Science in Art from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts from Clark University, Worcester. She has taught art classes and designed and presented workshops in schools and her studio since 1996. She has been an art instructor at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School since 2003. Her work may be viewed at www.petulabloomfield.com

Free and open to the public

Let us know what you thought about it!

Tuesday, September 8 – Tuesday, October 13
Hampden Gallery Incubator Project Space

In his curator’s statement Tillyer writes:
As four panes to a window, each artist bends light to represent his and her vision. Four artists, individualized presentations, one each week for four weeks.
Tell us what you think…

Described as the “Jimi Hendrix of the kora,” Toumani Diabaté is an ardent experimentalist, enriching his intimate sound with the Symmetric Orchestra’s powerful, multilayered grooves. Diabaté is a master of the kora—the 21-string harp unique to Africa. The Symmetric Orchestra, Diabaté’s terrific pan-African band, includes musicians from Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Mali. All contribute to a buoyantly jubilant sound that will rock the Fine Arts Center. Join in the party spirit! Funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the American Masterpieces initiative, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.

Music Samples

Thursday, April 23
Concert Hall 7:30 pm
$30, $25, $15; Five College Students and Youth 17 and under $15

The members of this orchestra set a new standard in Russia’s tradition of symphonic mastery. Composed of the country’s leading symphonic virtuosos and led by the electrifying conductor and violinist Vladimir Spivakov, the National Philharmonic of Russia has quickly established itself as the finest and most exciting orchestra to emerge from Russia in many years. Their UMass Amherst program includes the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 and Romeo and Juliet, Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake, and Prokofiev’s Four Pieces from Romeo and Juliet Suites.

Music Samples

Sunday, April 19
Concert Hall 7:00 pm
$45, $35, $15; Five College Students and Youth 17 and under $15

Under the direction of cellist Yuri Turovsky, I Musici de Montreal has been celebrated throughout the world for its laser-like precision, cohesion, expressiveness, assurance and compelling flair. Fanfare magazine recently recognized I Musici de Montreal as “one of the best chamber orchestras in North America.” The centerpiece of this towering all-Russian program features the Mussorgsky classic in a production traveling with choreographed projections.. You’ll rediscover Mussorgsky’s brilliant music with breathtaking imagery, inspired from Natasha Turovsky’s fabulous paintings, projected during the performance.

“…imaginative illustrations for the final musical work…expressive and highly inventive arrangements…” The Cleveland Plain Dealer

When: Sunday, April 5, 3:00 PM
Where: Concert Hall
Tickets: $35, $30, $15; Five College Students and Youth 17 and under $15

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Three master improvising violinists pay homage to the most important violinist to emerge in the post-Coltrane era: the late Leroy Jenkins. A veteran of the bands of John Carter, Archie Shepp, Henry Threadgill and others, Bronx-born Terry Jenoure is a wide-ranging visual and performing artist, and curator of the Fine Arts Center’s Augusta Savage Gallery. “From Billy Bang’s violin comes everything we know about black music and a lot we have yet to learn about rhythm, subtlety and swing,” writes Ntozake Shange. The passion and fire of Charles Burnham has graced the work of Cassandra Wilson, James Blood Ulmer, Steven Bernstein and Medeski, Martin & Wood.

March 26, 8:00 PM
Bezanson Recital Hall
$12/$7