Month / September 2017

by Robert Gerst

Sons & Daughters Of The Incarcerated

Write Professor Chico Colvard:

Sons and Daughters of the Incarcerated is an intimate personal portraiture piece “… of boyhood marked by the criminal justice system, and what it means to become a man in America.”

On Friday, September 29th, 6:30 – 8:30 PM, I am hosting a fundraiser for this deeply compelling feature documentary film at my Brickbottom Studio — just off of McGrath Highway in Somerville near Union Square. Everyone is invited to join the director, the producer, other supporters and me for a sneak peek at this moving piece and to learn more about what’s needed to help get this important project across the finish line.  Hors d’oeuvres, beer and wine will be served.  No donation is required.

Please let me know if you can make it.

by Robert Gerst

All-Community Book Reading Experience: Thi Bui Presents “The Best We Could Do…”

In case you missed them, read Professor Jeanette Eberhardy’s introductory words for Thi Bui and her book The Best We Could Do.

My name is Jeanette Eberhardy. I serve as MassArt Program Coordinator for the 1st year writing where we explore the relationship between thinking, making, and writing that is needed for artists’ growth. I am also the curator for our annual show Why I Write. Why I Create. that offers intimate portrayals on learning to deliver truths through art.

Tonight is a night to celebrate our shared respect for the craft of storytelling—in all the wondrous ways that we explore stories through art, writing, and design.

Last year when I was feeling overwhelmed by the news around us, I found an elegant graphic essay by Thi Bui titled “Precious Time” published after the U.S. presidential elections by PEN, the International Writers Forum. I recognized myself in that essay—feeling small in the large universe, but still remembering that my actions matter. The essay “Precious Time” was my first introduction to tonight’s guest speaker Thi Bui. The moment I encountered that essay, I understood that Thi Bui has important things to teach me about empathy—the gateway into our genuine connection with each other. Continue reading →

by Robert Gerst

This Was A Man

Julius Caesar, Act 5, Scene 5

This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man.”

by Robert Gerst

“To Speak What I do Know…” Talking About Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar

Writes Professor Lin Haire-Sargeant:

Friday, September 22, 2 – 4 p.m., Professor Emeritus Athans Boulukos will lead us in the first in a series of discussions on Shakespeare’s Roman plays. Please bring your copy of Julius Caesar. Athans will introduce the series at this meeting. He invites you to choose a passage from the play that you would like to discuss/read. Everyone is welcome.

“We are reading Shakespeare’s last three Roman plays,” Professor Boulukos writes, “to know them better and to ask ourselves this question: What is Shakespeare seeing when, at critical moments in their history, the Romans saw their past disappearing and their future emerging unknowably?”

We’ll choose our meeting room (either the Chair’s office or a nearby conference room) to fit the size of the crowd–so please let us know whether you can attend.

by Robert Gerst

The Best We Could Do…Thi Bui’s Journey

Writes Professor Jeanette Eberhardy:

At MassArt, we share in common our respect for the art of storytelling. In Liberal Arts courses, we learn to shape and write our stories through poetry, song, and science. History provides the rich context we need to deepen our layers of understanding. Also, we learn from other storytellers. In fact, sharing insights about our creative process is perhaps one of the most generous acts that we share with each other.

Please join us to hear artist Thi Bui describe her journey over ten years to create her graphic memoir The Best We Could Do: Thursday, September 21, 2017, 7:30 p.m., MassArt Auditorium.

Tickets are required due to limited seating, but they are free. Obtain your ticket here.

by Robert Gerst

“A Sorry Sort I Am…”

Writes Professor Cheryl Clark:

After Poetry Workshop, Danie Grace (Animation ’19) wrote and designed a final book of poems in the Advanced Poetry Workshop I offer. She called her book Bittersweetner and, for her Animation II class, animated one of her poems. Out of play-dough on a 2D plane, she created this stop-motion animation called “A Sorry Sort I Am…”.

And she recites the poem to one and all on the spot!

by Robert Gerst

How Reading the Novel Anna Karenina (Through a Wall) Saved A Somali Inmate’s Life

Thisbe, John William Waterhouse (1909)

The man was locked in solitary confinement in a Somali jail. The novel the man “read” was Leo Tolstoy’s  Anna Karenina. An inmate in an adjoining cell “read” the book to the inmate by tapping the novel–all eight hundred pages–through the jail cell wall using a percussive code that the two men, who never saw each other, devised. “Reading” Anna Karenina, the man says, saved his life.

During Spring 2017, Liberal Arts Department reading enthusiasts gathered together to read Anna Karenina, the book that saved the life of an incarcerated, forgotten, and despairing man. Professor Leon Steinmetz convened the meetings and read the book in English and its original Russian. Who said literature doesn’t set you free?

Starting September 22nd, Liberal Arts Professor Emeritus Athans Boulukos will leading a similar reading group–this one reading late Shakespeare plays. Who knows what jail cells that reading group may liberate? Join the reading group…for the joy of reading.

Click the blue button below to hear the story of the man who read through walls.

by Robert Gerst

“A woman’s place is in the house – the House of Representatives”

Professor Judith Nies workshopped her play, Bella’s Choice, in the Liberal Arts Department Playwriting workshop. Now it goes live on stage.

Judith Nies

“Bella’s Choice,” Judith Nies writes, “is about Bella Abzug’s 1976 effort to become New York’s first woman senator. Newburyport Actors Studio selected it in a competition for one-act plays .”

The play appears in Glass Ceilings, “a collection of four one-act plays,” the Actors Studio of Newburyport reports, “written and directed by women. The challenges, accomplishments, disappointments and successes presented in these short plays engage, entertain, inspire, amuse and take us on a journey through life’s moments, big and small, from the feminine perspective. The playwrights are Kathleen Miller, Judith Nies, Adair Rowland, and Edith Wharton. Our directors are Kathleen Isbell, Hailey Klein, Anna Smulowitz and Sally Nutt.”

Performances are 8:oo PM September 15-17 and September 22-24  and 5:00 PM September 17 and 24. More information is here.

by Robert Gerst

Our Ancestors, Our Lives, & Ourselves: From Brazil to Fresh Catnip

Writes  (former) Liberal Arts Professor Felix Kaputu:

Felix Kaputu

I’m in Brazil, about to undertake a comparative analysis of the Likumbi Lya Mize (from Zambia) and the Congado (from Brazil). Both are festivals that celebrate ancestors’ memories in specific conditions.  The Congado also seems to carry many remembrances of African rituals especially those from Angola, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.