Prager and Bruder at 20 Summers
With the protections offered by Roe v. Wade in peril, Twenty Summers offers a chance to reflect on how, almost a half century after the landmark Supreme Court ruling, we’ve ended up here. Journalist Joshua Prager will discuss his book The Family Roe with journalist Jessica Bruder at the Hawthorne Barn on Thursday, June 9, 6 to 7 p.m.
The book looks at the life and family of Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of the case. She was a 23-year-old waitress in Dallas when she challenged a Texas law that outlawed abortion.
Bruder is the author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. She reports on the lives of Americans who, post-Great-Recession, travel around the country scrambling for seasonal work — a phenomenon all too familiar to many on the Outer Cape.
Register for the event at 20summers.org with a $20 suggested donation. —Paul Sullivan
Peter Chao at Captain’s Daughters
In his monochromatic textile works, Peter Chao weaves together memories of two seaside towns — Keelung City, Taiwan, where he was raised, and Provincetown, where he now lives. His exhibition Waves and Dunes will run through June at The Captain’s Daughters, 384 Commercial St., with a reception on Friday, June 3 from 5 to 8 p.m.
Chao uses three different types of embroidery stitches to create his quiet images of undulating horizontal forms, suggesting both the movement of waves and the gentle dips and rises of dunes. Form and movement remain similar throughout the works, but color changes — one work is deep blue, another pale beige.
By using punch needle, a traditional rug-hooking technique, Chao achieves textures ranging from stippled marks and vertical stripes to a circular, flowing mark. The works reference minimalist painting and craft traditions. Their careful and meditative construction establishes a quiet mood, echoing the experience of watching waves roll into shore. —Abraham Storer
Encaustic Exhibition at Castle Hill
Castle Hill director Cherie Mittenthal lists ways you can use encaustic painting: “You can embed things, transfer materials, use sculpturally with fabric.” A group show at Castle Hill, “Lucky Charms, Mojos, Signs, Cyphers and Zodiacs,” shows this range of possibilities. The exhibition, juried by Deborah Dancy, coincides with the 15th Annual Encaustic Conference, with an opening reception on June 2 from 4 to 6 p.m., and continues through June 9.
In Only the Puppy Stayed to Listen, Karen Bright adds body to her paint, slathering on blue and white strokes of the waxy encaustic to create a composition that suggests an aerial view of water and land. In Red Madonna, Anna Wagner-Ott sewed together fishing line before dipping it in wax to create a sculptural, quasi-figurative object that protrudes from the wall. Other works in the show incorporate encaustic with photography, ceramics, embroidery, and even bones.
Michael Prodanou at the Commons
Michael Prodanou tells his students, “We’re not drawing the figure, we’re drawing what the figure is doing.” In his gestural paintings, Prodanou expresses the energy, emotions, and passions contained in the human body. His exhibition “Body Heat” is at the Provincetown Commons, 46 Bradford St., through June 12.
Prodanou works from a tradition of expressionism, influenced by deKooning, Egon Schiele, and Jenny Saville. A realist depiction of the figure isn’t what he’s after. Although body parts are evident in his work, the figures often fall apart in a messy entanglement of line, color, and mark. The figures themselves are also often entangled in his paintings, embracing passionately — the division between one figure and another erased by an atmosphere of ecstatic energy.
Prodanou, born in Toronto, has had a home in Provincetown since 1980 and has shown locally at the Schoolhouse Gallery and PAAM. His parents are from Greece, which he often visits, and his paintings convey a Mediterranean atmosphere, both in mood and light. —Abraham Storer
Pride Weekend 2022 Is Here
Pride has arrived in P’town, and the Provincetown Business Guild will host a weekend of parties and performances. There will be a “Pride Proclamation” on Friday, 3 to 4 p.m., on the east lawn of town hall, 260 Commercial St., to honor Gilbert Baker, the creator of the rainbow Pride flag. Also on Friday: a Pride edition of “Provincetown Follies: The Gayest Show in Town” at 9 p.m. at the Crown & Anchor’s Paramount Club, 247 Commercial St. The show will feature drag queens Mackenzie, Qya Cristál, and Delta Miles and singers Todd Aslup and Peter Donnelly. Proof of vaccination required. Tickets at onlyatthecrown.com; the event benefits the Guild.
Comedians Anddy Egan-Thorpe, Kristen Becker, Sam Morrison, Jaye McBride, and Franqi French will perform at town hall in a Queer Comedy Showcase on Saturday, June 4, 8 to 10 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. for cocktails and mingling. Tickets at ptown.org.
On Sunday, the Guild will host a Feet Over Front Street 5K starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Harbor Hotel, 698 Commercial St. Walkers and runners land at the other end of Commercial Street. Registration, which includes a T-shirt, is at ptown.org.
For more events — rallies, dance parties, and morning yoga — visit the PBG’s pride page at ptown.org.
Chris Firger at Gallery 444
Commercial Street can be a lot to take in. Walking it, one sometimes thinks: Is today the day I’m finally killed by a bicycle going the wrong way down this one-way street?
Chris Firger’s paintings strip that all away. Food, Drink, Entertainment depicts Commercial Street in its most pure form: a couple walking their dog, the Lobster Pot, and a man riding his bike (the right way!) down the street. Instead of panic, peace. The painting, along with Firger’s other works, will be on display at Gallery 444, 444 Commercial St., through June 8, with an opening reception on Friday evening, June 3.
Firger works in the tradition of impressionist landscape painting. Whereas the impressionists of yore rendered everything in amorphous shapes and used soft edges, Firger takes the opposite approach, using geometric abstraction, all straight, defined lines. The effect is the same: looking at a Firger painting feels like facing the day with a clear head. —Paul Sullivan
