News from the Gallery

A Danforth Museum Newsletter

fall 2023

A message from Jessica Roscio

The summer is always a whirlwind at the Danforth. We are once again hosting the Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition in our galleries, and the Museum is full of some of the best contemporary work in New England. It is a privilege to meet so many of the artists, and this summer we welcomed a number of them for a five-part series of artist talks, organized and run by our Learning and Engagement Coordinator. Our staff is endlessly creative as we build our programming relating to our collection and exhibitions, and I can promise you we have more to come this Fall. We look forward to seeing you in the galleries and the art school studios!

Sneak peek

The Scene Up and Coming

Table

The 2023 The Danforth Summer New Danforth Community The Danforth’s New technology Museum Director and Curator

2023 Annual Juried Exhibition 4-9 Danforth gets fashionable 10-11 Summer Arts at the Art School 12-15 Danforth partnerships 16 Community Conversations series 18-19 Danforth’s first pop-up show 20 technology in the Fuller Gallery 17 peek at upcoming Fall Exhibitions 21 Scene at the Danforth 22-23 Coming at the Danforth 24-25

Table of Contents

The 2023 Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition

Back for a second year in the new Danforth galleries, we can officially say that the Juried Exhibition is once again an annual tradition. It is exciting to feel a continuity of programming after years of uncertainty. With each month, we are reemerging as the Danforth that our community remembers, crafting a unique contemporary identity and seeking to serve everwidening audiences. The Juried Exhibition is one of the cornerstones of this community commitment.

The Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition presents a different curatorial perspective each year, showcasing innovative work, and introducing new artists. Once again, we had a panel of three jurors, representing the region, the University, and the Danforth. This year’s jurors are Erin Becker, Executive Director of the Cambridge Art Association, Leslie Starobin, Professor of Art at FSU, and Rachel Passannante, Collections Curator at the Danforth. The 89 works in this exhibition represent a wide range of media and processes that both evoke and subvert tradition and, as a whole, are a feast for the senses.

Image at right: C.A. Stigliano, Galatea, 2020, Winner of First Prize at the 2023 Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition

2023 Prize Winners

Second Prize

Matthew Kamholtz, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA (#54), 2022, Digital photograph archival inkjet print

MetroWest Artist Award

Paula DeSimone, Intimate Spaces Monotype, graphite

Emerging Artist Award

Karen Walter, Folded Drawing #1, 2023, Ink, colored pencil on Japanese paper

Third Prize

Alison Judd, Yellow Chair/Favorite Chair, 2023, Oil on canvas

Spaces Diptych, 2023, colored

Honorable Mention

Brenda Cirioni, Rejoice, 2022 Acrylic, mixed media

Mariah Doren & Johanna Paas, Grafting: Prediction, 2022, Mixed media collage, silkscreen, inkjet

Honorable Mention

Becky Behar, Kitchen Shelf, 2019, Archival pigment print

The 2023

Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition Catalog

Click on the image above to peruse all of the artwork selections from the Juried Exhibition.

The Danforth hosts popular Juried Exhibition artist talk series

Organized and led by Learning and Engagement Coordinator Katherine Tako-Girard, five artist talks were held this past summer including sixteen exhibiting artists. Themes ranged from time and remembrance to the personality of figures. The program was so successful that we plan to offer it again next year!

Learn more about the artists of the Juried Exhibition on our mobile app!

During the 2023 Juried Exhibition, we invited the artists to send a written or recorded artist statement, a message about the work specifically on view, or the meaning behind their work. Thirty-seven artists participated in this digital interactive! Visitor to the exhibition could plug in the number indicated on the headphone symbol next to each artist’s work to hear, watch, or read statements directly from the artists. Having this additional content expands the content we can provide to our visitors, and it gives visitors a chance to connect more with the artists themselves in a way you can’t otherwise. Click on one of the buttons to download our app now!

The Official Juried Exhibition Video

6 9

Click on the image above to watch.

Store

Play Store

App

Google

the Danforth Museum and Art School get fashionable

Fashion in Bloom at the Museum

Inspired by works that the fashion design students have viewed at the Museum during the academic year, students at the university design and create original pieces of clothing that are then judged by the FSU Fashion Design faculty. The four awards given honor the talent and effort of FSU Fashion Design majors and foster a close relationship with the Danforth Art Museum, our wider community, and the Fashion Department. Halcyon Mancuso, Executive Director of The Mancuso Humanities Workforce Preparation Center and

former English Professor, founded this annual FSU Mancuso Fashion Awards Program through which four senior fashion design students receive a $1,000 prize and have their work displayed in the museum. We are pleased to showcase the talent of FSU’s Fashion and Design students.

