With only the rest of December left to view this monumental sculpture on the Greenway, I want to post now, without waiting for better photos from my phone. If you can get to Boston’s waterfront this month, don’t miss the experience of getting as close as possible to this inspiring being! If not, you can enjoy the compelling photos and information in Public Art at the Greenway website, plus other Key Resources listed below. I hope the quotes here will guide you.
Liberty images, statements, and costumes created by a group of artists for the Boston No Kings Rally in October came together for Fall of Freedom, November 22, with continuing sense of purpose! These photos, quotes, and links should support their promise.
Completed and celebrated in the summer of 2024, this exuberant extended mural rewards repeated visits. Quotes, photos, and links here support this promise.
Some “Serious and Silly” Scenes on the Cambridge Common, September 13, 2025 (with quotes for background and links to sites with better photos!)
Across the vast vista of people on that bright October day, a great variety of signs and colorful costumes heightened my hopes throughout the rally. Here are a few photos of many engaging characters who enlivened the event. For photos of some selected statements, visit updates on Signs of the Times. For context, data, and dramatic photos, explore links in KEY RESOURCES.
Quotes and photos below focus on a few features. Links at the end lead to more. “At a time when cities like Boston face intensifying summer heat and widening environmental disparities, PlanTable offers a living, participatory response—merging ecology, culture, and community in one dynamic space. This multidisciplinary project, presented in partnership with Pao Arts Center, emerges from a deep collaboration between artists, designers, community advocates, and climate thinkers. ” ( Quote from Greenway Public Art, PlanTable)
Ten cyanotype-printed* flags by Chhan and a richly coordinated cabinet by Zhang draw on their families’ historic crafts. Explore work of both artists along the flow of Chinatown Stream! Quotes, links, and photos should support their connections. * photo process printing in blue
This is a “quick post” to maximize time for you to experience the exhibit and for me to develop a worthy sequel post before it ends! So here are quotes,* links, and a few photos that should lead to the many wonders at Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio, 38 Eldridge Road, Harvard, MA. *All quotes from Old Frog Pond Farm and Studio 19th Annual Sculpture Exhibit
View photos,* quotes, and links for “Heat BLOOMS,” a temporary art installation, August-September: *from two almost hot afternoons
“When temperatures top 85 degrees, the flowers of “Heat BLOOMS”—a new art installation in Cambridge’s Harvard Square—bloom, like a visual thermometer warning of extreme heat.
Costumes, displays, banners, posters, music and dance relate to the theme: Workers over Billionaires!
Glad to be there and then go through many photos. Here are a few examples of statements people made in different ways.
This final sequel post shares photos and links for the six sculptures not shown in the two earlier posts.
These banners are now reminders of the brief time left to explore the exciting exhibit of seventeen sculptures and to find all six Gateway artist’s banners too! This sequel post slips in a few more glimpses, links and notes.
Here are photos, quotes, links, and notes from a recent MASS 50501 event that truly engaged me in sustaining ways. Visual art, along with music, poetry, free food, volunteer energy, careful organizing, and good weather, made this a fruitful festival.
I loved walking among the compelling pages of this sturdy, large-scale outdoor book in Auntie Kay and Uncle Frank Chin Park on the Greenway one evening in late July. Focused on faces, fabric patterns, and family members, I formed connections at my own pace. My next walk there will bring out more to share. Meanwhile quotes from the Greenway link should offer context and entice you to explore Misa Chhan’s artwork.
This Boston rally, July 17, in memory of John Lewis, drew on many ways to make good trouble: posters, stencils, bubbles, costumes, singing, speaking, signing, dancing, chanting, painting, and much more. Let photos and quotes here suggest the event’s energy and emotions.
Here are quotes, notes, links and photos from a truly fulfilling evening, July 15, 2025: Rooted Together, Plant Party, from 5 to 6:30. The event was planned around Little Free Greenhouse, one of three swap boxes in Give & Take, outside Harvard Ed Portal, 224 Western Ave., Allston.
Boston Women’s Heritage Trail (BWHT) alerted me to a resonant event, Women and the Fourth at the Boston Women’s Memorial on Commonwealth Avenue. Joining Meredith Bergmann’s sculptures of Phillis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, and Lucy Stone, Executive Director Dr. Alexandria Russell read aloud from Frederick Douglass’s powerful 1852 speech, What To the Slave Is the 4th of July?
