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Suzanne Altman teaches “Art America: Regional Art Museums of the U.S.,” an online lecture series via the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Monday, June 14th through Friday, June 18th, from 1 to 2:15 p.m. Altman breaks down America’s museums into five regions — Mid-Atlantic, New England, Midwest, West, South, and Southwest — noting what is unique about each and the artists it represents. Registration is $175 at paam.org.
Lisa Goren teaches an online course on wet-on-wet watercolor, hosted by the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, on Fridays beginning June 4th, from 1 to 3 p.m. Goren will take your watercolors from muddy to magnificent. Registration is $150 at paam.org.
Learn how squinting can help your impressionist art in “Seeing Spots!,” a plein air painting workshop with Mary Giammarino at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. It will take place outdoors at 460 Commercial St. from Tuesday, June 1st through Thursday, June 3rd, from 9 a.m. to noon. Registration is $300 at paam.org.
Suzanne Altman presents “Important LGBTQ Artists,” an online art history lecture via the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, on Monday, May 17th, from 1 to 2:15 p.m. Artists discussed include Michelangelo, John Singer Sargent, David Hockney, Keith Haring, and Diane Arbus. Registration is $50 at paam.org.
Just inside the front door of Bunny Pearlman’s Provincetown apartment are stacks of small square fresco panels that she has been assembling in preparation for “The Last Leopard — Avoiding Extinction,” the retrospective of her work opening on Friday, May 7 at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
Her paintings are uniquely “Bunny,” with a kind of outside-the-box magic. Their gessoed and frescoed surfaces are steeped with a watery infusion of color and form. They’re quietly disarming — not declarative or overwhelming. You feel as if you’re being let in on a bit of secret but you’re not quite sure what it is. At the same time, the paintings don’t feel finite — they’re open and expansive, illuminating mysteries where words fall short.
Pearlman likes to work in series, each new painting building on the preceding one, like chapters in a book. Her series A Time for Counting is one of her best: split-screen compositions where the upper half depicts an image related to her travels, while the lower half depicts fragments from the natural world, with a written notation at the top as if these were pages from a botanist’s journal. They’re like annotations of a fleeting thought — a shard of memory recorded for posterity.
Curated with acuity by artist Bert Yarborough — no easy task, considering the span and scope of Pearlman’s artistic career — the small works invite intimate engagement. “For over 60 years, through a myriad of artistic practices, research, travels, triumphs, and tragedies, she has maintained what for me and many others can only be defined as an inspiring spirit,” writes Yarborough in the exhibition catalogue.
Her life story, she says, “is all true. Not capital T, but you know?” Her younger self was colorful and restless. She had multiple artistic iterations: modern dancer, writer, teacher, poet, painter. She comes from a family of what she calls “Jewish gypsies” — outliers and outsiders who “didn’t mix well.” That may partially explain her unique vision: primed from the beginning not just to roam, but to roam as an artist.
Pearlman grew up in Queens, N.Y. and had her first exhibition at the Jewish Museum when she was 10 years old. She studied art and religion at a local yeshiva before attending Queens College for a year. She then traveled to Israel for another year of work and study. When her family moved to Florida, she enrolled at the University of Florida, taking classes in photography, painting, and printmaking. She taught art for several years while raising a family of her own, in Florida and California.
She first came to Provincetown in 1976. She directed the famed East End Gallery for 17 seasons before it closed in 2004. Back then, winters were for travel — Boston, New York, Colorado, South Dakota, Israel, Mexico, and Italy. But not anymore: “I finally needed to settle down,” she says, citing her age and health concerns. She’s been a full-time resident of Provincetown since 2016.
Her gallery years were the happiest and most successful of her career. “People would come in and buy things!” she recalls with mock surprise. “I was a little bit notorious then. A Provincetown celebrity!” It didn’t hurt that she had a good eye and represented such a strong group of artists: Yarborough, Arthur Cohen, Kahn and Selesnick, and Tabitha Vevers. “Most of the people I showed had that sense of combining the real with the dream,” she says.
As the weather warms, the easel that currently occupies Pearlman’s front room will make its way to the small back yard, where she’s starting a spring garden. She tries to paint every day and is constantly writing.
“I do have a book of poetry that I’m going to try and publish,” she says. “I write a lot of stuff … stories and memoir.” The paintings, however, are the main branch in the tree of her creative life — visual manifestations of Pearlman’s unique humor and inquiring mind. Like her, they’re one of kind.
