What Dreams Are Made Of
Currently on view at the Cape Cod Museum of Art (60 Hope Lane, Dennis), “Dreamscapes and Inner Worlds” includes 81 works chosen by curator Joe Diggs from a record-setting 725 submissions by 464 artists. Eight pieces in the show are by artists from the Outer Cape.
For Eastham artist Nathan Olin, the idea of “dreams” meant nightmares. Movie characters like the Fly, the Blob, and the Mummy are part of a fluid, abstract world in his oil painting Saturday Matinee Creatures That Continue to Haunt Me.
Supernatural horror, specifically the work of writer H.P. Lovecraft, was the inspiration for Provincetown artist Rob Longley’s multi-page A Dream Quest Journal. The paper, ink, and acrylic piece depicts a journey beginning in a “strange moonlit attic” with a shadowy stairway.
A different kind of dream was on Provincetown artist Bill Evaul’s mind in 20 Feet From Stardom (The Back-up Singers), his white-line color woodcut of three female figures with electric blue, orange, and gold hair standing in front of a microphone and brightly colored spotlights. “The Classic Goddesses — Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite — were sick of being judged only for their beauty,” Evaul writes, “so they put on pink dresses and spike heels and got work as back-up singers in a rock and roll band.”
Also included in the show are pieces by Eastham artists Lauren Kalita and Vincent Amicosante. Kalita’s 2021 Anastici’s deconstruction photograph is part of her multi-genre, long-term project on “feral wom+n,” what she describes as those who maintain “their sense of self/selves in defiance of what cultural gatekeepers deem acceptable for ‘women.’ ” Amicosante’s Rose Culture 1891 is composed in a magic realist style that explores connections between butterflies, bees, and the modern world.
The show is on view until June 29. Diggs, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod’s 2025 Artist of the Year, will discuss the exhibition in a talk on Thursday, May 8 at 2 p.m. with CCMoA Director of Art Benton Jones. The talk is free with museum admission; RSVPs are appreciated at ccmoa.org. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Miah Nate Johnson’s Moments Made Still
After a devastating stroke in 2015, Wellfleet artist Miah Nate Johnson was forced to end his decades-long career in photography during which he had captured scenes from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution, taken pictures underwater and in Hollywood, and worked for publications including National Geographic and the New York Times.
But Johnson didn’t abandon art. He turned to painting, which he called “my lifeline to the world” and “my present and my future” in a 2021 artist’s statement.
Six years ago, curator Robert Rindler presented an exhibition of Johnson’s paintings at the Wellfleet Adult Community Center. This month, an exhibition of Johnson’s photographs will be on display. “He’s got quite a collection,” says Rindler.
As a photographer, says Rindler, Johnson “looks for unusual situations.” Much of his work is shot on the street, although many are more formal landscapes and portraits.
“He’s interested in what people’s lives are about,” says Rindler. “He tries to choose an unusual moment and raise it to a higher level.”
In a photograph titled Angel, a little girl wears a set of cardboard wings. Her black hair drapes across her face, her eyes downcast like those in a Renaissance portrait. But she’s not posing for a portrait; she looks busy, distracted. Another photograph, Rabbit, is a more chaotic scene: a child points a gun, a man gestures, and in the foreground a figure in a rabbit costume appears both menacing and absurd.
Rindler, an artist himself, has also taught photography. “I always say to students, ‘Try not to take a photograph of beautiful things or beautiful people. They’re already beautiful.’ ” Instead, he says, “Catch a moment that’s fluid and dynamic and moving.” Johnson’s photos are just that, he adds: “A moment in time, made still by his camera.”
There will be an opening reception for the exhibition on Sunday, May 4 at 3 p.m., and the show is on view until the end of May. See wellfleetcoa.org for information. —Dorothea Samaha
An Art Festival to Celebrate the Outsiders
Provincetown has always had a sense of itself as apart from the rest of the world, a self-regard that often manifests in an idea of “us” (the denizens of the Outer Cape) and “them” (everyone else). The creators who have been responsible for shaping that sensibility over the past century and the legacy they inspired are the subject of the first Outsiders Festival, which will take place in venues around town from Thursday, May 8 through Sunday, May 11.
Organized by Provincetown artist Chuck White with support from fellow artist and self-described “merry prankster” Karen Cappotto, the weekend will include “four days of art, theater, salons, happenings, film, fashion, photography, poetry, and dance as a celebration of us as a vibrant community of world-class performers and artists in every sense of the word,” according to a press release.
Among the highlights of the schedule are two events paying homage to notable moments and performers in Provincetown’s art history. At Provincetown Town Hall (260 Commercial St.) on Saturday, May 10, Billy Hough will celebrate the 20th anniversary of his “Scream Along With Billy” rock cabaret with a tribute to the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, an Andy Warhol-produced multimedia happening featuring the Velvet Underground that was staged at the former Chrysler Museum (now the Provincetown Public Library) over Labor Day weekend in 1966. On Friday, May 9 at Gifford House (9 Carver St.), A.B. Dee will direct a staged reading of Vain Victory, a 1972 “methamphetamine fueled trans-Broadway spectacle” that included music by violinist and future Cape Symphony faculty member Lary Chaplin.
Other events include a reception honoring the legacy of early 1960s Provincetown gallerist and collage artist Al Hansen at the Commons (46 Bradford St.) on Thursday, May 8; a weekend-long exhibition of work by photographer Michael Koehler at Spiritus Pizza (190 Commercial St.); a symposium about the lives and work of Provincetown poets Harry Kemp and Grace Gouveia at the Fine Arts Work Center (24 Pearl St.) on Saturday, May 10; and a “Tipsy Auction” hosted by Provincetown artist Joey Mars at Gifford House on Sunday, May 11.
See campprovincetown.com for more information and a complete schedule. —John D’Addario
Teddy Thompson’s American Sounds
Though musician Teddy Thompson comes from an English folk rock background — his parents are celebrated musicians Richard and Linda Thompson — he says he’s been drawn to American country music since he was a child: “It was the first thing I really loved.” Musicians like Hank Williams and Patsy Cline enthralled him. “I liked the heartbreak in their voices,” he says. “I liked that the instruments sounded like voices, too.”
At Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (2357 Rt. 6) on Saturday, May 3 at 7 p.m., Thompson will perform as part of Payomet Performing Arts Center’s Road Show series. His set list will include songs from his aptly named 2023 album My Love of Country, composed of covers of songs by some of his favorite artists, along with some originals. “It’ll just be me and a guitar,” Thompson says. “You won’t get the orchestral effect of some country records with strings, but hopefully it will feel immediate and authentic.”
He’s especially looking forward to singing “You Don’t Know Me,” written by Eddy Arnold and Cindy Walker in 1955. “It’s a very big song,” he says. “It’s a little intimidating, but it’s an enjoyable challenge.” Thompson says he generally enjoys singing other people’s songs more than his own. “There’s something very freeing about it. It’s a bit of a busman’s holiday.”
Authenticity is at the center of his songwriting. “We as human beings have an innate ability to tell if something is truthful or not,” Thompson says. “You can hear 100 people sing a song that says, ‘I love you,’ and you can tell who actually means it.”
Tickets are $28 to $48 at payomet.org. —Eve Samaha
