Mary Armstrong

Until January 21, 2012, Mary Armstrong’s exhibition, Any Given Moment, will show at the Victoria Munroe Gallery on Newbury Street. Armstrong, a local artist and Boston College painting professor, has worked with the gallery since 1985, giving four solo exhibitions in New York and three solo exhibitions since 2006 at Victoria Munroe’s Boston location.

Any Given Moment, which opened December 8, showcases Armstrong’s most recent paintings and her attempts to make sense of sweeping political change as well as the terror and awe she felt after the Japanese tsunami in March 2011. In these paintings, which feature shifting cloud forms juxtaposed against the reflected spaces of marine landscapes, Armstrong drew inspiration from Japanese screens and prints from the Edo period, as well as Georgione and Caspar David Friedrich.

Near Here, 2011, wax and oil on panel, 22x24

Armstrong sees the paintings in her collection as earth anthems and earth elegies. “At my age,” she says, “times is dwindling, and, as I prepare to leave this beloved earth, I am drawn to celebrate it and express my admiration and anxiety.”

Armstrong’s paintings in Any Given Moment, which explore depth of space, differ from her past work. In a 2010 collection, Armstrong did not limit herself to the single rectangle of a canvas, but painted freely, adding paper to the edges of her painting as it expanded. Her 2010 paintings showed grids spanning empty space. “The work was a visual meditation on the impulses of our human brains to calibrate, measure, and, thus,” Armstrong says, “to declare rights over the earth and its atmosphere.”

As Armstrong approached her latest works, however, she limited her painting area to a single rectangle, impelling her visual imagination to explore space and depth. “Gradually over a year’s time I struggled to make very deep and vast spaces on a small scale.” The painting “Near Here,” with its dark clouds in the foreground and ocean stretching into the distance, best demonstrates her breakthrough.

When, 2011

While Any Given Moment explores Armstrong’s longstanding fascination with water and the meeting points of water and earth, she also acknowledges the effects of social and political changes that influenced her paintings. In works such as “Wave” and “When,” waves are a visual metaphor for geo-political and geo-physical changes.

Since she began teaching in the ‘70s, Armstrong has balanced artistic and academic roles. “I am teaching something that I am passionate about,” she says about her experiences teaching painting at Boston College, “and, at the same time, mystified and curious about. I simply point out possibilities of ways to my students and then retreat to my own studio to find my own way.”

The Victoria Munroe Gallery is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and is located at 161 Newbury Street in Boston. For more information and for holiday hours, visit the gallery’s website.

Suzanne Matson

Boston College Professor of English Suzanne Matson is among the recipients of the 2012 Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose from the National Endowment for the Arts for a work of fiction currently in progress. Competition for these awards is extremely rigorous; this year the Creative Writing Fellowships Panel reviewed 1179 eligible applications.

Matson, currently chair of the English Department at BC, has taught at the University since 1988.

In addition to the NEA award, she has received fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the American-Scandinavian Foundation. Her most recent novel is The Tree-Sitter, published by W. W. Norton in both hardcover and paperback (2006). Her previous two novels, also from Norton and reissued in paperback by Ballantine, are A Trick of Nature (2000) and The Hunger Moon (1997).

Her books of poems are Durable Goods (1993) and Sea Level (1990), published by Alice James Books. Many of the poems collected in these volumes were previously published in journals including The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Boston Review, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Indiana Review and Shenandoah.

Her autobiographical, literary, and op-ed essays have appeared in periodicals such as The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, Child, The Seattle Times, The American Poetry Review, Harvard Review and Mid-American Review.

She also is credited with spearheading a revival of the Greater Boston Intercollegiate Undergraduate Poetry Festival, now held annually at Boston College.

Originally from Portland, Oregon, Matson holds a bachelor’s degree from Portland State University, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Washington, where she was awarded the Robert B. Heilman Dissertation Prize, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and the Susannah McMurphy Fellowship.

Originally posted by the Boston College Office of News and Public Affairs.

