Arts Week

First Weekend in April
Posted: April 7th 2017 @5:49 PM
Guests in the studio this week were Maura Hanlon and Jared Hagan from Cape Rep Theatre, and Matthew Clark from the Provincetown Public Library.

If you’d like to keep up with what’s going on in town between installments of Arts Week, you can always sign up for the weekly mailing list at ptownie.com. They’ll keep you in the know about all the things you need to know to plan your week. Ptownie.com

This weekend only at the Cape Symphony you can hear Masterpiece 4 – The Greatest Hits of 1720 Forty years ago a phenomenon swept the world and helped make Pachelbel’s Canon a household name. The classical smash album “Greatest Hits of 1720” featured the “top ten” of the Baroque period, including the theme from Masterpiece Theatre, Pachelbel’s popular Canon, Albinoni’s enduring Adagio, and masterworks by Johann Sebastian Bach, including Air for the G-string. Jung-Ho will count down Baroque’s biggest hits! capesymphony.org

There’s team trivia every Thursday night at 7:00 pm at Napi’s in Provincetown, and it will continue through April 20^th, featuring a special trivia menu and categories that include music, a puzzle, and more.

At the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater this is your last weekend to see Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Featuring a versatile cast of five performers, this Romeo and Juliet focuses on the impulsiveness of the teenager, adult efforts to guide and support him or her, and the miscommunication that can happen across the generation gap. Using original music and stylized movement, this adaptation offers a fresh look at a familiar story. This production was developed through the education programs at Lincoln Center. What.org

Want to go to the movies? This weekend, Waters Edge Cinema is showing three films: A UNITED KINGDOM: The incredible true story that unfolded in 1947 when the soon-to-be king of Botswana fell in love with a white British woman. Their impending marriage was vehemently challenged by both their families, as well as by the British & South African governments.PERSONAL SHOPPER: A young American woman (Kristen Stewart) living in Paris & working for a celebrity attempts to communicate with her deceased twin brother via her psychic abilities. KEDI: This splendidly graceful documentary follows a distinctive cast of stray cats as they go about their daily routines in Istanbul. Watersedgecinema.org

Speaking of film, Crone’s Winter Film Series has its final airing of the season featuring Pinocchio, with a Disney expert on hand to talk about its creation. That’s Friday at 7:00pm, Sage Inn and Lounge.

On Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6, at 7:30 pm and on Sunday, May 7, at 3 pm, Jacob Sears Memorial Library will present A Woman’s Heart, a play written and directed by Judith Partelow of Dennis. The play is presented as part of ArtSpring Cape Cod, a Cape-wide grassroots celebration of arts and culture sponsored by The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, and ArtWeek Boston, an award-winning creative festival in the greater Boston area.

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum has posted its summer workshops on its website; many of these workshops fill quickly, so while it’s snowing tomorrow you might want to peruse the offerings and see if there’s something there to interest or challenge you. The museum’s “Members’ Juried show continues and is on view through April 12, represents the work of contemporary artist-members of PAAM, many of whom live at least part time on Cape Cod. paam.org

And the Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro has also posted its 2017 workshops, from encaustic to pottery to textiles to photography, there’s something for everyone. You can find out more about these classes and more at castlehill.org
Not Your Usual Romeo & Juliet
Posted: March 25th 2017 @2:59 PM
I really don’t have to write more than one word about Psittacus Productions’ Romeo and Juliet at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater: WOW. That’s it. Yes, all-caps.

I had only a vague idea about the production coming into the theater; I was under the unfortunate impression that what I was going to see was something along the line of Romeo & Juliet: The Musical. And yes, there is plenty of music, but this isn’t your standard Broadway fare.

It’s a whole lot better.

Five actors brilliantly play the parts of everyone in the story, adjusting their costumes slightly to go from male to female, young to old. (Imagine Friar Lawrence in a hoodie, Juliet’s nurse with a tablecloth around her—his!—waist, Thibault dangerous in black leather). I’m thinking about those costumes as I’m writing this, but they were imperceptible when I was in the audience; the characters so transcended what they were wearing—and what they were wearing was so appropriate.

It’s best described, perhaps, as a play with choral music and ballet moves. The performance starts out all music, but the genius of this production is the perfectly seamless transition from singing the words to speaking the words; one’s never really sure where one ends and the other begins. And the harmonies these five people produce would put any self-respecting doo-wop group to shame. Tight, perfect in timing and pitch, it’s like hearing one voice singing all the parts at once. Both the exposition and the dialogues are often sung, the actors proving themselves to be versatile musicians as well, using the set’s grand piano and electric and acoustic guitars.

