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Truro Center for the Arts

    ART AND ACCESS

    Where Time and Space Are at a Premium

    Artists and institutions grapple with the challenge of creating studios

    By

    As housing has grown increasingly difficult to secure in Provincetown, so have art studios.

    It’s not a recent problem. In 1992, the artist Joyce Johnson, a founder of the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, waxed nostalgic about Provincetown during the middle of the last century. “Making a living was not easy,” wrote Johnson, “but perhaps those were kinder days, when established proprietors took an almost fatherly attitude toward the young artists … allowing them to make studios and bedrooms in barely heated sheds and cottages.”

    Tessera Knowles-Thompson in her studio at the Provincetown Commons. (Photos by Agata Storer)

    Historically, studio space has been important in facilitating creative community. The empty shacks and spare rooms of Provincetown fishermen provided space for artists to grow in a similar way that post-industrial centers in larger cities incubated artist communities. Artists have always followed the availability of studio space, transforming the communities they inhabit in the process, and the Outer Cape is no exception. Provincetown’s desirability as a place to visit and live in has roots in an identity developed by its artists.

    The Provincetown Commons is one of several organizations working to maintain this identity.  “We want to do something for people who want to build a life here,” says Pete Hocking, president of the board of the Commons. The Commons opened in a former school building on Bradford Street in 2019 “as a resource to support economic development, collaboration, and creative professionals in our community,” according to its website. In establishing their focus, the Commons organizers surveyed the creative community about their needs. To no one’s surprise, studio space was at the top of the list.

    Currently, the Commons offers studio space to 10 artists. Priority is given to local emerging artists who do not have gallery representation.

    Donna Pomponio was one of the first studio tenants at the Commons in 2019. After relocating from Boston, where she had a studio, she painted in her apartment at first. Pomponio paints portraits and images inspired by literature, including a series of paintings based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

    “I always had a desire to paint large” she says — and her space at the Commons allowed her to do just that.

    Fran O’Neill in his studio at the Provincetown Commons.

    Pomponio moved out of her studio this past fall after three years, which is the maximum amount of time an artist can stay there. While there, she worked in a shared space with other artists. “Ideas stew being in the same room with people,” says Pomponio. “I found a community.”

    Paul Rizzo was one of the artists who worked alongside Pomponio. Rizzo moved to Provincetown shortly after finishing art school and spent eight years without a dedicated work space. “I didn’t really think about the fact that I didn’t have a studio,” says Rizzo. “But I would lose track of projects so easily. Everything would be under my bed or in my closet or piled up.”

    Hocking, who works with Rizzo at Four Eleven Gallery where both show their art, recognizes how having a studio affected Rizzo’s work. “Having that space allowed Paul to be a more consistent maker,” he says. “He is exactly the kind of artist I hoped the Commons could support: someone who wants to build a life here, and a brilliant maker who is still figuring out who he is as an artist.”

    Studios at the Commons are allotted through an application process and rented at $350 a month. “We keep the fee affordable,” says Jill Stauffer, the executive director. “If people have a problem paying that, we’re happy to have a conversation with them,” she adds, noting that a sliding fee scale is available for those in need. Artists are required to use the studio for at least 15 hours a week.

    Along with studio space, the Commons provides programming and other services for artists, including classes on financial planning, studio visits, and exhibition space. “It’s about exposure,” says Dave LaFrance, who serves as the Commons’ operations and community manager. “The Commons is an economic development center for the arts and small businesses.”

    The exhibition spaces at the Commons show works from other artists in addition to the ones who have studios there. “We want to make it a place where emerging artists can connect with galleries and build a sustainable practice,” says Hocking. The organization charges $250 to rent gallery spaces for two weeks and takes no commission on sales. “Last year around $100,000 worth of art was sold,” says Hocking. “If you want artists to have sustainable lives, it matters if we can sell a couple of paintings.”