The exhibition is based on the idea that laughter is one of the ways humans interact and share influences. The fact that visual arts use a non-verbal medium gives artists the opportunity to use their skills to invite viewers to share an inside joke.

Unsatiabella 48" Tondo, acrylic paint on canvas, 2011.

Sherry Mayo (BC ’93) has spent her career at the intersection of science and art, and the (inside) joke exhibition picks up where she left off as a BC undergraduate. At Boston College, Mayo felt that none of the majors offered quite fit her interests. Her advisor told her about the possibility of creating an independent major, and the result was BioArt, her cross between pre-med, biology, and art.

As an undergraduate, Mayo combined work as a bacteriology lab assistant and diener’s assistant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital with her artistic goals. “I utilized slides from samples of this research as a basis for my paintings and I wrapped up the experience with a solo exhibition at O’Connell House,” Mayo said.

Mayo’s area of interest is unique and interesting, but she insists that others have pursued the same idea. “In the 90s I found so many young adults like myself (Sputnik kids) that were encouraged to learn science and thought that it was cool. It’s really the aesthetic of science that is the attraction (see artist Matt Dion),” she says, “Other young artists were collaborating directly with scientists to make their works and were beholden to the scientific method.”

Neurotica, acrylic paint on canvas, 2' x 5, 2010.

Mayo sees the digital age as a movement that has profoundly transformed culture. She asks questions in her research regarding the sociological inquiry of humans and the way that humanity is transformed by Human-Computer-Interaction.

Her interests led her to pursue an MFA in cross-media fine arts at NYU, as well as computer graphics study at the Museum School in Boston, and an Ed. D.C.T. at Teachers College, Columbia.

“My doctoral research,” said Mayo, “was about…artists incorporating digital technologies into their studio art practices, yielding hybrid artforms, and causing an aesthetic shift or a digital aesthetic. I was in the middle of an avant-garde and I sought to explain it from the inside. The study was comprised of 8 case studies and an exhibition that I curated entitled, ‘Synthetic Pleasures.’”

After joining the BFA Computer Art Department at School of Visual Arts, she pushed into areas such as digital imaging. Her interests include subjects such as: the post-human, the hybrid nature of digital media, the integration of digital media with traditional studio practice, arts technology integration in education, the arts-sci movement, and new media.

Her latest exhibition, (inside) joke picks up where her research (and her recent exhibition at Westchester Community College) left off, the social relevance of mixing science and art.

Artists featured in (inside) joke: Maria-Elena Alvarez, Kristin Anderson, Kristin Baxter, Lisa Breznak, Holly Crawford, Claudia Jacques, Angie Eng, Matt Ferranto, Marcy Freedman, Carla Goldberg, Beth Haber, Richard Jochum, Carla Rae Johnson, Jill Kerwick, Gaetano LaRoche, Danny Licul, Christina Mazzalupo, Thomas McKean, Tricia McLaughlin, Gene Panczenko, Lise Prown, Paula Stuttman.

For more information on (inside) joke and featured artists, click here. To view Sherry Mayo’s bio and samples of her work, click here.

Rupture, acrylic painting on canvas, 2' x 3', 2009.

October 30, 2011 marks the 30-year anniversary of the opening of the Robsham Theater Arts Center. The 2011-2012 season commemorates the event, beginning with a production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical Into the Woods, which runs from October 26-30 on the Robsham Mainstage.

Paul Daigneault '87, Director, Into the Woods

Guest artist Paul Daigneault (BC ‘87) will direct the musical, which is a comic but poignant reinterpretation of fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. The musical follows the charmingly interpreted classic characters (think Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella) as they journey “into the woods,” encountering their personal fears, secret desires, and the special something within each of them.

