Nan Freeman Master Drawings: Process

Nan Freeman is intensely passionate about drawing.

For March and April of 2010 in "Nan Freeman Master Drawings: Process", everyone gets a fresh glimpse at the hidden side of powerful drawing. The working master drawings in graphite, finished charcoal drawings, and finished acrylic paintings of several projects are on view at NK Gallery. In particular, the drawings for the development of the incredible Bridge of Hope mural at the Brigham and Women's Hospital are featured. Each life scale bird bears a medicinal plant, and is meticulously designed. One drawing of a pelican carrying a pumpkin vine utilized three sheets of large scale drawing paper; a recent admirer at the gallery found it compelling as an ultimate "blueprint of how to build a bird". The delicate tones of graphite are deceptive, the mark making is strong, confident and springs to life. (Image shown is "Screech Owl with Clover", 2009, copyright Nan Freeman, presented with permission of the artist)

Also on view are the Gibson House Candelabras finished charcoal drawings, and the working master drawings for her recent commission of the Kalco Chandeliers for the Dallas World Trade Center.

Nan Freeman is the Director of the Post Baccalaureate Certificate Program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and as senior faculty, teaches Drawing at the School also. She welcomes mural projects for both the home and commercial setting.

Reception! Meet artist Nan Freeman on April 2 from 5-8pm at NKG, 460A Harrison Ave, Boston. The exhibition is on view until April 17, 2010

A Trip To The Fair

Although Boston does not have the exact equivalent of New York’s Armory Show, we do have a fantastic fair duo coming up. The Boston Print Fair is paired up with the art and design show AD 20/21, and will be showing in Boston at the BCA Cyclorama on April 8-11, 2010. Consider attending the Gala Preview, its for a good cause - benefiting the Boston Architectural College. When you are there looking for the affordable way to be "livable and stylish", watch for artist Louise Weinberg’s work at Booth #29, then see her “Spheres Series – Emerging” at NKG in May 2010. (pictured is Spheres Series – Emerging #6 2009, oil on canvas, 18"x18", image courtesy of the artist)

And in keeping with the plan to have Boston become a more lively art scene, we clearly need something with a touch of humor - like the Art Handlers Olympics glorified in “Ready, Set Hang: The Heavy Lifting In On”! Boston certainly has its own share of underpaid art handlers, and art grad students paying off loans too…

Boston and Art

Boston is my adopted art home, I was born and educated on the west coast. So my perceptions of the energy of the local art scene are colored by that experience, and equally by my participation in the vibrancy of the SMFA. I read the thought provoking Boston Globe discussion of the Boston art arena, "How to start an art revolution", and I began to think about a certain sense of fatalism I first perceived as a newcomer to Boston. The Red Sox had notably not won a World Series for a very long time, and that seemed to become an entrenched attitude about their chances - period. Similarly, I have had more than one conversation at a South End First Friday about the exodus of cutting-edge artists away from Boston as a many decades long phenomenon.

I have traveled to New York as do most Boston artists. I appreciate the variety and diversity I see there. But I don't particularly want to see the New York look cloned onto Boston, I want the Boston look to become both more energetic, experimental, and more unique as its own style of value in the world.

Article author/educator/painter Dushko Petrovich raises many valid thoughts about the problems and possibilities of taking the region to the next level. If the big money is in NYC or LA, then we do indeed need to create a viable working environment to encourage artists to seek out Boston. Part of these possibilities, the commitment to a new and permanent home by Mobius in the South End is one recent upward trend. The economy may be in a lull, but that is the exact best time that new faces can emerge on the scene, such as Walker Contemporary, NKG (disclaimer - my co-owned gallery), or Galvinized - all new to the South End. In the Greater Boston Area, the Arsenal Center for the Arts has a new energetic director, Sharon Glennon, and a new mission to promote visual arts side-by-side with its already strong theatre arts program.

For government and universities to change and be part of the solution, things quite a bit more difficult have to happen. Institutions like those are averse to risk, and will move much more slowly toward change. When I first moved to Boston, it seemed odd to me that Harvard University lacked a Master of Fine Arts program as an option. Relatively recently, Boston has added one low residency graduate program through AIB, Non-art focused colleges such as Babson have created artist in residence options. Bentley University has established a new Media and Culture Major that brings a high level of rigor and preparation to newer media studies. As an educator, I have continued to find the talents of student in my art classes to be exemplary - and most of them want to try and make Boston possible as their post college home. If we could all encourage communities to promote more public art - particularly more temporal and experimental in quality, everyone would benefit for the conversations that are created (love it or hate it). I would welcome more floating/ephemeral galleries, and see no end of possibilities - but it will take hard work with a healthy does of patience.