2023 Winners

Most Marketable

Cianna Jackson (photo at right)

Most Innovative

Gifty Agyen

Best Construction

Lola Mwilelo

Most Creative

Jaida Melendez

Fashion in Bloom

Fashion industry

Middle and and gestures a clear and mood board, various mediums. demo’s, fun and explorations

conclude it to the next are challenged Students themselves

May 2023

The Mancuso Fashion Design Awards at the Danforth Art Museum

fashionable

Design classes taught by veteran, Catherine Byrne

and high schoolers learn the proportions gestures of the fashion figure, how to build and exciting creative direction with a board, and how to render fabrics with mediums. Through drawing lessons and fun brainstorming, design challenges explorations of some fashion greats, they

by creating their own unique fashion collections, and learn how they would take next level through draping and patternmaking. At the high school level, students challenged to further develop their drawing skills, creativity and portfolio presentation. are often amazed at what they can accomplish in the class, and enjoy expressing themselves through the important language of fashion!

Summer arts at the Danforth

the Museum curates a special exhibition for summer 2023 classes

This year, we dedicated a gallery to the Art School’s Summer Arts. Utilizing the Danforth Museum’s permanent collection, we pulled artwork from different centuries and different mediums that fit within their theme of nature and biomes. Having art available for each week’s theme providesd a starting point for teachers and students to discuss, view, and learn about how artists are inspired by nature and the different ways they express naature through their art.

Danforth Art School

Summer Arts Recap

During the summer session, the art school is focused exclusively on Summer Arts, a program for children and teens. Summer Arts is aligned each year around a different theme, with weekly focus areas that explore the global theme. This summer, our theme was Art in Nature, and we studied how art can be found in nature and how nature can inspire art.

Summer Arts is an immersive program that uses a variety of studio practices to provide a comprehensive art experience for children. In addition to keeping a portfolio and showing their work at Friday Exhibitions, all students receive a formal tour of the museum, learning how to view art critically with a focus on developing visual literacy.

This year, the students enjoyed from the Danforth Museum’s related to nature.

Learning about art at the between looking at art and connections between their artwork. It also promotes others will view the work practice serves to encourage this case, at the museum. skill and concept development around them. We welcomed over 500 Danforth Assistants, 16 amazing

enjoyed tours in a dedicated gallery at the museum featuring works Museum’s permanent collection which represent a variety of imagery

the Danforth is different because we emphasize the relationship and creating art. This practice enhances a child’s ability to make their own perceptions and the imagery that is presented through their promotes an elevated sense of craftsmanship, as students understand that work and respond to it, just like the art in the museum. Additionally, this encourage a more active participation in how they take in information, in museum. We hope all participants of Summer Arts take away a wealth of development as well as a more advanced level of curiosity about the world

children and teens in classes this summer, aided by 18 incredible amazing art teachers and an outstanding staff of five.

Exciting, new partnerships

Did you hear about us on the radio recently? If so, it is because of our new partnership with WERS 88.9! We are thrilled to be sponsors of the popular independent radio station and encourage you to visit

their website, tune in and listen as well as sign up for their newsletter. Click below to learn more.

The Danforth collaborates with Garden in the Woods!

This represents a new collaboration between two Framingham organizations: one, a plant conservation organization, one an art museum. Danforth Art Museum and Garden in the Woods are a quick 10 minutes from one another, and we were hoping that whichever location you are reading this from you will come visit us at the other one!

WERS website WERS newsletter

New educational tablet in our Meta Fuller Gallery!

We are excited to offer a new way to engage with the Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Gallery! Using our Danforth Art Musuem App, we have created a digital version of the Open Storage cabinet and have added touch buttons to a number of these sculptures. Each button brings users to more information about that specific work. Now, visitors can access this interactive in the gallery on the installed tablet!

Community conversations

Community Conversations through Art was a new three-part series in which diverse artists from the community were invited into the Museum to share their work with the audience as they talked about their art and process. With time for questions at the end, guests had the opportunity to have conversations with the artists in an informal setting.

Photos of Svetlana Burinskaya giving her talk surrounded by her artwork this past June.

conversations through art

Meet the Artists from our Community Conversations through Art

May 20 — Katie Lee Mansfield

Katie Lee is an artist, educator and activist. Katie grew up on a small family farm in Connecticut. In her own words, “Our town was rural, we were poor, I was queer, and it was difficult.”

June 17— Svetlana Burinskaya

Thirty years ago, Svetlana and her husband emigrated from Moldova to America with their 5-year-old boy. Svetlana’s work is inspired by dreams, memories from her childhood in Moldova, and the beautiful landscape there.

