16th Annual Encaustic Conference Makes a Mark
To most nonartists, encaustic — a kind of painting in which pigments are mixed into hot wax — may seem like a relatively esoteric medium. But its history extends as far back as the 5th century BCE, and it continues to occupy a prominent role in modern art making: Diego Rivera, Jasper Johns, and Lynda Benglis are among the best-known artists who incorporated it into their work.
It’s also been the focus of a conference every June in Provincetown for nearly two decades. After two years of pandemic-related adjustments — first in an entirely online version and then as a hybrid live and Zoom-based program — the 16th annual International Encaustic Conference returns as a fully in-person event this year from Friday, June 9 to Sunday, June 11 at the Provincetown Inn.
The conference began in 2007 through the efforts of artist Joanne Mattera, who was inspired by encaustic workshops and retreats she had attended in Pennsylvania and California and whose 2001 book The Art of Encaustic Painting is foundational to the contemporary practice of the medium. It is currently produced by the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill.
In addition to demos and workshops covering the entire range of encaustic practice and techniques, from beginner to advanced, the conference also includes talks on general artistic practice, creative inspiration, and professional development. The keynote speaker of the 2023 conference is Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief and co-founder of the online art magazine Hyperallergic.
“Every year, bringing together artists from around the world to Provincetown feels like a gift,” says Cherie Mittenthal, executive artistic director of Castle Hill. “I’m very excited to bring Hrag Vartanian as our keynote speaker.”
While participation in conference programs and classes is limited to registered attendees, there will be an opening event at Castle Hill on Thursday, June 8 for a preview of this year’s juried exhibition that is open to the public. Castle Hill also offers workshops on encaustic techniques that are open to everyone. See castlehill.org for more information.
Bringing the Sound of Puerto Rico to Wellfleet
Sometimes described as sounding like a cross between a mandolin and a 12-string guitar, the cuatro — a violin-shaped 10-string fretted instrument that is played with a flat pick — is the national instrument of Puerto Rico. If you’ve listened to the radio at any point over the past six years you’re probably familiar with its sound: it’s played in the introduction to Luis Fonsi’s inescapable 2017 single “Despacito,” which has more than eight billion views on YouTube.
Outer Cape audiences will have a chance to hear it in a more intimate setting when acclaimed cuatrista Fabiola Méndez performs at Wellfleet Preservation Hall (335 Main St.) on Thursday, June 15, at 7 p.m. as part of a partnership with Cape Symphony Presents.
In an interview with WGBH last year, Méndez described the connection between the cuatro and her national identity. “Feeling like I carry this piece of wood that is related to my roots and my ancestry is really powerful,” said Méndez. “It’s a big responsibility in a way as well, to educate and to represent my culture.”
Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Méndez began playing the cuatro when she was six years old. In addition to her work as a musician, she is also the founder and producer of Negrura, described as an audiovisual storytelling experience that showcases the stories of Afro-Latino community members from Boston’s Latin Quarter Cultural District and uses music “to provide a space for self-reflection, support, and healing.”
Tickets for the concert are $25 ($12 for kids 13 and under) at wellfleetpreservationhall.org.
Korn’s Art of Pleasure
Although the person known as Korn has been making art for decades, they say they recently returned from “exile” from their own work: for the last 25 years, they have been fabricating the work of other artists — in glass, wood, and metals — at an art foundry in New York’s Hudson Valley. This month, a show of Korn’s own work opens at Farm Projects (355 Main St., Wellfleet) on June 9, with a reception on Saturday, June 10 at 5 p.m.
The title of the exhibition, Prazeres (Portuguese for “pleasures”), is both a reference to the name of the neighborhood in Recife, Brazil where the artist grew up and an allusion to the deeply personal and subjective quality of the work. Abstract and formalist on the surface, many of Korn’s pieces reference their native country’s futbol (soccer) obsession as well as ideas about immigration, gender, and transition. “Soccer is deeply ingrained in Brazilian psyches,” says Korn. “I use the soccer field — its touch, goal and penalty lines — as the space to explore grief, testosterone, sex, and pleasure.”
Korn’s previous career focus on process also gives their mixed-media pieces a particularly wrought feeling. Their artistic vocabulary, composed of letterpress and punctuation marks, text fragments, and materials including cast concrete, metal, and paper, creates a tactile and even sensuous quality: witness the contrast between the hardness of concrete and the fragility and softness of pink paper in works like Handsome Vaidosa.
In addition to the opening reception, Korn will speak about their work at the gallery on Saturday, June 16 at 5 p.m. The show will be on view until June 19. See farmprojectspace.org for information. —John D’Addario
Remembering Medgar Evers With Words and Music
This month marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was murdered at his home in Jackson, Miss. by a white supremacist on June 12, 1963 while working to end school segregation and expand voting rights for Black Americans. Among the many artistic tributes to him are songs by Nina Simone (“Mississippi Goddamn”) and Bob Dylan (“Only a Pawn in Their Game”); written memorials by James Baldwin and Eudora Welty; and depictions in films including I Am Not Your Negro and Till.
Evers is also the inspiration for an afternoon of poetry and music at the Wellfleet Public Library (55 West Main St.) on Saturday, June 10 at 2 p.m. Titled “For Us, the Living,” the Voices of Poetry event will feature readings by poets Jennifer Markell, Tzynya L. Pinchback, Lynne S. Viti, and Anthony Walton and music by singer-songwriter Ric Allendorf. In addition to reading their own work, the poets have selected poems written by others about Evers’s murder and its galvanizing effect on the American civil rights movement.
According to Voices of Poetry founder and director Neil Silberblatt, the title of the event (which it shares with a 1967 book about Evers written by his wife Myrlie Evers-Williams that was later made into a documentary film) is taken from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”) Silberblatt sees Evers’s life and work as still very pertinent today. “At this Voices of Poetry event, we honor the legacy of Medgar Evers and honor all those who waged and continue his struggle for social, racial, and economic justice,” he says.
The event is free, with limited seating. See wellfleetlibrary.org for information.