And it goes fast! None of the long sighs and silences so often affected by Shakespeare productions: the words spill from their mouths, tumbling one over the other, moving the story relentlessly forward. It’s Aaron Sorkin meets William Shakespeare. It’s mesmerizing.

There are no breaks; all five actors are on stage for the length of the play, helping the audience feel a breathless continuity as the scenes roll out, one on top of the other, so that the play ends up comprising one scene only. It’s an exciting, extremely youthful whirlwind of sight and sound and a sense of the inevitability of the tragedy that’s approaching at breakneck speed.

As Juliet, Ruby Wolf is vulnerable yet determined. Wolf is no stranger to the Outer Cape; she’s appeared at WHAT and with the Peregrine Theater Ensemble, as well as at the Payomet Performing Arts Center and the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. She’s easily believable as a young teenager, falling for the wrong guy and baffled that things cannot just work out. Her dress and bare feet give her an ethereal air and Wolf’s work around Juliet’s suicide in particular is amazing, downplayed, stripped of all theatrics, tragic in its simplicity.

Alec Funiciello is a beautiful Romeo, poised on the cusp of manhood, by turn passionate and fiery and gentle and tender. Gracefully athletic, handsome and hinting at enormous hidden energy, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface of Funiciello’s Romeo; he makes it easy to see why a teenaged girl would fall for him.

Matthew Dean Marsh is the musical genius who stays most of the time in the background on the piano bench, coming forward to play Lady Capulet in a performance just this side of over the top. As I’ve said, the music composition and arrangement is sheer genius, and that’s down to this guy.

The two final actors play a bewildering number of roles: Lord Capulet, Mercutio, Friar Lawrence, Benvolio, Tybalt and, of course, the inimitable nurse. Paul Corning Jr. is athletic (well, he does ride a bicycle around NYC every day!); but there the common elements of all his parts end: he is by turn brooding, dangerous, and reassuring. And Nathan Winkelstein moves seamlessly from the ever-present and often bumbling nurse to taking on the roles of friend and foe alike—and is totally believable in all of them. He handles humor well even when, in a second, the humor becomes dark in ways that feel inevitable.

All of these actors were close to perfect. Want to learn more about them? Check out their bios here.

Brilliant, youth-driven, exciting, there is nothing here for WOMR’s resident theater critic to criticize! The set manages to not feel black-box, the use of umbrellas to transition people around the stage is inspired, and honestly? anyone who misses out on this production is truly unfortunate. It’s a fantastic start to a great season at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater!

Romeo and Juliet, reviewed by Jeannette de Beauvoir

Directed by Louis Butelli and in association with Psittacus Productions and Lincoln Center Education. Photos by Michael and Suz Karchmer.

March 23-April 9, 2017
March 23 on Arts Week
Posted: March 23rd 2017 @12:15 PM
I’m Jeannette de Beauvoir, and this is Arts Week for March 23, 2017. I’m going to give you a taste of what’s going on around the mid and lower Cape in terms of art, literature, theater, cultural events, and other entertainment.

If you’d like to keep up with what’s going on in town between installments of Arts Week, you can always sign up for the weekly mailing list at ptownie.com. They’ll keep you in the know about all the things you need to know to plan your week.

There’s team trivia every Thursday night at 7:00 pm at Napi’s in Provincetown, featuring a special trivia menu and categories that include music, a puzzle, and more.

At the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater starting March 23^rd, you can see Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Featuring a versatile cast of five performers, this Romeo and Juliet focuses on the impulsiveness of the teenager, adult efforts to guide and support him or her, and the miscommunication that can happen across the generation gap. Using original music and stylized movement, this adaptation offers a fresh look at a familiar story. This production was developed through the education programs at Lincoln Center. What.org

Tonight at 7pm join us at the Wellfleet Preservation Hall for a reading by the winning poets of the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, with special guest and poetry judge Marge Piercy. We had a lot of really great poems submitted this year and it should be a fun evening. Womr.org

Want to go to the movies? This weekend, Waters Edge Cinema is showing two films: GET OUT: This film fuses horror, comedy & mystery genres to tell the story of a young African-American man who visits the estate of his Caucasian girlfriend’s family where he learns that many of its residents, who are black, have gone missing. THE LAST WORD: A young journalist is approached by a retired business mogul to write her obituary while she is still alive. Starring Shirley MacLaine & Amanda Seyfried.