    Pomponio and Rizzo found studio spaces after leaving the Commons, although their arrangements remain tentative: Pomponio is subletting a shared space on Conwell Street and has rented a storage space for her artwork and materials, and Rizzo is renting a shared space from a friend. Both artists are on lists for more permanent solutions, including space in studios on Conwell Street developed by Ted Malone and Patrick Studios, which are owned by the Provincetown real estate development company Shank Painter Associates. Pomponio estimates that she’s been on both lists for a year and a half. There are also studio spaces upstairs at the Provincetown Post Office, although Pomponio says that’s an even more remote possibility. “I don’t think anyone’s left there forever,” she says.

    Stauffer says that lack of turnover is an issue and is the reason why the Commons instituted a time limit on its studios. “When we put out a survey, people responded that they didn’t want a studio solution like the post office,” she says. “Some people get in there and no one else gets a chance. We want to serve as many people in the community as possible.” Stauffer says the Commons currently has about five people on its waitlist for studios and that it may take a year for the next spot to open up.

    Fran O’Neill and Tessera Knowles-Thompson are two artists who recently moved into the Commons. “Finding a studio in Provincetown is very hard,” says Knowles-Thompson, who moved to Provincetown in 2015. “I’ve always been in someone else’s space. Once I rented the corner of someone else’s studio. Another time I worked in a friend’s office. Typically my work is hidden away in portfolios. It has been a revelation to have blank walls.” Her walls are covered with quiet landscape paintings, and at her desk she moves between working on her own artwork and landscape designs for clients.

    Across the room, Fran O’Neill is working on a series of abstract paintings with simple shapes that recall the mobiles of Alexander Calder. “I start with a frame and then have wood cut to fit the frame,” he says. “I’m taking shapes that are similar to each other and combining them into designs.” After arriving at a composition, O’Neill uses oil-based stains to add color while preserving the grain of the wood. “The last time I was able to do this, a friend sublet her studio to me,” he says. “I wouldn’t be able to do this out of my apartment. There’s no way.”

    Along with space constrictions, artists also encounter time limitations and the demands of a day job. O’Neill (who works seasonally at Bagel Hound in Wellfleet) and Knowles-Thompson both find more time for their art in the winter. Although Knowles-Thompson got a studio last spring, she gave it up temporarily over the summer, which is her busy time as a landscape designer. O’Neill says he’ll probably allow someone else to use his space this summer when he goes back to work.

    And so the see-sawing continues as artists move in and out of the Commons, navigating between jobs and temporary spaces to make art in a place where time and space are at a premium. For its part, the Commons is striving to match the resilience and flexibility of its artists — but the long-term solution isn’t simple.

    “We want people to rotate out every three years,” says Hocking. “But it’s raising a problem with our model. There just aren’t enough studio spaces in town for them to rent. How do we find more space?”

    ART AND ACCESS

    Castle Hill and Morgan State Join Forces for Equity

    A new residency in Truro is designed to extend professional opportunities to young Black artists

    By

    TRURO — Andre Davis, 23, graduated this month from Morgan State, a historically Black university in Baltimore. His first steps out of college have brought him to Truro, where he and recent graduate Kendra Tyler are fellows in a residency program created by a partnership between the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and the university.

    The residency, which happened for the first time last December, enables two recent graduates to live and work at Castle Hill for two weeks. Fellows are provided with housing, studio space, a $500 stipend, transportation, and mentorship. The program’s creators hope to accommodate participants in both the fall and spring.

    Ennis, a painting by 2021 Osborne Fellow Jasmine Adams. (Photo courtesy the artist)

    “It’s a good stepping stone to professional life,” says E.L. Briscoe, a lecturer in visual arts at Morgan State. On a windy morning with the season’s first snow dusting the grounds of Castle Hill’s Edgewood Farm, he sat at a large wooden table with Davis and Tyler, who had arrived two days earlier, discussing the residency and their plans for the upcoming two weeks.

    “I’m working on an installation,” says Tyler, 24, who graduated last May and teaches art at an elementary school in Baltimore. She’s currently working with Styrofoam and clay and planned to forage for moss, leaves, and sticks in the woods around the property. “It’s a continuation of previous work,” says Tyler. “I like to bring in natural elements to an inside space.”

    Kendra Tyler, a current Osborne Fellow at Castle Hill. (Photo by Agata Storer)

    Davis, her studio mate for the residency, typically works in illustration and painting. “Drawing is the first thing I remember really enjoying,” says Davis. “I figured, why not go to school for this and build upon it?

    “Usually, I draw from past experiences,” he continues. “It could just be everyday things like walking to the corner store, meeting up with friends, cookouts, funerals — a whole spectrum of the human experience but through the lens of somebody that grew up Black in Baltimore. Back home, my process is a ritual. I can’t really do that here. There’s no corner store in the middle of the woods. It’s real quiet here. You have more time to think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. It forces you to dig deep.”

    The opportunity for Davis and Tyler to come to Castle Hill was the result of a $100,000 donation from Nancy and Al Osborne. “I wanted to do a major gift to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Castle Hill,” says Nancy Osborne. “At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement was happening in response to the murder of George Floyd.” She participated in a brainstorming session to identify ways that Castle Hill could make changes to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “What struck me,” says Osborne, “was one common point: if we wanted to attract a more diverse audience and students of color, we had to finance scholarships and residencies.”

    Andre Davis (left) and Kendra Tyler, current Osborne Fellows at Castle Hill. (Photo by Agata Storer)

    Castle Hill workshops typically cost around $500 for a one-week course, not including housing. The residency program at Edgewood Farm, which hosts three or four artists in the fall and spring, costs $850 for two weeks or $1500 for one month, including housing and studio space. Another program called the Yellow Chair Salon, led and developed by Michael David, costs $725 for an eight-session online program and $3,500 for a two-week in-person master class, including housing and studio space.

    “It’s hard to get out here. It’s expensive,” says Castle Hill Executive Artistic Director Cherie Mittenthal. “We try to take out barriers to allow more people opportunities.” So far, initiatives have included the awarding of full or partial scholarships to 28 participants last summer — just 2 percent of the 1,400 students who enrolled. Other initiatives to expand access include 20 scholarships for local students, an after-school program at Truro Central School, and fully funded off-season classes for local residents over 65, which serves between 40 to 80 people each year.

    Morgan State University Lecturer E.L. Briscoe is a mentor to the current Osborne Fellows. (Photo by Agata Storer)

    Despite these initiatives, Osborne and others saw a continued need for Castle Hill to grow. Would the next 50 years bring about a more inclusive institution — or one that would grow ossified, a sort of gated community for those who could afford it?

    Osborne, who lives part-time in Truro, became involved with Castle Hill during a professional rebirth. “I became interested in pursuing art after a business career, which included working as an executive at Walt Disney for 16 years,” she says. She now creates abstract bronze sculptures exploring gestural movement. “I started taking classes at Castle Hill in 2009,” says Osborne, “and I immediately fell in love with the place.”

    After the brainstorming session in 2020, Osborne considered what she could do. “I was sitting on my couch and thought, ‘It’s time for me to step up to the plate,’ ” she says. “So, I proposed an idea to my husband: a Castle Hill artist residency in collaboration with historically Black colleges and universities, for which we would donate the initial seed money.” Her husband, Al, an economist and senior associate dean at U.C.L.A.’s Anderson School of Management, agreed.

    Morgan State’s E.L. Briscoe (left) with current Osborne Fellows Kendra Tyler (center) and Andre Davis (right) at Castle Hill’s Edgewood Farm campus. (Photo by Agata Storer)

    Castle Hill had an existing relationship with Jamal Thorne, a graduate of Morgan State and associate teaching professor of art at Northeastern University, who helped to arrange a connection with his alma mater through his former teacher E.L. Briscoe. Last year, Thorne served as a mentor for the fellows. (Myra Kooy will fill that role this year.) Briscoe hopes that former fellows will return as mentors in the future.

    Osborne sees a dual purpose for the residency. On one hand, it benefits Castle Hill: “The more diverse an organization is, the stronger it is,” she says. “Diversity keeps things growing.”

    Osborne was further motivated to do something to enrich the creative lives of young African American artists. Distraught over the murder of George Floyd and the continued racism in America, Osborne, whose husband is Black, wanted to make a difference. “My husband and I have the power of making major gifts,” she says. “If I can contribute to causes that assist in lifting up African Americans in this country, I want to be doing that.”

    She was also curious: “What happens when you bring a diverse group of artists with completely different life experiences to the Cape? How will this environment influence their creativity?”

    Jasmine Adams participated in the first residency last year. “Coming from an inner city, it was a stark change to go from a lot of noise to silence,” says Adams. Like Davis, Adams often creates images of people from her community in Baltimore. At Castle Hill, she immortalized one of her subjects in her largest painting yet.

    “I was there to challenge myself and think outside of the box,” she says. “I spent copious amounts of time in the studio. Some days I was there for 12 hours.” She created a large-scale portrait of a seated young man holding a bouquet of flowers, painted in a tight, realistic manner with unexpected details like a white outline and one eye depicted as if it’s a collaged element. A straightforward image was transformed into something off-kilter and slightly unsettling.

    “It’s not often that people have the privilege to go on a residency right after graduating,” says Adams. “Finding our way is very difficult. This was my first experience where I was being looked at as a professional artist.”

    Thinking of the future, Osborne considers the effect the Cape had on several notable abstract expressionist artists in the 1950s. “The influence of time spent on the Cape was an important part of their careers,” she says. “That same thing can happen with these artists. We just need to get more of them coming.”

    Fresh Talent

    The event: Castle Hill’s Osborne Fellows Open Studios
    The time: Thursday, Dec. 22, 4 to 6 p.m.
    The place: Truro Center for the Arts, Edgewood Farm, 3 Edgewood Way
    The cost: Free

    Free Workshops for Seniors at Castle Hill

    By

    Year-round residents from Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Brewster, Harwich, and Chatham are eligible to apply for the Truro Center for the Arts annual “60+” program of free workshops for seniors. The courses are “Pastels,” with Rob DuToit, Mondays and Wednesdays, from 10 a.m. to noon, October 19th through November 4th; “Poetry,” with Kate Wallace Rogers, Mondays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to noon, November 2nd through November 19th; and “Printmaking,” with Vicky Tomayko, Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10a.m. to noon, October 20th through November 5th.The classes will be held virtually this year, via Zoom. Applications are available on thecastlehill.org website. Space is limited: participants are chosen by lottery and will be notified of admission on October 14th.

    Scarf It Down

    By

    Dahlia Popovits is teaching a scarf weaving class at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill at 10 Meeting house Road. Join her Monday, September 21st, and Tuesday, September 22nd, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The course costs $150, plus $50 for materials. Register at castlehill.org.

    Scarf It Down

    By

    Dahlia Popovits is teaching a scarf weaving class at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill at 10 Meeting house Road. Join her Monday, September 21st, and Tuesday, September 22nd, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The course costs $150, plus $50 for materials. Register at castlehill.org.

    Isn’t It Mitch?

    By

    There will be an opening reception for painter Mitchell Johnson at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, 10 Meetinghouse Road, on Thursday, September 10th, 4 to 6p.m. The show is on view through September 18th. Johnson’s upcoming course at Castle Hill is sold out.

    Create Sketchbooks With Mark Adams and Nick Flynn

    By

    Artist and cartographer Mark Adams, a regular contributor to the Independent, and poet Nick Flynn, his frequent partner in creative endeavors,have reunited for a non-campus course, “The Sketchbook Journal: Writing and Drawing in the Field,” at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill at 10 Meetinghouse Road in Truro. The course will take place in four sessions, from Monday, September 14th, through Thursday, September 17th, from 9 a.m. to noon. The class, limited during the pandemic to seven students, will meet on Zoom first, then outdoors, “foraging for words and images.” The cost is $455. Sign up at castlehill.org.

    our picks for the week of July 30 through August 5

    Indie’s Choice

    By

    Outer Cape Calendar

    An Artist’s Lot

    Nectar by Traci Harmon Hay
    Nectar, by Traci Harmon-Hay, is one of the works up for bid at the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod’s online auction at artsfoundation.org. (Photo Traci Harmon-Hay)

    The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod is hosting an online silent auction starting on Thursday, July 23, at noon through Sunday, Aug. 9, at 9:30 p.m., featuring art by Traci Harmon-Hay, Sarah Lutz, Pete Hocking, and others. There will also be a live auction, streaming from the Chatham Bars Inn on Thursday, Aug. 6, at 6 p.m., with works by Donald Beal, Cynthia Packard, and more. Visit artsfoundation.org to register and bid.

    Into the Woods

    The Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is offering a few socially distanced activities. Among them is a kayak trip through Nauset Marsh in Eastham on Friday, July 31, at 8:30 a.m., tickets $70-$85 (call 508-349-2615 to register); and a full moon hike on Monday, Aug. 3, at 7:30 p.m., tickets $14, children free (register at massaudubon.org).

    Advice Versa

    The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown is hosting a virtual one-hour poetry workshop led by Nick Flynn that is designed to inspire unexpected and surprising new poems on Thursday, July 30, at 6 p.m. Registration is $10 at fawc.org.

    Ukulele Lady

    The Eastham Public Library is holding a virtual ukulele workshop with Julie Stepanek on Saturday, Aug. 1, at 1 p.m. Ages six and up are welcome. There is also a live-streaming animal show via Zoom on Tuesday, Aug. 4, at 5 p.m. Go to easthamlibrary.org to register; both events are free.

    Feed Your Ears

    The Wellfleet Pearl restaurant continues with live music daily (except Monday) from 3 to 5 p.m., no cover. Featured this week: Catie Flynn Band (Thursday, July 30), Boston Naturals (Friday, July 31), Pitchfork (Saturday, Aug. 1), Bruce Maclean (Sunday, Aug. 2), Brandon Manter (Tuesday, Aug. 4), and Jordan Renzi (Wednesday, Aug. 5).

    World Tour

    Great Music on Sundays @5 presents “Marimba and Piano Global Rhythms” on Sunday, Aug. 2 at 5 p.m. This free live-streaming concert, with Brian Calhoon on marimba, John Thomas on piano, and Chanthoeun Varon Collins on cello, includes music from Argentina, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, and the U.S. For details, go to ptownmusic.com.

    For a Song

    Steeple Street Music Academy in Mashpee is running a songwriting competition called Mash-ville. The entry deadline is Saturday, Aug. 1, and you must be at least 13 to enter. The fees: $25 for your first song, $10 for each additional song. The grand prize: two round-trip tickets to Nashville, Tenn. Winners will participate in a songwriting showcase on Aug. 15. Visit steeplestreetmusic.com for details.

    Drag Picnic

    Marti Gould Cummings in “Picnic in the Park” is coming to Pilgrim House’s outdoor stage from Tuesday, Aug. 4 to Saturday, Aug. 8. Tickets are $35 at pilgrimhouse.com.

    Bracelets for BFFs

    The Truro Public Library is hosting a virtual friendship bracelet-making class with Sophia and Maggie Prickitt on Wednesday, Aug. 5, at 10:30 a.m. via Zoom. Call 508-487-1125 or email [email protected] to receive the link. Materials will be provided through curbside pickup.

    Backyard Boogie

    Wellfleet Preservation Hall is presenting a backyard concert series. First up is Zoë Lewis on Wednesday, Aug. 5, at 7 p.m. (rain date Aug. 6). Tickets are $15 for adults, $7.50 for children 13 and under. Groups are limited to six people; bring a blanket or lawn chair. Reserve in advance at wellfleetpreservationhall.org.

    Puppet Party

    The Provincetown, Truro, and Wellfleet libraries are holding a virtual puppet show, “A Celebration of Imagination,” performed by Caravan Puppets, on Thursday, Aug. 6, at 10:30 a.m. For a Zoom link, email [email protected] with the names and ages of your viewing party.

    Painting With Pete

    One highlight of the online and on-campus classes offered at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill is “Making Pictures,” with Pete Hocking, which will be held live, from 9 a.m. to noon on Monday, Aug. 3, through Thursday, Aug. 6. The four sessions cost $455. Register at castlehill.org.

    Young at Art

    The Provincetown Art Association and Museum is offering several live outdoor classes for kids. Hannah Capra teaches “Little Artists Outdoors” on Tuesdays at 10 a.m. for children 4 to 7, and “Young Artists Outdoors” on Thursdays at 10 a.m. for children 8 to 10; both are $40 per session. Grace Emmet teaches “Plein Air Painting” on Fridays at 8:30 a.m. for children 10 to 15, $50 per session. Go to paam.org to register.

    The Grab Brothers are performing in the “Virtual Music at Mayo” online concert series on Friday. (Photo Grab Brothers)
    The Grab Brothers are performing in the “Virtual Music at Mayo” online concert series on Friday. (Photo Grab Brothers)

    Hold the Mayo

    The Wellfleet Recreation Dept. is hosting “Virtual Music at Mayo,” an online concert series. The Grab Brothers Band performs on Friday, July 31, at 6:30 p.m., and the Rip It Ups get in the groove on Thursday, Aug. 6, at 6:30 p.m. Visit the Wellfleet Rec’s Facebook page for details.

     

    VIRTUAL ARTS

    Charting Courses on the Outer Cape

    Brush up your skills during a time of crisis

    By

    It wouldn’t be summer on the Outer Cape without courses. And, fortunately, though indoor courses in art and writing are not in the offing at this stage of the coronavirus crisis, there is no dearth of virtual or outdoor options.

    brush-making at Castle Hill
    Glenn Grishkoff’s online brush-making course is being offered at Castle Hill. (Photo Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill)

    Kiah Coble, curator of adult education at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, says that PAAM’s adult courses this summer are about half-and-half online and outdoors. “I am impressed by how quickly teaching artists rose to the occasion,” Coble says. “I was expecting cancellations, but almost everybody wanted to figure out an alternative.”

    Instructors of online Zoom classes have taken two approaches: some are opting for the usual six-hour blocks, while others are choosing shorter sessions and allowing students to work independently. They can share the work they’ve accomplished for critique and hoped-for admiration by sending in photos or holding it up to the computer camera.

    Though students in adult online classes are generally responsible for their own art materials, they’ll receive at-home silkscreen kits for Vicky Tomayko’s Introduction to Silkscreen Printing, running from July 27 to Aug. 7. Even so, materials aren’t usually a problem, says Coble: “The biggest barrier to participation is technology, such as access to the internet or a computer.”

    Outdoor (or “plein air”) classes taught by John Clayton, Mary Giammarino, Pete Hocking, Aaron Michael Thompson, and Kath Macaulay through August will take place at the beach, in PAAM’s lawn and sculpture garden, or around Provincetown. These are capped at five participants to allow for ample social distancing, so early booking is recommended, and participants must wear masks.

    Paint plein air at PAAM
    Mary Giammarino, who painted this oil landscape, will be teaching a plein air course at PAAM in August. (Photo Mary Giammarino)

    Outdoor art classes are allowed in phase two of Gov. Charlie Baker’s reopening, as well as indoor art classes for children, though Tessa Bry Taylor, PAAM’s curator of youth education, feels it’s still too risky and that state guidelines for arts instructors are not especially clear.

    Instead, PAAM is offering its children’s Art Reach program virtually this summer, from July 8 through Aug. 12. “The program is focused on exploring different mediums,” Taylor says. “Each week they take on a new project.” Materials are provided for pickup or delivery, and children can also be creative with objects found around their kitchen or on the beach.

    There are also plein air workshops in landscape and watercolor painting for middle school and high school students coming out soon, as well as outdoor “art adventures” for smaller children. “As a parent of two very small children,” Taylor says, “I am even more desperate for this kind of program.” She sees the value in “creative tactile play” and getting children familiar with social distancing in preparation for school.

    While Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill only has online adult programming for the time being, plein air classes are planned for its Edgewood Farm campus during August, Executive Artistic Director Cherie Mittenthal says. Its diverse selection of Zoom classes is focused on materiality, in a time when we spend so many hours in the intangible internet domain.

    Glenn Grishkoff, for instance, provides materials for his brush-making class (July 20 to 24), and Anna Poor provides blocks of soapstone for her stone-carving class (Aug. 3 to 7). Patricia Miranda is teaching a class on egg tempera on Aug. 17, a good way to use up your overstocked quarantine rations. Clay classes this summer are focused on demonstrations or hand-building, as not everyone has a wheel at home. For those not yet suffering from screen fatigue, there is also a website-building class for artists with Jesse Freidin from July 27 to 31.

    Mittenthal says she was unsure of the appeal of online classes at first, since “we are so tactile as artists,” but she’s pleased that people are “taking risks.” The second round of the Yellow Chair Salon, a four-month online artist residency program with Michael David, will start in October. Fellows craft PowerPoint portfolios of their work to share with their peers as well as guest critics. Mittenthal says that Castle Hill’s fall residency program is still up in the air.

    The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown is offering a large selection of online writing workshops through its 24 Pearl Street program. These include a workshop on poet Rainer Maria Rilke by Mark Wunderlich, starting June 22; a flash essay workshop with Jill Talbot, starting July 6; and a workshop on pleasure and pain in poetry with Traci Brimhall, starting Aug. 3, among many others.

    Many classes involve online lectures and independent writing, but also have “live” Zoom elements such as student meet and greets and virtual readings. In addition to workshops, FAWC is running a series of virtual events with their fellows and faculty, such as a “quarantine dinner conversation” with Marie Howe on June 23.

    Finally, the Provincetown Independent is offering a free five-week journalism workshop for high school and middle school students from July 1 to Aug. 5. Participants will create pieces for publication in this newspaper.

    Prospective students should sign up early for online classes. It also must be noted that these courses (except for the journalism workshop) are not free: at PAAM, they range from $50 to $400, based on the number of sessions and whether it’s online or plein air; courses at Castle Hill start at $165; and courses at FAWC cost between $400 and $600.

     

    BOOKS

    Artistic Collaborations Illuminate Nick Flynn’s Stay

    He probes his personal history in spare, elegant poetry and prose

    By

    The writer Nick Flynn, whose work has been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, Paris Review, and a dozen books, came of age as a poet in Provincetown.

    He was born in 1960 in Scituate, raised by his mother — his father adrift — and in the mid-1980s, after his mother’s suicide, Flynn moved to Boston and then to Provincetown, where he was a Fine Arts Work Center fellow during the 1990s and FAWC’s writing coordinator. He lived mostly on his houseboat, a 42-foot Chris-Craft, moored seasonally in the harbor. Friends came and went, and ties to this town of artists and renegades continue to ground Flynn’s work.

    Nick Flynn’s Stay: threads, conversations, collaborations, was released by ZE Books in March.

    Especially now, Flynn’s followers will find his recent book, Stay: threads, conversations, collaborations, to be a source of solace, illumination, and a recognizable sense of place.

    It’s a braided sequence of artist collaborations and previously published work that provides space for Flynn to plumb his archives and come up with a range of symbolic, aesthetic objects, including family photographs and ephemera.

    “Collaborative work with other artists is such an important part of my work process,” Flynn says from his home in Brooklyn. The book includes a late-in-life letter from his difficult, troubling father, Jonathan Flynn, encouraging his son to be a writer. In Flynn’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, about the time he was a case worker at Boston’s Pine Street Inn, a homeless shelter, Flynn recounts being at the desk when his father is admitted. Photographs of his mother, Jody Draper, as a young girl, are particularly affecting — she remains a ghostly presence in Flynn’s life and work.

    The poet Phil Levine, with whom Flynn studied at New York University, is another significant influence. Levine once returned a poem to Flynn, saying, “You have more light inside you than this.” Levine’s observation leads Flynn to note, in Stay, “I knew I had light inside me, and that somehow I would have to find a way to let some of it into my poems.”

    Locally known collaborators whose presence is felt in Stay include Mark Adams, Mischa Richter, Amy Arbus, Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick, Jack Pierson, and M. P. Landis. Their inclusions form a tapestry of Flynn’s friendships — art offers an avenue to keep them close.

    His work with Adams, a visual artist and cartographer with the Cape Cod National Seashore, began “when he appeared at one of my readings in the early 1990s,” Flynn says. “Mark is so open and curious. He knows so much.” Adams and Flynn recently did a workshop together at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, going out onto the dunes, where Adams would paint on pages in Flynn’s books with his signature walnut ink brushstrokes. Stay includes a portrait of Flynn by Adams painted on Flynn’s rendition of the myth of Proteus, the old man of the sea, who loses his way and becomes stranded on an island. In Adams’s portrait, Flynn looks down, his left hand sheltering his eyes. The words “Proteus,” “sea,” “rock,” dislodge,” and “thorns pierce” emerge from the text, suggestively.

    Provincetown painter Mark Adams inked a portrait of the author on a page of Flynn’s book Stay, dealing with the myth of Proteus. (Photo Susan Rand Brown)

    From Proteus, Stay segues to a fragment from The Reenactments, Flynn’s memoir of his role as executive producer of the film Being Flynn, an adaptation of Another Bullshit Night. In the excerpt, Flynn finds himself discussing with Julianne Moore, who plays his mother, the pills she took; he also fields questions from director Paul Weitz about the gun his mother used to kill herself. “I get to the edge of knowing, then teeter back and forth,” Flynn writes. “It is all we can do, all I’ve ever done — stand before what I know, and pulse into the unknown.”

    Another long-standing connection is with photographer Mischa Richter. “Mischa’s always working on something having to do with Provincetown — I save a lot of my energy for our collaborations,” Flynn says. “We always keep in touch.” Richter’s film about Provincetown, I Am a Town, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in February. At Richter’s request, Flynn wrote a poem for the film, which became the source of its title. Flynn also wrote a poem for Saudade, Richter’s 2010 book of photographs; here, too, the theme is Provincetown, set against a background of change and loss.

    Ray, by Mischa Richter, is a portrait of Provincetown artist Ray Nolin, recalled in Flynn’s book.

    Richter’s photograph Ray accompanies Flynn’s eulogy of beloved outsider artist Ray Nolin, who struggled with mental illness, first published in Provincetown Arts 2016. “Provincetown, when I got here, was a town of eccentrics, of outcasts, of misfits,” Flynn writes. “I was living on a boat then, and for a while, Ray stashed paints and canvases on board. I never knew when I’d find him set up, in the midst of painting.” Flynn describes how Nolin hid and even burned his artwork: “Ray was always working for God, not for you, and that was part of both his beauty and his difficulty.” Now that he’s gone, Flynn writes, addressing those who hid Nolin’s artwork to keep it secure, “If we really understand what Ray was trying to do, all his life, we will burn it.”

    Flynn took photographs while living in Boston and includes some self-portraits in Stay. His early collages were assembled from torn pieces of the photographs. Wandering in new cities, he began making collages of ephemeral scraps he glued to cardboard — gum wrappers, grocery lists, drawings. The goal was to map interior as well as exterior space: to find out “where or who or what I am,” he writes.

    The author of Stay, Nick Flynn. (Photo Geordie Wood)

    “My writing is also very collaged,” Flynn says. “The whole book is a collage.” When he puts works next to each other, “the space between them means as much as what’s on the page.” Stay was released in hardcover, calling attention to the white ink embossed on black. The back cover, Flynn says, reads “a light coming on in an empty room.” That line, from his poem “Sudden,” investigates a newspaper reporter’s use of the word “suddenly” to describe his mother’s suicide.

    In an excerpt from The Ticking Is the Bomb, which Esquire magazine described as a “painfully beautiful memoir of torture,” Flynn describes a theatrical scene when his daughter, Maeve, was a year and a half old, and he and his wife, actor Lili Taylor, were spending the summer in upstate New York. Flynn observed a light going on and off in Maeve’s room. Maeve, standing in her crib, he writes, was aware “that she was the one controlling” the switch. “Her room, from a distance, pulsed like a huge firefly.”

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