July 22 — Ileana Doble Hernandez

Ileana’s socially conscious practice includes photography, video and experimental installations. Ileana uses her practice as a form of activism, from her perspective as a mother and as a Mexican immigrant living in the U.S. for more than a decade.

Community Conversations through Art was sponsored by a grant from the Mass Cultural Council.

The Danforth’s First Pop-up Show!

Jenna Billian

Zekher Tzadik Livrakha

Zekher Tzadik Livrakha translates to “May the Memory of the Righteous Be a Blessing,” and in this week-long pop-up exhibition, Jenna Billian explored the rituals and traditions around death and mourning in the Jewish faith. Her year-long collaboration with the community merged conversations of shared experiences with a unique and vibrant artistic style, culminating in a sevenday immersive installation at the Danforth.

New

exhibitions opening October 7!

Kate Holcomb Hale, Marisa Companion and Torrance York

The Fall Exhibitions at the Danforth Art Museum focus on the work of three New England-based artists working across media, approaching themes of perseverance, resilience, and acceptance. Kate Holcomb Hale’s exhibition, lean, Stand, collapse, incorporates painting, installation, and video to explore how we foster a unique voice and carve out spaces of our own

as sites for creativity. Processing self and acceptance through art is also seen in Marisa Companion’s exhibition Performative Realities in whcih stark yet brilliantly vivid portraits of friends and depictions of self

explore healing, trauma, and self-love. Connecticut-based photographer Torrance York will be exhibiting selections from her series Semaphore. Photographs explore York’s dayto-day journey and challenges since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. All exhbitions are on view from October 7, 2023 – January 28, 2024 with an opening reception on October 14 from 6-8 pm

the scene at the

the Danforth

Photos

top left: Winners of the 2023 Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition

top right: Danforth Museum staff takes a photo before the opening reception for the Juried Exhibition

bottom left: Museum director/ curator Jessica Roscio takes a photo with Emerging Artist winner, Karen Walter

bottom center: First prize winner, C.A. Stigliano, and his companion pose next to Galatea

bottom right: Learning and Engagement Coordinator Katherine Tako-Girard hosts an artist talk with Martha Heller

Up and Coming at

Drop into Art resumes this fall!

the Danforth

Drop into Art is a program for all ages. This event is held one Sunday each month from 1-4 pm. Interactive tours, art projects, writing activities, and/ or games help visitors of all ages explore art objects in special exhibitions and the permanent collection. Each month, the program explores a new subject or theme. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Free to all. No registration is required – just drop in! Fall dates for Drop into Art art: 9/10, 10/8, 11/12, and 12/10.

Dance Performance in the galleries —happens October 21!

Nora Stephens and MacKenzie LeTorre perform a dance in collaboration with Kate Holcomb Hale’s exhibition of soft sculptures in her exhibition, lean, STAND, collapse. The performance centers around the dining table as surrogate for the body and the corporeal experience dissolving boundaries between art and life, the domestic sphere and the gallery. Nora and MacKenzie’s shared movements imitate and activate Kate’s ‘kitchen table’ sculptures drawing attention to the privilege and burden of care, the residue of abuse/trauma within domestic situations, grief and healing.

Drinks at the Danforth returns November 3!

We invite you to spend a fun evening with us meeting new friends and making art while enjoying a unique cocktail (or mocktail). Guests under the age of 21 are welcome! Advance registration is required as only a limited number of spaces are available, so don’t wait to get your tickets! Admission is $25 for non-members and $15 for members.

Calendar of Events at the Museum and Art School

Sept 7-14 Pop-Up Exhibition: Jenna Billian

Artist Talk Sept 10

Sept 12-28

Oct 7

Summer Arts Exhibition at Framingham Public Library Reception Sept 28, 5-7 pm

Fall Exhibitions open: Marisa Companion, Kate Holcomb Hale, & Torrance York

Oct 14

Reception for Fall Exhibitions 6-8 pm

Oct 21

Dance Performance: lean, STAND, collapse

Oct 22

Sunday Spotlight: Karin Rosenthal

Oct 27 Kids’ Night Out

Nov 3

Nov 19

Drinks at the Danforth

Sunday Spotlight: Marisa Companion

Dec 1 & 15

Dec 3

Kids’ Night Out

Sunday Spotlight: Torrance York

Become a Danforth Corporate Member!

Your membership investment will leverage your exposure as a corporate community citizen through our extensive subscriber list and social media network while supporting our mission of bringing great art and art education to MetroWest.

See our online brochure by clicking on the link below, or contact me directly and learn how our membership benefits can serve your employees!

Barry Burlingham bburlingham@framingham.edu

Magazine Design by Laura Gayton, Marketing and Membership, Danforth Art Museum