Speaking of film, the Provincetown Public Library welcomes the community to participate on Wednesdays in the March Cole Porter at the Movies Series screened at the Provincetown School Building during the month of March. This line-up of classic films has been carefully selected by Marc Strauss, Professor Emeritus in Theatre and Dance from Southeast Missouri State University. Professor Strauss will give a short presentation on each film in the series, and also host a question and answer session at the conclusion of the screening each week. Next Wednesday, March 15th, it’s 1948’s The Pirate.

And still more film! Crone’s Winter Film Series continues on Friday 7:00pm, Sage Inn and Lounge: another 1939 classic on Friday with Good-Bye, Mr. Chips, a heartwringer if ever there was one.

Travel with the Cape Symphony to France via Falmouth, as we present the works of three revolutionary French composers – Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. During this month’s performance, you’ll hear the rich textures of Sonata for Flute, Viola & Harp by Claude Debussy, the exotic sounds of Piano Trio in A Minor by Maurice Ravel, and Fauré’s colorful and explosive Piano Quartet No. 2 that not only embodies the romantic Germanic traditions, but introduces the impressionist sounds that would later be honed by Debussy & Ravel. It’s all happening at the John Wesley Methodist church in Falmouth tomorrow night at 7:30 and in Chatham Saturday night at 7:30. More info at capesymphony.org.

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum has posted its summer workshops on its website; many of these workshops fill quickly, so while it’s snowing tomorrow you might want to peruse the offerings and see if there’s something there to interest or challenge you. The museum’s “Members’ Juried show continues and is on view through April 12, represents the work of contemporary artist-members of PAAM, many of whom live at least part time on Cape Cod. paam.org

And the Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro has also posted its 2017 workshops, from encaustic to pottery to textiles to photography, there’s something for everyone. You can find out more about these classes and more at castlehill.org

There’s a lot to do this weekend, so get out there and do it!
Thrill Me is … Thrilling!
Posted: October 27th 2015 @6:55 PM
Take two smart trust-fund boys, add a sprinkling of obsession and a dose of ego, and you have the first thrill-kill of the 20th century, the murder of a 14-year-old boy in Chicago in 1924 by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

Not, you might think, the stuff of which musicals are made. But Thrill Me begs to differ, and the production at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, directed by Jeffry George and starring husband-and-husband team Adam Berry and Ben Berry, is a brilliant show with surprisingly catchy tunes and the kind of twist at the end that mystery authors like me struggle to emulate.

The music is arguably the most powerful part of a powerful production. Backed by an energetic John Thomas on piano, Berry and Berry are seriously on fire, their voices faultlessly matched with tight harmonies and pitch-perfect sound. “I could listen to them singing together forever,” said my theater companion, and she was right: the Berrys are brilliant actors and if possible even more brilliant singers.

The story is an odd one. Leopold and Loeb were admittedly above average: they graduated from college at age 17 and 18, and were obsessed with Nietzche’s concept of a superman. Convinced that their intelligence and social privilege exempted them from laws that bound other people, they planned the “perfect” murder that had more to do with hubris than brilliance, as (again, speaking as a mystery author) they erred fairly egregiously on several counts. After killing Franks, they sent a ransom demand to his family, but the body was discovered, the ransom-note typewriter was matched, an alibi was refuted, and a pair of glasses traced to Leopold dropped near the body. Both confessed, and were represented by Clarence Darrow, who argued eloquently (and successfully) against the imposition of the death penalty. In January 1936, a fellow inmate killed Loeb in a bloody razor fight in the prison’s shower. Leopold was released on parole in 1958 (poet Carl Sandburg testified on his behalf) and died in 1971.

Ben Berry’s Leopold is petulant, demanding, and eager to do anything to get what he wants, including dissing Loeb’s obsession (“You’ve been reading too much Nietzche”). Adam Berry’s Loeb is cold, inaccessible, and seems the most human when he’s at his most creepy, enjoying arson and luring young Franks to his car. As cracks develop in their relationship, the power balance between the two men shifts subtly and gradually until the final twist, which is as surprising as it’s clever.

