Category: Chasing the Muse

Around 45 years ago, I met painter Craig Coggeshall for the first time. We became fast friends. His passing, which I had known was coming for quite a while, still shook me up.

For “Bad Andy,” the figures of folklore became a way of making sense of emotionally sterile spaces, imbuing them with symbols of transition, dread and ultimately, acceptance.

Exhibiting with Kim Barry at the Marion Art Center, Hoss is one of the people who helped make the New Bedford art community what it is.

With his exhibit at the New Bedford Art Museum, he cleverly illustrates his environmental sensibilities, as well as traversing into truly unanticipated subject matter. He is much more than the knot guy.

Twenty-five years is a big deal. And without hyperbole, this party may be the biggest bash downtown New Bedford has seen this century, perhaps ever. AHA! Started in 1999. On Thursday night, take some advice from Prince: “Party like it’s 1999!”

The cultural significance of the formation of Gallery X in 1990 — and its endurance — cannot be overstated. It wasn’t a game changer. It was the one that started the game.

It was never just about the building. It was about the camaraderie and the constructive criticism, it was about the solidarity and the support system and the culture and the community and the care. It was about romancing the past, revering the present and readying for the future.

This year’s theme is focused enough to provide common links and visual conversation but vague enough to allow for personal quirky stories that reveal glimpses into what reverberates for each …

In “The Fluidity of Perception,” ceramicists Chris Gustin and Nancy Train Smith draw inspiration from nature but remain unbeholden to it as their sensibilities shift into different but complementary realms.