The musical, an odyssey of upbeat self-discovery, speaks to the journey of Robsham Theater itself. In the 150-year history of Boston College, the performing arts have developed from the Dramatics Society of 1865 to the Theatre Department we have today. After more than a century of performances in classrooms, lecture halls, cafeterias, and dormitory lounges, the university opened the Robsham Theater Arts Center on October 30, 1981. It was named the E. Paul Robsham Jr. Theater Arts Center in honor of E. Paul Robsham, Jr., the son of University trustee E. Paul Robsham and Mrs. Joyce Robsham, who lost his life in an automobile accident after his freshman year at BC.

At the dedication of the new theater in 1981, then-president (now University Chancellor) J. Donald Monan, S.J. said, “A great college needs only three rooms – a classroom, a library, and a theater. The theater because neither the spoken work of the teacher, nor the brilliance captured in libraries, can equal the graphic power of theater to make an audience look beyond its own world.”

This year’s celebration commemorates the Theatre Department’s steady growth and looks to a continued fostering of the performing arts at Boston College and in the community.

Theatre Department Chair Scott T. Cummings says, “We all get so busy that we forget sometimes to stop, take a breath, and see just how far theatre and the arts have come on this campus in the past thirty years. We still have unfulfilled needs and room for improvement, but we have accomplished much. I want this to be a year of celebration—for current students and alumni, for faculty and administrators, and everybody who appreciates the importance of the performing arts to the campus community.”

The celebration is dedicated to Howard Enoch, director of the Robsham for three decades, as well as Mrs. Joyce Robsham and the late Mr. Paul E. Robsham, who have provided vital support to the performing arts at Boston College.

Additional performances of the 2011-2012 season include The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Doubt; Rising Up, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Tickets for Into the Woods are $10 for students, seniors, BC faculty and staff. General admission is $15. All tickets are available through the Robsham Theater Arts Center Box Office by calling 617.552.4002 or visiting www.bc.edu/theatre.

For Into the Woods performance details, click here.

For more information regarding the Robsham Center, the BC Theater Department, and the 2011-2012 season, click here.

Click on the image for a full size version.

Tonight’s exhibition opening launches a multi-media student art show inspired by Jesuitana materials from the John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections. The show displays a range of artistic styles and scales. One student to keep an eye out for in the exhibition is Joon Sung Park ’12. A senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, Park submitted a collection of ambitious ceramic sculpture that explores the conflicts and cultural exchange between East and West. Working towards a major in Psychology and a minor in Art, Park recently completed time in the Korean army.

The student art exhibition is the result of collaboration between two BC faculty members—Associate Professor of Fine Arts Sheila Gallagher and Assistant Professor of History Father Jeremy Clarke, S.J. Father Clarke curated the Burns exhibit to explore the role of images in the history of East-West cultural relationships and the transfer of ideas.

Gallagher and Clarke came together with a number of goals for Binding Friendships & Memory Palaces. They wanted to engage students in the Burns exhibit’s conversations regarding the East-West relationships and history, as well as give students from different departments, such as History, Fine Arts, and Asian Studies, a chance to create a space for transdisciplinary conversations. They also wanted to support academic thinking outside of the classroom in a community supportive of a cultural and creative discourse.

The Bapst Student Art Gallery hours are Mon-Fri 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sat 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on Sundays.

Paul Lewis Gives Poe Walking Tour

Paul Lewis, Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston Chair and Boston College professor in the English Department, will host two Poe walking tours in October. The tours are offered in conjunction with the Foundation, a group interested in “promoting interest in Poe’s controversial role in the literary heritage of Boston.”

Lewis’s tours will be offered on Sunday, October 9, and Saturday, October 29, at 1:00pm. The tours consist of a 90-minute walk through historically significant sites in Poe’s life and in Boston’s literary scene, including “the Poe birthplace, Edgar Allan Poe Square, the grave of Charles Sprague (called the baker-poet of Boston), the Frog Pond on Boston Common, the Nathan Appleton mansion, the Boston Athenaeum, and the King’s Chapel Burying Ground” (The BC Chronicle).

The tours follow an exhibition at the Boston Public Library – “The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston.” The exhibition focused on Poe’s dual birth in Boston—both as a child and as a writer, and commemorated Poe’s complex relationship with Boston and its literary figures.