And the tunes are perfect. “Everyone wants Richard,” complains Leopold, while Loeb counters with his close-to-sexual satisfaction in Nothing Like a Fire. There’s even humor when they begin to plot the identity of their victim: “If we killed my brother John,” muses Loeb, “he’d never touch my things.”

The minimalist stage set and its clever use adds to the harrowing nature of the play. There’s no intermission and no applause breaks, so the tension is allowed to build and build to the end, when Leopold—finally alone—is being considered for parole. He notes that there are “new killers like me every day” as the parole board admits,”we need the beds.” Which is—after the buildup of electrifying pressure—something of an anticlimax, but a neat end to a taut brilliant production.

And there’s good news: not only are there playmaker talkbacks on October 29 and November 5, but Friday October 30th is Ptown Night at WHAT! Get transportation on the Funk Bus, cocktails, and a ticket to Thrill Me for a special price. Seating is very limited, so call now: 508-349-9428

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff

A musical thriller
Directed by Jeffry George
Runs October 24 – November 8
Thursdays-Saturdays, 7:30pm
Sundays, 3pm
Phoebe is Coming!
Posted: August 20th 2015 @2:33 PM
… Phoebe Légère, that is. One of my favorite artists—and favorite people ever!

Check out her appearance at the end of the month in Orleans… that’s Sunday, 30 August 2015, 19:30, you must call or email for directions 508-255-3864.

PHOEBE LEGERE is a songwriter and resident of Maine, and of Acadian and Abenaki (First Nations) descent. She sings, and plays piano, accordion, cello, Native American flute, organ, buffalo drum, synthesizer, guitar and cavaquinjo. Her latest release is called ACADIAN MOON, and is inspired by her Acadian heritage. She has created the Shamancycle, a giant, 15-person, ride-able Eagle sculpture-vehicle, running on alternative energy. Legere will be performing on the solar stage of the Shamancycle at the San Francisco Makers Fair this May 16th and 17th. At age 16, Phoebe made her Carnegie Hall debut and was signed to Epic Records. Her original song “Marilyn Monroe” was a hit on college radio in 1990, and her accordion song “Amazing Love” was in the Top 40 on Adult Contemporary in 1997. She starred in cult films including Mondo New York and Toxic Avenger 2 and 3. She opened for David Bowie, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2000. Phoebe has released 15 CDs of original music, and has appeared on National Public Radio, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS City Arts, and Charlie Rose. She has sung at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and at the Congres Mondial Acadien. Recently Phoebe appeared on HBO, singing her original song about the environment, “Hip Hop Frog” (now available on iTunes).

A great introduction to Phoebe is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrTuh2ocAj8<br< a=””> /> http://www.last.fm/music/Phoebe+Legere
Housesitting Mystery Perfect Beach Reading
Posted: July 27th 2015 @2:27 PM
It’s an interesting way to spend one’s retirement, but Truxton (“My parents named me after a highway sign”) Lewis, a retired NYPD detective captain, is able to spend his time traveling by … housesitting. He gets to stay places for free, and homeowners are thrilled for have a former cop in their houses; not a bad idea all round.

Tru is housesitting in rural Kentucky and is learning something new: Max Beasley is teaching him the almost-lost art of dry stone walls (rock walls that hold together without mortar). Which is fine until Tru arrives at the job site to find that the wall’s knocked down—and Max has disappeared.

Well, he hasn’t disappeared, exactly: he’s in jail. For murder. A greedy developer whose offers Max had been refusing (even when they involved threats and more) is dead, crushed beneath the dry wall.

Tru, of course, is immediately on the case, determined to prove Max innocent. This is the beginning of a new series and if subsequent books assemble the same witty dialogue, oddly satisfying characters, and final unexpected twist, they are bound to be successful.

Take it to the beach this summer, and enjoy!
“X” Marks the Spot for Great Reading
Posted: July 4th 2015 @2:05 PM

It’s Book #24 in a series about a private investigator.

Think about that for a moment. 24 books. 24 stories, all following the likeable Kinsey Milhone as she lives her life, finds and loses love, and—oh, yes—solves mysteries. Honestly, that’s a whole lot of books. That’s a long time to stick with one person. You’d think that, by now, the character would start becoming a caricature of herself. You’d think that the reader might lose interest in where the protagonist has been, what she’s done, what she thinks about, where she lives.

You’d be wrong.