I am lucky to live near enough to enjoy this engaging exhibit throughout July and August. Before June ends, I’m posting quotes, links and a few samples to lead you there in person or at least online! “Studios Without Walls, a Brookline nonprofit, is sponsoring Dream Upon the River, its 26th annual exhibition. Twenty-one local artists have created site-specific works of art that will remain on view at Riverway Park throughout the summer.” (till Sept 1)
Quotes, notes, links from first visit, with hopes of more to come: “Our newest interactive public art project, presented in partnership with Harvard EdPortal. On view at 224 Western Ave, Allston, MA, from May 2, 2025 to April 2026” (quote from Non Issue Studio: Swap Boxes)
On May 25, a wondrously worthwhile walk led by Marla McLeod, as curator and artist, added greatly to my awareness of the art on Brister’s Hill. I had already posted based on a solo walk and online research, but Marla shaped my vision for this sequel. Here are photos from her Curator Talk*, plus my promised focus on three artists not shown in the first post: Ekua Holmes, Perla Mabel, and Anthony Peyton Young.
After one walk along Art Ramble on Brister’s Hill, I have many photos and much yet to discover about the compelling art and history here. This post, with quotes and links to resources, should serve as a starter for everything I hope to share about Weaving an Address in the months ahead!
This sequel to Banners and Audio Tour Celebrate “People, Plants & Revolution” in Arlington adds photos of the indoor banners and more resources about the art.
The outdoor views are enticing, though distant and dependent on traffic, weather, and your own mode of transport. The indoor venue is generously unrestricted for close-up viewing of each banner.
Artists Suzanne Moseley and Liz Shepherd designed twelve bright banners that hang above the median strip of Massachusetts Ave in Arlington ( April through May) to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. Here are quotes, notes, prints, photos and rich resources connecting plants, people and history.
Here are photos friends have shared from Hands-Off rallies near them, just hints of much more everywhere. They extend the range of spirited signs within Boston and beyond. Links connect to the earlier post about Hands-Off rallies plus hopeful happenings since then.
Here are a few samples of the plentiful expressive statements and creative designs that characterized this significant event. Link to the quoted Boston Globe and NPR articles for basic background and dramatic photos as well.
My visit to this compelling mural in Walgreen’s parking lot at 324 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA on March 22 expanded my awareness of what people can do with art. The video below, about the completion celebration in October 2024, gives very valuable background. I hope the quotes, links and photos convey the mural’s powers.
With barely two weeks left to visit Living Lantern in Boston, near Dowtown Crossing, here is a quick post, urging you to go if you can. At least I hope the quotes, notes, and photos convey the most compelling features of this fascinating installation.
For more than twenty years two benches ( thrones) created from recycled aluminum have been a hilltop landmark of Danehy Park in Cambridge. They are part of Mierle Ukeles’ broader installation called Turnaround/Surround (1993–2004), which includes fragrant plantings, a welcoming ‘glassphalt’ path and dance floor designed with recycled colored glass.
The focus here is on selected views of the thrones during different weather and park activities. I hope they convey my admiring fascination with the textures, design, interplay and durability of these functional unique artworks.
Enticing, exciting ,engaging, Celestial Garden is one of fifteen artworks installed for WINTERACTIVE 2025 through March 30. Celestial Garden’s graceful interplay of music, motion, and mystery invited me to explore around the largest sphere and peer through the portals at the shifting scenes inside. I’m eager to return and to visit other WINTERACTIVE art as well! Quotes and links here offer information and perspective to guide you through a rewarding experience.
The four walls of what had once seemed to me a small gallery created an expansive sense of life outdoors with lots to enjoy, discover, and create. The enticing exhibit inspired this sudden post to note the remaining window of opportunity to visit ( till February 7) and the valuable resources about the whole impressive ongoing project. Quotes and links below:
Here is yet another impressive mural by Sophy Tuttle that I must revisit for more comprehensive photos plus better understanding of the structures, symbols and concepts that connect its full length of 190 feet! Then I’ll want to revisit often for the pleasures of the whole painting along the wall of 30 Dane Street in Somerville.
Walking a snow-covered stretch of the Greenway for an hour in late December, I got to visit seven of nine Hatchlings* with increased appreciation at each site! Certainly now I want to see and revisit them all many times before they leave in late February. This quick post with notes and quotes aims to urge anyone who can do a winter walk in Boston to enjoy them too. For everyone else, the resources here offer intriguing information about their origin, presence, and potential as public art. *including two initially on the Esplanade
Quotes, Video, Photos and Resources here, with hopes to follow up about this impressive project:
“In our last mural celebration this season, a ribbon-cutting was held at Drake Village in Arlington Heights — site of an installation of large-scale mosaics created in an inspiring collaboration of senior residents and Arlington Public High School Students. ” (quote from ARTS ARLINGTON newsletter Dec 2024)
After posting about Sophy Tuttle’s memorial mural for the eagle named MK, I returned for better photos. Then, suddenly, I saw how close it was to the utility box Eileen de Rosas painted some years earlier. Both artworks feature graceful plants and purposeful birds. Both are great reminders of how artists can convey the vitalities of nature on utilitarian structures not conceived with art in mind.
