A World of Animation Comes to Wellfleet
After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the 22nd annual Animation Show of Shows returns to Wellfleet Preservation Hall from Friday, Jan. 20, through Sunday, Jan. 22. The film festival, which was started in 1998 by film producer and Acme Filmworks founder Ron Diamond, will screen in Wellfleet as part of a two-month tour of more than two dozen venues across the United States.
This year’s festival includes nine recent animated short films along with Canadian animator Frédéric Back’s The Man Who Planted Trees, which won an Academy Award in 1988 for best animated short.
The films’ moods vary widely — from serious to light-hearted — as do their animation styles, from computer-generated visuals to soft hand-drawn pastels. A diverse array of artists is represented as well, including animators from Japan, Germany, Iceland, France, Poland, Switzerland, and Russia.
“While the recent films were conceived and some finished before the Covid lockdowns,” Diamond says in a statement accompanying the series, “all but the most abstract display a concern with the ways in which we are all interconnected — or sadly alienated from our sense of human connection.”
Tickets are $15. See wellfleetpreservationhall.org for information. —Eve Samaha
An Orleans Artist Paints the Way
The Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage route through northern Spain from the French side of the Pyrenees to the tomb of St. James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, has inspired many artistic interpretations over the years, from books both sublime (Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgrimage) and infamous (Shirley MacLaine’s The Camino) to The Way, a 2010 film starring Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. It has also inspired a series of artworks by a Cape artist who walked the Camino himself.
Orleans resident Bill Wibel’s “Walking the Camino” series is currently on view at Snow Library (67 Main St., Orleans). His oil pastels depict the diverse views and landscapes of the Camino: the geometric planes of buildings in small villages, sweeping vistas of hills and fields covered in wheat and poppies, and the soaring interiors of centuries-old churches. Colorfully rendered in a loose, impressionistic style, his works convey both the intimacy and grandeur of the ancient pilgrimage route.
Wibel, a retired educator who worked in the Nauset and Bourne school systems, turns 80 this year. He walked the Camino in the spring of 2018 following the death of his wife and used the photographs he took during his walk to create the oil pastels upon his return to the Cape. “I didn’t want to lose my memories of the experience and thought it would be a good thing to share with others,” he says. “So, I chose one photograph from each day that I walked and made an oil pastel from it each day for 34 days, which is how long I walked. It was almost like walking the Camino again!”
Wibel says he hopes to inspire others via his art, especially his fellow seniors. “Too many people give in to their fears as they get older,” he says. “And I came back from the Camino a happier person than I was before I left. You really learn how to be your best friend out there.”
There will be a reception for the artist at the library on Saturday, Jan. 21, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The exhibition is on view until Jan. 31. See snowlibrary.org for information. —John D’Addario
10th Annual Joe Gouveia Poetry Contest
Among his many roles and accolades during his lifetime, poet and activist Joe Gouveia was poet-in-residence at Cape Cod Community College, the recipient of Cambridge Poetry Awards’ Poet of the Year, poetry curator at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod — and perhaps most notably, the official Cape Cod poet laureate. He also hosted Poet’s Corner on WOMR in Provincetown and established the Outermost Poetry Contest in 2012.
Following his death in 2014, the contest was named in his honor. This year marks the contest’s 10th anniversary.
Poet and novelist Marge Piercy will judge the submissions, and finalists will be selected for both international and regional categories. Prizes of $1,000 and $300 will be awarded to the winner of the international competition and the regional Cape-based winner, respectively. All contest winners will be invited to read their work at a live event in the spring.
The deadline for submissions is Jan. 31. For the integrity of the judging process, names and other identifying information must not appear anywhere on or in the poems. Instead, submissions should include a cover letter with contact information as well as the titles and first five words of each poem. There is a $15 entry fee for submissions of up to five poems. See the contest submission page at womr.org for more information.
Philip Hoare Keeps an Eye on the Sea
Along with his biographies of artists (and queer icons) Noël Coward and Stephen Tennant, and a history of a landmark 1918 obscenity trial involving a play by Oscar Wilde, writer Philip Hoare’s career is notable for his books about the sea, including The Whale, inspired by his encounters with whales during his visits to Provincetown; The Sea Inside, a personal and natural history of the world’s oceans; and RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR, a meditation on his own relationship with the seas that surround his homes in Southampton, England, and Cape Cod. (According to his own biography, he still finds time to swim in the harbor during his visits to Provincetown — “even in January.”)
Hoare’s latest book, Albert & the Whale, begins as a meditation on German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer’s depiction of a beached whale in Holland in 1521 (which he never actually saw) and, according to a 2021 review in the New York Times, “quickly hop(s) across historical lily pads” as Hoare muses on 20th-century literature and his own mortality.
Hoare will be discussing his book on Wednesday, Jan. 25 at the Center for Coastal Studies (5 Holway Ave., Provincetown) as part of Napi’s Lecture Series. The talk will be followed by a book signing. (Copies of the book will be available for sale.) The reading, which is free, will also be presented virtually via Zoom. See coastalstudies.org for information. —John D’Addario
