Category art history

Storm King Art Center, Immense and Inviting

A blog called Art Outdoors cries out for posts about Storm King Art Center, a grand-scale sculpture park. Finally, I feel ready to respond, with a few starting notes, photos, and links. 

Beverly Pepper, A Presence of Her Own

Lately I’ve been motivated by my goal to post about every woman artist with work on the Boston Public Art Walk before Women’s History Month next year. Sudden Presence is Beverly Pepper’s Cor-ten steel sculpture on that walk. Suddenly I saw how much I had been missing.

Art Beneath Our Feet: Asaroton by Mags Harries

I chose to focus on Mags Harries now because her work is currently featured at the Boston Sculptors Gallery and also within an exhibit at the deCordova Museum through this summer. I’ll hope to have other opportunities to express my enthusiasm for what this inspiring artist has done and is still doing.

Four Fascinating Fountains in the Boston Public Garden

Four of the six fountain sculptures in the Boston Public Garden were created by women.The sculptures in these four fountains are smaller scale than the two by men. All four are bronze on granite bases in the center of bricked basins. The women artists depicted children or animals rather than grand heroic or symbolic beings.

Salute to Women Sculptors along Commonwealth Avenue Mall

The route of the Women’s March in January along Commonwealth Avenue in Boston revived my interest in the women’s art that’s always waiting there. Then Women’s History Month this March got me strolling through the snow to document and honor what I’ve learned: Women sculptors created five of the nine artworks along the mall.

Matthew Hoffman on the Greenway and Rachel Perry Welty at the Gardner

Artists Choose Words for Us to Ponder:
On a mild sunny February Sunday, I set out to see Rachel Perry Welty’s statement at the Gardner Museum and Matthew Hoffman’s phrases along the Greenway Fence. These two temporary installations have been up since early January 2016 and will be down again in several months.

Time for me to Thank Artist Mary Frank

  This Thanksgiving I give thanks to Mary Frank because she makes me keep thinking about art, including hers. She makes me want to give time to the surprising, sustaining gifts of art. She makes me want to share my view of what an artist like Mary Frank has done and can do. For now I’ll share […]

Chesterwood and the Mount, Current Sculpture at Historic Homes

Both historic sites have formal gardens as well as multiple inspiring, flexible woodland areas where artists or curators chose to temporarily place their 21st-century art.

Calder Stabile Stands Tall in Cambridge

Since 1965, Alexander Calder’s forty-foot-tall dark, handsome stabile* called La Grande Voile (The Big Sail) has stood on MIT’s campus within view of the Charles River, livened by small white sleek sails in certain seasons. Why now after nearly fifty years in Cambridge does this mighty metal sculpture call for new attention from someone like […]

Playful Work by Artist Thomas Willis in Home Depot House at deCordova

This is my third post about deCordova Biennial’s Home Depot House but first to include a direct link to artist John C. Gonzalez’ story of how it came to be. Curating a  series of month-long residencies there by six different artists, John carried out the first one, in early fall.  Now in nearly spring, this final residency […]