For over fifty years, acclaimed illustrator Frank M. Costantino provided the world’s leading architects, designers, and developers with hand-drawn project designs from his studio in Winthrop, Massachusetts. This Boston Athenaeum exhibition of his work features over 80 drawings and watercolors. The exhibit will be on view February 3 – May 3.
Focused on Boston and New England projects, the exhibition showcases key landmarks such as the Hynes Convention Center, Esplanade 2020 Vision, and the Old State House renovation. Costantino’s meticulous detail and vibrant depictions, from finished renderings to preparatory sketches, reveal his creative and collaborative process.
This exhibition not only celebrates Costantino’s unparalleled skill but also highlights the Athenaeum’s dedication to local artists and architectural heritage.
Join the Arnold Arboretum on November 2 at 1 pm for an art reception celebrating the opening of Intimate Vistas: Images of Tree Bark. Photographer Marc Goldring’s work has always centered on finding the mysterious in the commonplace and bringing attention to objects and features which we otherwise might not have noticed at all. In this show, Marc attends to the bark of trees. He brings the camera in close to look at the details of the extraordinary variety of textures, colors and shapes of the bark of trees. Familiar or relatively exotic, the tree’s bark tells a story about the life of the tree, both of the species and of the particular individual. In this way we can better connect to, and understand on a visceral level, these common yet alien beings.
Intimate Vistas will be available for viewing in the Hunnewell Lecture Hall through late February 2025. Free, but register for the reception at www.arboretum.harvard.edu
What is it about ‘New England’—as both a setting and a subject—that has captured Impressionist painters’ attention for over a century? Artist colonies popped up in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut in the late 19th century, attracting some of America’s best-known painters. Gloucester, Provincetown, Old Lyme, Ogunquit, and others continue to have thriving local art communities today. On display at Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich now through October 20 in the Special Exhibitions Gallery, this exhibition celebrates New England–its natural beauty through the seasons, its people, its small towns, and its glorious light–as seen through the eyes of local painters and poets.
Included artists: Sam Barber, Gerrit Beneker, Sheila Benzer, Matilda Browne, William Chadwick, Oliver Chaffee, Anne Ramsdell Congdon, Joseph DeCamp, Frank Vincent DuMond, Harold Dunbar, Charles Ebert, Joseph Eliot Enneking, Loretta Feeney, Gertrude Fiske, Lillian Hale, Childe Hassam, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Henry Hensche, Aldro T. Hibbard, Felicie Waldo Howell, Wilson Henry Irvine, Louise Kamp, Nellie Augusta Knopf, Susan Ricker Knox, Harriet Lumis, Dodge MacKnight, Elmer MacRae, Willard Metcalf, George L. Noyes, Hillary Osborn, Pauline Palmer, Marguerite Pearson, Jane Peterson, Doug Rugh, Frank Vining Smith, Mary Bradish Titcomb, John Twachtman, Edward Charles Volkert, Carol Whorf Westcott, John Whorf, Mabel May Woodward, New England-based poets Amanda Davis, Lauren Wolk, and Rich Holschuh were invited to create or share works inspired by Fall, Summer, and Winter, respectively. Also included is a Spring-themed poem by Provincetown poet Mary Oliver. For hours and information visit www.heritagemuseumsandgardens.org
Don’t miss “Bulbs & Spring Ephemerals” — the MHS Botanical Art Program spring exhibit. Works by 14 artists detail the beauty of early spring blooms. A splendid variety of works will be on display in the Education Building from April 1 through May 15 at the Garden at Elm Bank. Included with Garden Admission. Below: Poet’s Narcissus (Narcissus poeticus) by Pam Harrington
For three months in winter, 2024, Winteractive will transport Downtown Boston visitors into a Canadian winter mindset. Echoes – A Voice from Uncharted Waters by Mathias Gmachl represents the first of 19 artworks that will inspire viewers to put on a warm coat, fill a thermos with a hot drink, and explore a curated, walkable public art experience. All exhibits are free and open to the public. A map and more information will be available at https://www.winteractive.org/ There are clown heads, too!
Berkshire Botanical Garden presents “Nest/Emerge,” an art exhibition, through Sunday, April 30. Featuring works by Elizabeth Cohen, “Nest/Emerge” will exhibit in the Garden’s Center House Leonhardt Galleries. The gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
In Nest/Emerge, Cohen explores relationships between natural and imagined forms through layers and patterns, re-contextualizing them. The works invite viewers to experience quiet moments and unexpected delights. Incorporating hand-thrown porcelain, mulberry paper, wasp nests, and other materials found in nature, Cohen’s art beckons the viewer to connect with the botanical world.
“I find inspiration everywhere: the natural world, microscopic images, landscapes, shells, bugs, bark, leaves, pods and seeds,” she said.
A studio potter living Wellesley, Massachusetts, Cohen explores cycles of birth, life and death, growth and decay, rhythm and change. She explores varied metaphorical nuances, such as family, security and comfort, through nesting sets.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a minor in Japanese Studies from Tufts University and a master’s degree in teaching from Simmons College. Her work has been exhibited in recent years at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, Boston; The Mill Contemporary, in Framingham; Worcester Center for Craft; River Oaks Arts Center, in Alexandria, La.; and Fuller Craft Museum, in Brockton. For more information, visit BerkshireBotanical.org.