My first visit to Lena Mac’s new mural led me to look back at an earlier one and then discover many more. This post shares photos of two near me and a link to her website, which shows her range worldwide!
Though I have sometimes posted about temporary art*, .this is my first focus on how it is part of what happens in my neighborhood on Halloween. Every Labor Day, by a recent tradition, neighbors of all ages meet to propose, discuss, consider and then vote to choose a Halloween theme. This allows several weeks for families, individuals and groups to plan and create amazing artworks that connect our homes for one brief energetic evening.
“Last week, artist Sophy Tuttle put the final touches on her awe-inspiring tribute to MK, a much-loved female eagle who died from eating rats poisoned with rodenticide; the poison doesn’t kill immediately, impairing rodents so they become easy prey. Sophy’s glowing image remembers MK as a strong and glorious bird, in the prime of her life, surrounded by wildflowers that contribute to a healthy ecosystem. ” ( quote from NEW MURAL HONORS FALLEN EAGLE, Arts Arlington newsletter, Sept. 2024 )
Bright new murals on Arlington sidewalks mark stark metal grids meant to draw rainwater back down toward local lakes and rivers. If the grids and drains below are blocked and cluttered, that necessary flow is slowed, or worse!
So art leads our eyes down to places where we can help address that problem when we Adopt a Drain! Here are quotes and links that help explain.
September 27 was my first visit since the completion of “your spirit whispering in my ear.” These photos, notes, quotes, and links form a sequel to the early-September post about the mural in progress.
Photos, Quotes, Links and Notes for the First Month of the Tenth Mural on the Air-intake Building, Dewey Square, Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston”If you’re walking through Dewey Square next week, you may notice crews near the mural wall. They’re there to paint our new Dewey Square mural, “your spirit whispering in my ear” by Jeffrey Gibson! The painting of the mural is always a wonderful communal experience where people come to watch a new piece of art come to life, so feel free to pull up a chair and watch the process.”
My recent photos (August 2024) of Anne Katzeff’s beautifully painted utility (aka transformer) box in Belmont combine with quotes from her chronicle of creating it during several weeks in the summer of 2021. The story Transforming Belmont: Art on the Corner on her ASK Design Blog is a very valuable resource for everyone interested in […]
Delighted to finally visit this annual outdoor exhibit, I hope that it will return each spring for another 25 years at least! Next year I vow to visit as soon as it starts and to revisit several times before it ends. Here are some quickly selected photos along with quotes and links about the art, artists, ideas, interactions, and attractions in “This is ART.”
Mid-August weather urged me to share what I have seen and learned so far about Shade is Social Justice structures in Cambridge. Here is a quick post with photos, quotes, and links to explore before a promised sequel post with something more.
This post is a quick follow-up to STORYWALKS DISPLAY BOOK ARTS IN PARKS WORLDWIDE, INCLUDING CAMBRIDGE with two examples of the eight StoryWalks in Cambridge listed for this summer, 2024. Placement of book pages at children’s eye levels along fences around playgrounds helps relate their outdoor play to themes of selected books.
In recent summers I’d been captivated by spreads of whole picturebooks along fences in Cambridge parks. I’ve appreciated these broadened views of related illustrations and book design, as well as the opportunity for everybody to follow stories as they move throughout a park.
This post shares examples from my city, plus some background information that made me aware of StoryWalks around the world.
This second part of two related posts shares photos, quotes, and links about the artwork in Chin Park.
“Keeping joy and play at the center of her work, the artist invites viewers to engage with the installation in multiple ways: you can walk up the sculpture as if riding on the dragon, explore neighborhood surroundings through a rainbow-colored kaleidoscope feature, or play with the built-in hand drum.” (quote from Rose Kennedy Greenway, Year of the Dragon, Ponnapa Prakkamakul )
Here is one of two related posts with photos, quotes and links to share exciting public art created by ponnapa prakkamakul* with active community participation!
You. Me. A Place to Be. outside the Harvard Ed Portal, 224 Western Ave., Allston, until March 2025
The exhibit “Rust Happen(s): Caring for the Public Art Collection” opened at Cambridge Arts Gallery 344 in March, but I didn’t get there till the end of June. It will close on July 19, 2024. I’m posting quickly now to maximize remaining time for you to enjoy this revelatory exhibit.
Art Outdoors 