On a Sunday afternoon in the cold, milky light of late March, Mengwei Ma, a visual arts fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, is making a film […]
Arts & Minds
Celebrating the creative and sometimes quirky culture of the Outer Cape.
Browse all Arts & Minds stories below or dive into a topic:
ARTIFICE
Kevin Fitchett Is at The Masters
A FAWC fellow returns to Provincetown to write a novel about family, heartbreak, and golf
Five years ago, when Kevin Fitchett was a Fine Arts Work Center fellow for the first time, he mostly worked on poetry. Now he’s back, and fiction has taken the […]
Arts Briefs
Arts Briefs for April 11, 2025 through April 17, 2025
A New Season of 20 Summers Cultural history and political resistance are prominent themes in the five weeks of programming recently announced by 20 Summers for its 12th season. The […]
EVERLASTING RIPPLES
There’s Plenty of Hope in the Sea
In paintings and mixed media, Nancy Jenner finds beauty, inspiration, and a sense of herself
In recent years, the world has seemed especially cacophonous to artist Nancy Jenner. In a loud room, says Jenner, “I get quiet.” Her impulse is to travel inward, she says, […]
BOOKS
Gaza Has Broken Peter Beinart’s Heart
In a new book, he asks Jews to stop seeing themselves as victims
Peter Beinart, one of the most prominent public intellectuals on the American Jewish left, wrote in July 2020 that he had changed his mind about a “two-state solution” to the […]
SEMI-UTOPIA
An Artist Play-Acts His Way to Something Real
Ian Page explores the edges of things
Fine Arts Work Center visual arts fellow Ian Page arrived in Provincetown last fall from Los Angeles, where he had become interested in Wienerschnitzel, a fast-food chain that sells hot […]
GENRE
New Settings and New Beginnings
From historical fiction to a dystopian horror novel
Matthew Wamser revels in the space he’s been given as a Fine Arts Work Center writing fellow. Working in a first-floor apartment with exposed wood timbers, he feels the presence […]
DEEP ROOTS
Paying His Dues and Playing the Blues
Fred Clayton, the ‘Blues Man of Cape Cod,’ has something to say
Before Fred Clayton had a guitar, he played “a stick with a string on it” — a “giant twig” curved and strung like an archer’s bow. He strummed along to […]
Arts Briefs
Arts Briefs for April 3, 2025 through April 10, 2025
Alice Di Micele Keeps Going Over a career spanning 35 years, singer-songwriter Alice Di Micele has released 17 albums while raising a family and maintaining a commitment to social activism. […]
CROSSWORD #61
Wally and Friends
DOCUMENTARY FILM
Deafness as an Experience of Isolation and Connection
In Michael Cestaro’s Signs From the Mainland, Martha’s Vineyard is a deaf architect’s place of yearning
A seed was planted in Michael Cestaro’s mind when he heard Jeffrey Mansfield, a 2021 fellow at Provincetown’s Twenty Summers, deliver a lecture at the Hawthorne Barn. Mansfield, an architect […]
LYRICISM
A Strange Third Thing
The best poems, says Fine Arts Work Center fellow Parker Hobson, have ‘a tender screwballism’
Parker Hobson, a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, is interested in “what’s still present of the past,” he says. Walking in Provincetown, the poet noticed a plaque […]
STILL FRAME
An Artist Takes a Moment
Solitude provides Zeinab Shahidi Marnani with new perspectives
Zeinab Shahidi Marnani, a visual arts fellow at Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center, spends a lot of time in relative isolation. “Seven months is a long time,” she says. She’s […]
PARALLEL PLAY
Moving To and Fro
Janice Redman and Elizabeth Bradfield navigate a creative partnership in sculpture and poetry
Janice Redman, a sculptor, and Elizabeth Bradfield, a poet, are neighbors in North Truro who have worked together for the past 15 years. “She sits in this chair and works […]
INSTRUMENTATION
Mike Block Plays It All on the Cello
His ‘bluegrass-adjacent’ trio is coming to Wellfleet
Mike Block’s first instrument was the violin. But at nine, he switched to cello. “I was a short kid,” he says. Since he was small, “it was incredible to create […]