Bunny and the Leopard
The event: “The Last Leopard — Avoiding Extinction,” a retrospective of works by Bunny Pearlman
The time: Friday, May 7 through June 27; Thursday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; reservations at paam.org
The place: Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 460 Commercial St.
The cost: $12.50; members free
MJ Levy Dickson teaches “Provincetown and Beyond: Looking at Art Around the World,” a virtual workshop presented by the Provincetown Art Association and Museum on Thursdays beginning April 22nd, from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Each of the six sessions begins with a work of Provincetown art, then takes a wider view of art history. Registration is $80 at paam.org.
The third installment of the Napi and Helen Van Dereck Collection is on view at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 460 Commercial St., from Friday, April 16th to July 25th. The exhibit includes works by Evelin Bodfish Bourne, Oliver Chaffee, William Halsall, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Blanche Lazzell, and Lillian Meeser.
“Part III adds to the rich and historically significant Provincetown narrative that Napi developed while collecting,” says the announcement.
The Provincetown Art Association and Museum hosts “Young Artists April Vacation Workshop,” outdoors at 460 Commercial St., Tuesday, April 20th to Friday, April 23rd. Spots are still available for the afternoon workshop, from 1 to 4 p.m., for children ages 9 to 12. Snacks, materials, and instruction are free. Register by emailing [email protected].
The Provincetown Art Association and Museum hosts “Young Artists April Vacation Workshop,” outdoors at 460 Commercial St., Tuesday, April 20th to Friday, April 23rd. Spots are still available for the afternoon workshop, from 1 to 4 p.m., for children ages 9 to 12. Snacks, materials, and instruction are free. Register by emailing [email protected].
Pete Hocking is teaching “Queer Men Making Figure Paintings,” an online workshop via the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, on two consecutive Saturdays beginning April 17th, at 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be no live model, but participants may work from a mirror, photographs, or other source material. Registration is $300 at paam.org.
“Actualization” is an exhibit of works by young artists in this year’s Art Reach program, which was held remotely with some in-person sessions. It is on view at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 460 Commercial St., through May 2nd.
Highlights include a collage by Issy Hartsgrove, age 13, of Nauset Regional Middle School; a print by Celia Hayward, age 13, of St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School; a Pollock-like splatter painting by Georgina Gluck, age 11, of Provincetown Schools; and an acrylic on canvas by Ella Grimm, age 16, of Nauset Regional High School.
“To all the young artists out there, well done,” writes Tessa Bry Taylor, PAAM’s curator of youth education. “You brought your art to the public so they in turn might experience the colors, expressions and emotions you shared with your peers over the program year.”
Laura Shabott and Alana Barrett are teaching two online workshops this week. The first, via Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, concerns experimental surfaces and materials in painting. It takes place Saturdays, 10 a.m. to noon, and Wednesdays, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., beginning April 10th. Registration is $400 at castlehill.org. The second, via the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, is “Exploring Figure Painting and Drawing Through the Spirit of Matisse.” It takes place Sunday, April 11th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is $150 at paam.org.
Youth Online Workshops via the Provincetown Art Association and Museum begin this week. Sophia Aussant teaches “Sea Creature Sculpting,” for children ages 7 to 10, on Tuesdays beginning April 6th, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. At the same time, Antonia DaSilva teaches “Bookmaking and Artist Books,” for children ages 11 to 14. And Hannah Capra teaches “Printmaking From Home,” for artists ages 15 to 19, on Wednesdays beginning April 7th, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Registration is $48 at paam.org.
Youth Online Workshops via the Provincetown Art Association and Museum begin this week. Sophia Aussant teaches “Sea Creature Sculpting,” for children ages 7 to 10, on Tuesdays beginning April 6th, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. At the same time, Antonia DaSilva teaches “Bookmaking and Artist Books,” for children ages 11 to 14. And Hannah Capra teaches “Printmaking From Home,” for artists ages 15 to 19, on Wednesdays beginning April 7th, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Registration is $48 at paam.org.
Siân Robertson leads “Don’t Be Afraid of the Internet! Basic Website Design for Artists,” an online workshop via the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, on Mondays beginning April 5th, from 1 to 3 p.m. Registration is $150 at paam.org. Kath Macaulay teaches pocket sketching on Mondays and Thursdays beginning April 5th, 2:30 to 4 p.m. Registration is $175.
