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Local Color
Can Art Spider link NH?
By Heidi Masek hmasek@hippopress.com
• Fine arts: Professional fine artists have met at Borders in Nashua on Wednesdays since 1991, artist Nita Casey said. Besides Nashua, they come from towns like Milford, Wilton, Hudson and Hollis, plus Pepperell, Tyngsboro and Westford, Mass. They come to network and exchange information such as deadlines for national art shows. They bring artwork to shows for each other. There are no dues, no “boss,” Casey said. However, the Nashua Breakfast Club puts its own annual exhibit together. Twenty-two artists show three or four pieces each in watercolor, oils, pastel, acrylic and photography at the Jaffrey Civic Center, 40 Main St., Jaffrey (www.jaffreyciviccenter.com, 532-6527), from March 27 to April 25. Yes, it’s far, but it’s a beautiful place to hold a show, and familiar to many in the group, Casey said. Plus, Nashua doesn’t have one, she said. Commission helps support the center. You can meet the artists at the opening, Friday, March 27, from 5 to 8 p.m. Some of the talented folks involved include Phil Bean, Kathy Cooper, Joyce Kingman, Joanne Tierney, Marilene Sawaf, Steven Previte, Susan Whitten and Harriett Winchester.
• Photo focus: Marylou Blaisdell of DesignWares said the downtown Nashua shop started working with the Hollis Arts Society on promotional events last year. They expand their efforts with a quarterly artists series starting with photography by Dan Brown of Hudson. Meet him and see his “Frost” series Thursday, March 26, between 5 and 7 p.m., at 206 Main St. (882-5535). “Blending the science of photography and the art found in nature is what motivates him,” according to DesignWares.
• Linking: Larry Graykin credited his wife Justine with the idea to develop Art Spider. The fiction writer was looking for cover art for a podcast. “She’d been noticing there was real difficulty in finding ways for people to connect with each other outside of their specific art community,” Graykin said. The Art Spider hub or Web portal is “not going to try to reproduce Facebook, but essentially [it will] have a very complex Rolodex that’s easy to use,” Graykin said. Graykin said they don’t want to duplicate, just connect existing resources. However, Art Spider will also be a place where artists without Web presence can easily create one. They also want to use it to help communities, like their town of Deerfield, that don’t have many ways to promote local events or arts.
Art Spider will be specific to New Hampshire, so those using the network can actually meet in real life.
The Graykins are currently looking for a Web designer, but already have a fact site up, www.artspider.info, where people can learn about the project and offer feedback. Art Spider is for-profit, at the suggestion of State Cultural Resources commissioner Van McLeod, Graykin said. They hope to support it through advertising.
Meet the Art Spider coordinators at planning events around the state, posted at www.artspider.info, including meetings Tuesday, March 31, at 6:30 p.m., at the Philbrick-James Library on Church St. in Deerfield, and Wednesday, April 22, at 6:30 p.m. at Studio 99, in the Picker Bldg., 99 Factory St. Extension in Nashua. E-mail scalesian@gmail.com for details.
• Poet interpreted: In “Emily Dickinson: Zero to the Bone,” Nanette Perrotte uses Dickinson’s words set to rock and jazz to tell the poet’s story. Perrotte and Sebastian Lockwood, faculty members at New Hampshire Institute of Art, wrote the show, which will be performed as an NHIA public presentation Thursday, March 26, at 7 p.m., in the French Auditorium, 148 Concord St. in Manchester. Visit www.nhia.edu or call 836-2573.
• Too late: The Currier Museum of Art’s “First Thursday” April 2 event looks like fun with its Roaring ’20s theme to go with the Big Read’s 2009 selection, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It also looks sold out. Libraries around southern New Hampshire are participating in the Big Read (see www.northeastculturalcoop.org and neabigread.org). Guess you’ll have to find some place else to wear that flapper dress. — Heidi Masek
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