Sue Grafton’s latest novel, X, is as satisfying a read as was the first time readers met the protagonist in A is for Alibi… more so, in fact. Kinsey Milhone has developed nicely over the years. She’s smart without being smart-assed, clever without figuring things out too quickly, and—more than any other endearing feature—is not above making mistakes.

In X, the reader doesn’t have to figure out who the “bad guy”—in this case, a serial killer—is: Kinsey takes care of that very early on in the story. Distracted by side issues (who are her neighbors, and what’s their game? Why was her last payment composed of counterfeit bills? Has she unwittingly placed someone in jeopardy? Will her water consumption ever earn her landlord’s approval?), she’s been handed a list of victims and intends to find out how the seemingly innocuous villain pulled it off—and how to stop him from killing again.

One of Grafton’s best skills is in making the everyday interesting. She takes readers through scenes step by step without it ever feeling that one is reading a description: the reader isn’t visualizing what’s happening, they’re right there with Kinsey as it does, even when it’s as small a scene as pulling out her typewriter from under her desk.

Ultimate accolade: I stayed up late reading it. You will, too.

X by Sue Grafton

Marian Wood Books/Putnam

(August 25, 2015)
Drawing-Room Drama… With Some Clever Twists
Posted: June 20th 2015 @2:04 PM
The story of a woman chafing at her traditional roles as wife and mother—and ultimately breaking free from them—may feel old-hat to those living in a post-1970s world, but when Norwegian playwright Henrick Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House in a different set of ‘70s—the 1870s—the situation was quite different. The play was considered shocking, and Nora Helmer a protagonist audiences couldn’t understand.

The audience for the Harbor Stage Company’s new production of Doll’s House may understand Nora, but that’s as much a result of founding member Stacy Fischer’s portrayal as it is of Ibsen’s writing. Nora’s initial self-absorption—irritating in other productions—feels naïve and harmless here, and her inability to see her secret as anything but blameless is believable. Her breathless wonder at her current good fortune lies oddly atop her apparent disinterest in other aspects of her life, including her children (who never appear in this production), but Fischer pulls it off without any cognitive dissonance and in fact keeps the audience pulling for her throughout.

Founding member Robert Kropf’s adaptation is strong and unnerving, with only occasional lapses into verbal expressions at odds with their surroundings. He’s pared down the cast without paring down the drama, and the overall feeling of a claustrophobic world and claustrophobic lives within that world is powerful and sustained. Kropf’s own portrayal of Nils Krogstad teeters on the very edge of over-the-top smarminess without ever actually going there, and the audience easily accepts the sinister, even life-threatening dynamic the character embodies.

Founding member Jonathan Fielding’s Torvald is easy to dislike—weak, smug, self-assured and self-congratulating—and this heightens the impact of his rage when he finally explodes. Nora’s desperate fear of her husband in those moments is palpable and may serve as a trigger to some: it felt very real and very frightening. (Disclosure: I’ve worked for years with survivors of domestic abuse, and the scene between Nora and Torvald after he’s read Nils’ letter could not have been more realistic. Kropf’s sensitive adaptation/direction brought this right into the reality of living-rooms well into the 21^st century and in ways that previous productions have never done for me.) Despite his constant endearments toward his wife, this Torvald is every bit as self-absorbed as Nora … and without her charm.

As in every Harbor Stage production, founding member Brenda Withers is simply perfect. Her Kristine Linde is a multi-dimensional character, subtle and engaging. Previous productions have underscored Kristine’s role in Nora’s awakening; Withers shows us a character very much in charge of her own journey, with Nora a means to her own ends. She may have married to support her family’s needs, but it was her own decision and she is clear-headed about making more of them. If the play is a beginning lesson in feminism, Kristine is as much on its faculty as is, in the end, Nora.

Robin Bloodworth’s Dr. Jens Rank is a gentleman in every sense of the word. While the actor’s commanding physical presence is at odds with the character’s terminal disease, he’s completely engaging and believable as the dying man at last declaring his love for an unattainable—and virtually uncaring—woman. And his gentleness around Nora is exceptional. He projects pathos without ever becoming pathetic.

Some deft creative directing around barriers (the rooms are clearly separated and delimited until the end, when walls suddenly become fluid) and using costumes to underscore transformations complete this brilliant performance. Go see it.

