Cortile Gallery, 230 Commercial St. At Cortile, Beth Donovan, a Provincetown local, admires Sunset Sail, painted by Ed Walsh. “I’m pretty sure it’s a rendition of the schooner Hindu,” she […]
Art
CONTEMPORARY ART
Wendy White Puts Painting in Its Place
‘Sunset Drift’ challenges painting’s revered status in a show both playful and dark
Wendy White wants to know why painting is held in such high esteem compared to other art forms. “I’m a little skeptical about whether all those accolades are fair. It’s […]
PORTRAITS
P’town’s Women at Mischa Richter’s New Gallery
Each of Nancy Loeber’s subjects leaves ‘some kind of light’
During the pandemic, Mischa Richter returned to Provincetown, where he was born and raised, with two related goals: he would run a gallery in the summer and publish art books […]
COLLABORATION
Finding Fresh Inspiration in Ancient Sources
Ellen LeBow, Mary Gordon, and Suzzy Roche look to the past for creative direction
In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus comes upon a fig tree toward the end of a long journey. Hungry, he curses the tree when he finds only leaves, […]
AESTHETICS
Finding Material Pleasure in the Glitch
Former FAWC fellows respond to instability with inventive and sensuous forms
The densest thing about “Density’s Glitch,” the current show at the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC), is the accompanying text. Just a page in length, it has some knotty phrases. […]
LINE AND COLOR
Cynthia Packard Wages War to Find the Right Lines
The artist wants her paintings to have ‘a reason to survive’
Cynthia Packard says she dances with her paintings. It must be a tango or flamenco; it’s not a waltz. Her intensely physical approach to painting is intuitive, abrupt, sure, and […]
PEOPLE WATCHING
Daphne Confar Makes Stories Out of Strangers
Finding the little things, and the ones that are lovable
Amid the hustle and bustle of Commercial Street, we all watch other people. Grabbing what we can from someone’s bright yellow shirt, leather chaps, or bald spot, we invent a […]
SKIN AND INK
Welcome to Tattoo Summer Camp
In a Provincetown parlor, individualists share their styles
PROVINCETOWN — Walk down Commercial Street in the summer and you’ll feel the buzz. Party conversations linger. Kids splash on the shore. New waiters rush to tables. Dogs wrestle. Drag […]
RETROSPECTIVE
A Maverick Artist’s Many Faces
Provincetown celebrates Philip C. Malicoat with paired exhibitions
Moisture, fog, the piney essence of forest and dunes — to commune with these in a Philip Malicoat landscape or seascape is to experience that certain slant of light when […]
CANVASES
Behind the Scenes With Malicoat’s Larger Works
A conservator copes with Cape Cod’s environment and with the paint itself
Few viewers are conscious of what goes on behind the scenes to keep a museum’s collection not just intact but resistant to the unrelenting effects of time. But conservator and […]
LIFE CYCLES
Encounters With Painting in Place
James Everett Stanley situates innocence, threats, and identity on the landscape
“Part of the reason I’m interested in portraiture,” says the painter James Everett Stanley, “is that you can see life’s journey just in somebody’s face, in the weathering, in the […]
VANTAGE POINTS
Joel Janowitz Works From the Inside Out
A painter’s landscapes explore the inner act of perception
Strolling down Commercial Street and into the Mary Heaton Vorse house, one is aware of Provincetown Harbor moving in and out of view. It glistens between buildings or stretches out […]
THE DOG CATCHER
John Waters Starts His 58th Provincetown Summer
There is no confusing his work with anyone else’s
Filmmaker, writer, visual artist, actor, and art collector. John Waters’s oeuvre may not be deep, but it certainly is wide. There is no confusing his artwork with anyone else’s, and […]
RECOLLECTIONS
Portrait of a Provincetown Summer
Instead of a tip, a painter’s gift that lasted a lifetime
PROVINCETOWN — Millie Harris first came to town in the summer of 1932. That Memorial Day weekend, she took a job as a waitress at a coffee shop on Commercial […]
ARTISTS
Waxing Poetic on Community and Art
Michael David discusses his life as an artist and teacher
“Everything meaningful in my adult life has come from the relationship with this material,” says artist Michael David, referring to encaustic — a painting material composed of wax, damar varnish, […]