Lewis acted as curator to the exhibition, and in the same vein, his tour focuses on the relationship between Poe and Boston. “According to Lewis, ‘the 90-minute tour explores Poe’s ties to the city, from his birth here in 1809 to his return as a young man in 1827 and his controversial appearance before the Boston Lyceum in 1845’” (The BC Chronicle).

The price of admission is $10, and all proceeds go the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston to fund the group’s project to bring public art to Poe Square.

Read more from Rosanne Pellegrini’s Boston College Chronicle article, “BC Professor Launches Poe Walking Tour,” Sept. 8, 2011.

Image courtesy of The Boston College Chronicle.

About the book: Elsie Wyatt is a born French horn player, just like her father and her grandfather before her. In order to qualify for the prestigious summer music camp of her dreams, she must expand her musical horizons and join – gasp! – the marching band. There are no French horns in marching band (what the heck is a mellophone??), but there are some cute boys. And marching band is very different from orchestra: they march, they chant, they . . . cluck? Elsie is not so sure she’ll survive, but the new friends she’s making and the actual fun she’s having will force her to question her dad’s expectations and her own musical priorities.

On Sunday, September 11, the Boston College Theatre Department will present a staged reading of Anne Nelson’s The Guys, a play honoring New York City firefighters. Directed by John Houchin, The Guys will have one performance on September 11 at 7:00 p.m. in Gasson 100.  Admission to this performance is free and open to the public.

The players in The Guys are BC staff and faculty members. David Anderson Lewis, a member of Actors’ Equity and Boston College’s IT Department will portray the New York City Fire Department Captain who has lost eight men in the World Trade Center attacks. Actor/director Patricia Riggin, a Theatre Department faculty member, will play the writer who helps to eulogize them.

A post-performance reflection will be moderated by Erik Owens, Associate Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life.

It was a dreary night outside the Villa Diadoti on Lake Geneva in 1816, The Year Without a Summer. Inside, Mary Wollestonecraft Godwin longs for home, domestic stability, and peace of mind. As the storm rages on...Lord Byron issues his infamous challenge to write a ghost story that is both frightening and original.

The events that would lead Mary Shelley to write her Gothic classic Frankenstein in 1818 are the focus of Hideous Progeny, which is on stage through July 23 at The Boston Playwright Theater – and is a production with a number of BC connections.

The play, based on the journals, letters and works of Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley was written by playwright and writer Emily Dendinger, a 2005 alumna of the College of Arts and Sciences. Dendinger, whose works have been produced throughout the country. Dendinger is playwright-in-residence at Holland Productions which she co-founded with Krista D’Agostino ’05 and several others in 2006 to promote the female voice on Boston’s stage. Dendinger is also a co-producer for the Inch Worm Playreading Series in Chicago, which is devoted to sponsoring developmental playreadings for young playwrights.

“From the day Emily arrived on the BC campus, she made her determination to become a playwright known,” said Associate Professor of Theater and department chair Scott Cummings, who noted that this fall Dendinger will enter the highly-regarded MFA program in playwriting at the University of Iowa. “It is so exciting to see her efforts come to fruition.”

Hideous Progeny is directed by classmate Krista D’Agostino ’05, producing artistic director and director-in-residence at Holland Productions. D’Agostino has produced and directed numerous plays for Holland Productions, as well as for for the Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop, Boston Actors Theater and The Boston Theatre Marathon.

Costumes for Hideous Progeny were designed by Jacqueline Dalley, an adjunct assistant professor in BC’s Theater Department. In addition to designing costumes for productions for BC Theater and teaching courses, Dalley has designed costumes for more than 150 productions ranging from children’s theater to opera, as well as for many water-ski and dive shows for Sea World.

Boston Playwrights Theater is at 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Performance times and tickets are available online.

Watch this recording of Campanelli performing with BC bOp! to get a taste of her talent: