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my work in 100 words (it's a lie; it's a lot more than 100 words)

Picture

cv (very Abridged)

bio

Training and Experience:
  • BFA, Ohio University, Visual Communications, Photography
  • MFA, Boston University, Playwriting

Co-founder, Boston Public Works Theater Company & Founding Artistic Director, Alley Cat Theater, Boston, Massachusetts

Solo Shows:
2022
  • Thomas Crane Library, Quincy, Massachusetts, The Intersection of Art and Science

Group Shows:
2023
  • Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts: Annual Open Member Invitational Exhibition
2022
  • Quincy Art Association, Small Works
  • Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts: Eighth International Call for Entries; Jessica Roscio, juror
  • Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts: 4th Annual Member Exhibition, Kristin S. Street, juror
2021
  • Kingston Gallery, Boston SoWa, "Whistling in the Dark", Lavaughan Jenkins, curator
  • The Curated Fridge Summer 2021; Michael Behlen, curator
  • Quincy Art Association, Small Works
2020
  • Arts League of Lowell, "Water", Lowell, MA
  • Beard and Weil Galleries, Wheaton College, Norton, MA,  "Postcards from the Pandemic"; three paintings, two drawings
  • PH21; Significant Colour, Budapest, Hungary
  • The Curated Fridge Autumn 2020; Counter Archives
2019
  • Bromfield Gallery, "Wet", Boston SoWa
2018
  • Serlachius Residency, Finland
 
Publications:
2019
  • A5 Magazine
  • Tiny Seed Literary Journal
  • Tiny Seed Literary Journal
  • The Woven Tale Press

Online:
2023
  • Social Documentary Network: Growing Pains: Building A Regenerative Farm On Cape Cod
2022
  • Art Fluent Humanity
  • PhotoPlace Gallery, Quiet Landscapes; Jacob and Alissa Hessler, jurors
2021
  • Toho Journal
  • Art Fluent ConTEXT
  • Knack Magazine Issue #74
2020
  • PH21; Significant Colour, Budapest, Hungary
2019
  • L'Oeil de la Photographie (Order from Chaos)
  • LST Online Gallery
  • Fusion Art 4th Cityscapes Competition (June 2019) Juried Art Exhibition Finalist
  • Social Documentary Network: Harvesters of Cape Cod

Residencies
2017, 2018
  • Vermont Studio Center

Support
  • Massachusetts Cultural Council Cultural Sector Recovery for Individuals ($5,000/2023)
  • Massachusetts Cultural Council/Quincy Arts Council Grant for The Intersection of Art and Science (2022)
  • Artist Merit Grant, Vermont Studio Center (2017, 2018)
  • The Boston Foundation Live Arts Boston (LAB) Grant for daring new theater ($15,000/2017)
  • Eastern Bank Foundation (2x)
  • Bob Jolly Charitable Trust for new work (2017)
  • StageSource Standing O Award for gender parity
  • Artist scholarship, Boston University’s Boston Playwrights’ Theater’s playwriting program

Collections
Private collections in Boston, Brooklyn, New York, Florida, Ohio, Utah, and Massachusetts

Permanent Collection: Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts

Press
  • Woven Tale Press
  • Magazine 43
  • Kingston Gallery Conversations 
  • Theater press
  • Quincy Access Television: The Intersection of Art and Science
Sometimes I make images. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I do both.
Cameras | Paint/Pencils/Etc | Words | Lotsa Words | Everything Else

Artistic Statement here >>


I am a writer, a photographer, and an artist, this third word I use to encompass everything else that the two other more specific words don't embrace.This site encompasses all the visual work I do.

For years, to pay the bills, I worked as a corporate and freelance photographer/writer, using my artistic skills in the commercial world to make money, while making art at night and on the weekends. It wasn't the best situation. In essence I was exchanging my life and hawking my talent for money. Welcome to the life of an artist in America.

In 2007 I inexplicably put down the camera—these things sometimes happen in the arts, these unexplained long-term departures. It's happened before. Right after graduating art school I also stopped making images for awhile. I think art school burned me out on photography, and it wasn't until the initial joy returned that I began working again.

During this recent hiatus I made the choice to dedicate myself fully to the theater, an art form I felt would take advantage of all of my artistic and political interests and talents. I earned an MFA in playwriting, formed two theater companies, doing everything from fundraising to sweeping the stage. My visual work influences my writing, and the theater influences my visual work. (I co-founded Boston Public Works Theater Company and founded Alley Cat Theater. Plays produced in Boston, New York, Provincetown, Chicago, Raleigh, and Los Angeles along with other, smaller cities; developed at Boston Playwrights Theater, The Inkwell, and Great Plains Theater Conference. Twice a semi-finalist at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Conference--2012 and 2020. Nominated in 2018 for Best New Play, Best Set Design, and Best Lighting Design from the Independent Reviewers of New England.)

My work has been financially supported by The Boston Foundation ($15,000 LAB Grant for daring, new theater); Eastern Bank Trust Grant twice, The Bob Jolley Charitable Trust in support of new work, the Massachusetts Cultural Council/Quincy Art Council, and most recently by the Massachusetts Cultural Council ($5,000 with a
Cultural Sector Recovery for Individuals Grant.) Twice I've received Artist Merit Grants from Vermont Studio Center.

At a residency in Vermont in January 2017 while working on a play, just as inexplicably, I again took up the camera and picked up where I left off. Almost everything I make now, an image, a piece of artwork, or a story, is a political act.


During the Covid-19 pandemic, the ensuing quarantine gave me the time to do something I had been yearning to do for a very long time: which was get back into the studio and pursue making 2-d artwork and assemblages. My current work merges my abstract visual world with my writer world, allowing me to use words and visual content in a different context than when they are used on a printed page or when they are spoken.
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