The unexpected bonus? The production is shot through with surprising moments of humor far removed from Ibsen’s occasionally heavy-handed script—and yet completely at home in this season début by one of the most talented ensembles on the Cape.

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

Adapted and directed by Robert Kropf

June 18-July 11, 2015

Harbor Stage Company, 15 Kendrick Avenue (Wellfleet Harbor), www.harborstage.org
Captured 1614
Posted: June 1st 2015 @8:34 AM
The Mayflower arrived in what is now known as Provincetown Harbor in (according to the European calendar) November of 1620. But the happy fictional images of the first Thanksgiving were not the first encounter between the Native population and the Europeans, and the exhibition Captured 1614 currently on display at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum tells a darker story.

In the summer of 1614, Thomas Hunt, arguably acting against specific orders from the absent Captain John Smith, captured and kidnapped 27 Wampanoag men from Patuxet. He sent them to Spain to be sold as slaves.

Let’s back up a moment. The name Wampanoag means People of the First Light. In the 1600s, there were as many as 40,000 people in the 67 villages that made up the Wampanoag Nation, covering a territory stretching from Wessegusset (Weymouth) through the Cape and islands and down into Rhode Island. Their way of life followed the cycle of the seasons: they lived in forests and valleys in winter, and moved closer to rivers and the ocean to plant crops and fish in spring, summer, and fall. A way of life in complete harmony with nature.

These are the people the European “explorers” encountered in their search for riches. When the anticipated gold did not materialize, many of them, like John Hunt, made up for it in flesh instead. Of the 27 men captured, only one ever came home again.

The Europeans left good records. History is always written by the winners, and we’ve had centuries of hearing only the European side of these first encounters. But now the nonprofit organization Plymouth 400 is giving voice to the voiceless through Captured 1614—literally. Developed, designed, and produced by Wampanoag people, the exhibition features contemporary Aquinnah Wampanoag and Mashpee Wampanoag speaking the words and portraying the lives of their ancestors.

These men were not statistics: they were people. They were husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, friends. They were loved and needed by their community, and they were ripped from it to satisfy rapacious greed.

We’ve come late to enabling the Wampanoag to tell their side of this story to the wider world, but now, finally, their voices can be heard. Through June 30^th, you can hear them at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum. Isn’t it time you heard history told—and events remembered—from the other side?
Paul Wisotzky
Posted: May 28th 2015 @7:20 AM
He is himself a potter, but Paul Wisotzky doesn’t talk much about his own art. Instead, it’s the work of the other artists at his gallery—the Blue Gallery on Commercial Street in Provincetown—that captivates him. And it’s easy to see why.

I started Blue Gallery as a way to bring a varied, unique and affordable portfolio of fine craft to the Outer Cape. The area has a rich and diverse arts community but is strangely lacking in venues for fine craft artists and makers to display and sell their work. I hope that Blue Gallery can help to fill this void.

We live in a world of mass production where little is known about the making of most of the objects in our every day life. Yet there is a rich and vibrant community of craft artists still creating, making and building on the history of American craft. I see Blue Gallery as a small window into that world and an opportunity for all of us to celebrate this diverse and talented community of artists, their creativity and the handmade.

I believe we need to bring the ethos of the eat local movement to the world of everyday useful objects. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we knew the name and a little bit of the story of the artists who make the items we use every day – the jewelry around our neck, the wallet in our pocket or the mug we drink our coffee from each morning. Even better what if the makers of these items lived in your community! Wherever you live, these artists and makers exist. I encourage you to seek them out and support them.

Blue Gallery hopes to play a small role in keeping the tradition of American craft and the process of making alive and well.

But to my mind the real feature of the gallery is Wisotzky’s own work. He is a master potter and an intrinsic light shines from his pieces.

He works out of a Truro studio called Blueberry Lane Pottery—after the little dirt road where he lives and makes his pots.

Paul is a studio potter, teacher as well as a gallery owner who fires his functional stoneware and porcelain pottery in soda and reduction kilns to cone 10.

He currently teaches at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and has served as a studio/technical assistant at the Penland School of Crafts and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Paul also makes and teaches brush making working with a variety of animal hairs and bamboo as the primary materials. Recently he has taken up book folding.

Paul sees his pottery as a collaboration between his mind and hands, the clay and glazes, and the fires of the kiln. He’s my guest on Arts Week on Thursday, May 28th; I hope you’ll listen it to the show or the podcast here on womr.org.