Art Openings and Music Fill Downtown North Adams for DownStreet Art Celebration

Artwork by Gil Scullion will be featured at Gallery 107

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – Downtown North Adams will host 10 new art exhibitions and live performances by MCLA’s fine and performing arts students and local bands on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012, from 6 to 9 p.m., as part of DownStreet Art 2012. All events are family-friendly, free and open to the public.

The celebration begins at Adams Community Bank Gallery with the 5 p.m. opening of  “Figuratively Speaking, Abstractly,” a two-person exhibition featuring New York-based artist Bob Anderson and Berkshire-based artist William Clements. Curated by MCLA alumna and artist Kristen Parker, “Figuratively Speaking, Abstractly” displays visual concepts associated with expression and emotion through the use of non-representational styles.

“Gneiss,” the newest outdoor public mural, entitled and inspired by microscopic and macroscopic formations found in metamorphic rocks that make up the buildings of North Adams, will be completed and officially unveiled on  Holden Street between Main and Marshall streets at 6 p.m. The 75-foot-long mural is created by North Adams-based artist Melissa Matsuki Lillie, and will be the final installment of the Mural Project.

At 6:30 p.m., “Art about Town,” which initiated a community collaborative between North Adams schools, a local artist and MCLA students, and lead to the realization of doll paintings on the columns of the underpass of Route 2, will give out a recognition certificates to each of the students that participated in the project.

Exhibition openings include:

NAACO Gallery:  “Dualities: The Painting of Ed Carson and Ceramics of Joshua Primmer.” North Adams painter Ed Carson and Bennington, Vt., ceramist Joshua Primmer explore the meaning of “rhythm and flow,” and how the trajectory of that motion visually affects their work, resulting in purely contemporary forms.

GALLERY X @ Jarvis Rockwell Gallery presents “The Afterlife: Interpretations of the Hereafter,” a facilitation of further conversation between artist Jarvis Rockwell and the creative minds of both local and regional artists. This unique look into an individual’s ideal afterlife was curated by the co-ssistant gallery manager of MCLA Gallery 51, Christina Stott.

MCLA Gallery 51: ” DIE FORMMEISTER: The Masters of the Form,” a group show featuring experimental animation, three dimensional work, glass, textile, prints, paintings, ceramics, jewelry and a site specific installation. It offers a panoramic over different mediums and artistic practices celebrating the form through which idea becomes object. Featured artists include Yura Adams, Karen Arp-Sandel, Michael Vincent Bushy, Janet Cooper, Helen Febbo, Linda Kayes-Moses, Fay O’Meara, Dina Noto, Glenn Shalan and Paula Shalan.

Wendy James Studio on Holden Street: Visitors can explore “Mostly Photographs,” an exhibition of photographs by Howard Itzkowitz and video stills by Wendy James.

The Artery Gallery: A joined effort by Signe Kutzer, Pam Buchanan, Kristen Parker and Christina Stott will create a mural on the inside of the Artery Gallery. The mural will reflect upon the mundane, and illustrates the challenge of confronting death and decay in order to achieve revitalization.

PRESS Gallery: “Getting there is easy,” an exhibit that celebrates the hard work and creations created at PRESS over the duration of the summer. Sandragraphs, pressure prints, linoleum prints, prints with moveable type, as well as book art and paste papers will be on display. The show will highlight work from Melanie Mowinski’s “Experimental Letterpress” class, taught at PRESS through MCLA, as well as other works from workshops and individual projects.

Gallery 107 at the end of Main Street: Work by Connecticut-based artist Gil Scullion will seal off the summer schedule of the largest pop-up gallery downtown North Adams. Scullion’s theme draws from the nature of the process made of reproduction and repetition. Largely interested with stencils and templates as manifestation of manual labor, Scullion always includes a handcrafted component in each piece of his installation, which he conceived around the theme of “insomnia,” and features an oversized bedroom, as well as paradox elements of dream.

From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. visitors will be entertained by the music of One Way Out, to perform under the Mohawk marquee. Local stores will stay open late with specials. At 7 p.m., the MCLA fine and performing art department will perform selections from “Cabaret” at the Berkshire Bank Stage.

DownStreet Art is a project of MCLA’s Berkshire Culture Resource Center, partnering with the City of North Adams, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Orbit Visual Graphic Design. The initiative was designed to revitalize downtown North Adams by identifying the City as a cultural haven. The program serves not only to increase MCLA’s visibility, but to showcase what other local arts organizations have to offer.

 

 

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