Our New England days lose daylight and might even be a bit bleak at times, but it helps to keep our eyes out for warm colors and interesting nature to brighten our days. Reflections of water and ice often glow. The slanting light of winter and patterns of ice are delightfully complex in contrast with the direct light of summer.
Meet local artists Sally Lee and Zachary Mickelson. Lee works in ceramics, painting, sculpture, textiles, and more. Mickelson is a ceramic artist, teacher, and Manager of the booming new Ceramics Studio at The Umbrella Arts Center.
One autumn day in Monument Square, a visitor asked me about Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. “Is that the one in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?” he wanted to know.
“No, that one is in New York,” I smiled. (I hear that question a lot.) “There’s no headless horseman here.”
“Then who’s that?” he asked, pointing over my shoulder. I spun around to see a figure all in black, strumming a black guitar as he cruised through the roundabout on his bicycle. But the weirdest part was, his head was conspicuously absent.
Concord’s cycling minstrel goes by the name of Slam Dunkle, and he’s irresistibly drawn to novel ideas and opportunities. A couple of years ago, he spotted a broken guitar in a trash barrel, put it back together, and painted it black. Then he painted his beach cruiser bicycle black to match. He found a bargain-priced headless horseman outfit in a costume shop, and voilà, the headless horseman materialized.
Discover the art of Jaeok Lee whose three-dimensional practice is deeply influenced by the Korean folk art, traditions, and rituals that she grew up surrounded by. Kaffee Kang's work is firmly rooted in concepts of identity, such as gender roles, minority status, the immigrant mentality, the political divide, aging, and body image.
Imagine you lived in Victorian era Concord and you heard a knock on the door. Grasping the door’s handle, you open it and see a hopeful suitor standing on the granite doorstep, handing you a small bouquet with a red rose in the center and tied with a piece of lace. If you reached out with your right hand, took the bouquet, and pressed it to your heart, it meant you were saying “Yes, I accept your affections!” If you took the nosegay and held it upside down by your side it meant, “I’ll keep the flowers, but it’s a hard ‘no’ from me and you can move along.” And if you took the nosegay, admired it, and both the flower and you instantly started shriveling and disintegrating into dust, it meant you were likely a character in a Nathaniel Hawthorne story.
Outdoor exploration is a fabulous means to slowly emerge from our strange, long year of hibernation. What better way to enliven ourselves than to view art in nature. Both have an extreme impact on our happiness index.
The Go Out Doors project was initiated by The Umbrella Arts Center in 2020 with the goal of bringing art to public spaces and answering the questions: What happens if you open the door and step outside? What happens if the opportunity to engage presents itself? What might we discover if, on foot or wheel, we find ourselves on a path through the woods – hidden from the roads we travel daily?
As summer arrives in Concord, we are delighted to see many of our town’s extraordinary art venues continuing their online programs and adding live events as national, state, and local governments issue updated guidance on safely coming together during COVID-19. This summer will bring exciting visual arts programs, a concert, and even live theatre once again.