“Tuȟmaǧatipi” is a sculptural habitat and source of sustenance for pollinators created using the Dakota morning star form, and built with sustainable materials – clay, natural composites, driftwood. It relies on Indigenous science to honor the key role of pollinators and plants, who are increasingly threatened by climate change. The work explores how a sculptural form can play a role in habitat restoration. The Wildflower Meadow is an undeveloped tract of the Rose Kennedy Greenway that supports many bee species, butterflies and moths. Tuȟmaǧatipi – the Dakota word for beehive – seeks to give back to the meadow ecosystem by providing respite to native pollinators right in the middle of the city.
This project by artist Erin Genia (below) will be on view through December, 2022 was made possible through a collaboration with the City of Boston Green Ribbon Commission’s initiative, Action Pact 2022: Ready, Resilient, Reinvented, co-curated by The Experience Alchemists. Erin Genia (she/her), Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, is a multidisciplinary artist, cultural organizer and educator. She is an advocate for Native American cultural issues and served as an artist in residence for the City of Boston. Erin has a degree from the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, and her public art commissions include the Minnesota Historical Society, the City of Saint Paul, and the City of Seattle.
Berkshire Botanical Garden presents a new art exhibition, Fanfare, opening on Saturday, November 5, with a reception scheduled for Friday, November 11, from 4 to 6 p.m. Featuring works by John Thompson, Fanfare will exhibit in the Garden’s Center House Leonhardt Galleries. The exhibit will run through Sunday, Nov 27.
“The basis for my work is landscapes where I choose specific moments and small elements as my focus,” said Thompson, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Harpswell, Maine. “These intimate observations are often fleeting glimpses of a pond or a garden. The immense variety of what we may observe in nature I find endlessly fascinating.
“The simple occurrence — the stray stick fallen across a background of decaying ferns or the pattern of leaves in a stream — can lead to a series of prints or paintings. In making work, I begin with the simple observing, often with a sketch or small painting. In taking those fleeting images back to my studio, as recall fades, imagination takes over and the images begin to change.”
Thompson said, “Making art has become a source of quiet refuge in these turbulent times. I am comforted by being able to draw on the landscape to replenish a sense of balance and control in life. My observation and invention on the borrowed landscape renews and replenishes.”
Thompson has taught at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Framingham State University, The Art and Innovation Center in Weston, Mass., the Washington Art Association in Washington, Conn., and many other workshops around the country. He works with master printers Peter and James Pettengill in Hinsdale, N.H., and Susan Oehme at Oehme Graphics in Steamboat Springs, Colo. He serves on several boards of art and educational institutions.
Thompson holds degrees from Syracuse University (BFA), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA), Babson College (MBA), and Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MFA). Gallery hours for Fanfare are 10 to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays (Mondays, by appointment) and 11 to 3 p.m. on weekends through November 27. Berkshire Botanical Garden is located at 5 West Stockbridge Rd., Stockbridge, Mass. Visit Berkshirebotanical.org.
The Arnold Arboretum art shows are offered in-person at the Hunnewell Building at 125 Arborway (open noon–4pm, Friday through Monday) and virtually at www.arboretum.harvard.edu. In The Nature of Art/The Art of Nature, fourteen artists from New England Book Artists have their work on view this summer. Each artist takes a personal look at nature, combining their own interpretation of what resonates with them with a singular book design. From a Dragonfly to Wild Roses, a celebration of Walking in the Arboretum to a memorial to the Ashes of a lost farm, these artists bring an thoughtful and intriguing vision to the world of art within nature and the nature of books.
Emily Dickinson wrote memorably that “Hope is the thing with feathers.” In The Arnold Arboretum’s current art exhibition, artist Laura Fantini illustrates “hope” in each seed she discovers, draws, and records. Her “hope” is not of feathers, though their effervescence and somewhat fragile appearance might be applied to a seed. Her “hope” is for the future of our world—a simple, yet thoroughly necessary application of the word. Each of her drawings includes the word “hope” in its title, each bears her plea to hope for each plant to endure and thrive through the life of its seed.
Seeds for Fantini are the messengers of life, as indeed they truly are. Their DNA promises a continuation of a species, a thread that the earth can hold onto, and a promise for tomorrow. Fantini’s affinity for art and fascination with nature have been with her since she was very young in Italy. She notes that though Italy has a strong agricultural heritage and respect for nature and biodiversity, documenting seeds remains the domain of scientists and botanists. It has been in North America where she found a much more accessible climate for public involvement. Each seed that Fantini draws is given her full attention. She respects and gives it endless study and consideration as she envisions the final composition. With her first visit to the Arboretum in 2016 and through the development of this project, she found an aligned sense of spirit and true affiliation. Her artistry combines an eye for the precise physicality of these small beginnings of plants with a reverence for the world of nature. Hope for each seed includes her aspiration that all may appreciate and nourish seeds, as we marvel at their intricate beauty, meticulously rendered in her pieces.
