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Local color
New art walk planned for Manchester
By Heidi Masek hmasek@hippopress.com
• Open studios: Artist Avenue, the nonprofit studio for teens in Langer Place in Manchester, has morphed into Constant Art Studio. Brett Praenteau, 21, is currently the art director, while Andrew Mertinooke, 31, is acting as the director of development. They are working to partner with New Hampshire Institute of Art students, and to make more artist workshops available for teens. Another project the two are working on is launching a monthly art walk. It’s meant to give people a reason to walk down Elm Street “and actually interact with each other,” Mertinooke said. As in artists, too. They say there’s been a disconnection among artists in Manchester and they want to get artists talking and seeing each other’s work. To participate, a studio just needs to be open on the appointed day (cafés are welcome to participate, too), and the venue will be marked on a map. It’s free for the venues, unlike the Open Doors tour, which raises funds to offer free trolleys to visitors. The first Manchester Art Walk is scheduled for Saturday, May 3, to accommodate NHIA schedules. After that, it will continue on second Saturdays.
• Music and art: Norma Torti is a representational oil painter from Brookline and her paintings were recently chosen from more than 3,000 entrants for recognition in the premier issue of Studio Visit, a new Boston-based art magazine. Her upcoming solo show features those works and more from her new series, “Honoring Juddy,” at the NOA Gallery, 113 Main St., Groton, Mass., from April 26 through May 10. The “Honoring Juddy” series presents a story about her late father’s love of music and his contributions to the community through the drum and bugle corps. Meet her Saturday, April 26, at a reception from 2 to 5 p.m. featuring live music by singer-songwriter Mary DeQuattro. See www.normatorti.com.
• Not bad: New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Piscataqua Artist Advancement Grant Program awards up to $30,000 to an artist annually to support or promote the artist’s artistic growth. Kirsten Reynolds of Newmarket was awarded $26,000 for the 2007 award. See her work, plus the work of grant finalists Kim Bernard, Ross Cisneros, Dan James, Douglas Prince and Gail Spaien, in the “Momentum VI” exhibition at the George Marshall Store Gallery, 140 Lindsay Road in York, Maine, through June 1. There’s an opening reception Saturday, April 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. The NHCF’s Piscataqua Region includes 41 towns in the New Hampshire seacoast and southeastern Maine.
• Sound art: The new Underground MAP Project, 76 Lowell St. in Manchester, offers its latest improvised sound art session Saturday, April 26, at 7 p.m. Artists include Mike Dailey on percussion and guitar; Shawn Smith on electronics; and Birdorgan’s Mike Fun on modular synthesizer, Marc Bisson on prepared guitar and amplified table top and Dei Xhrist with modified voice and record player. They suggest a $5 donation. See www.myspace.com/birdorgan.
• In Hollis: The Hollis Arts Society is holding a two-day Spring Arts Gala with a visual art show, art lecture and jazz concert. Pass by the Lawrence Barn on Depot Road in Hollis Saturday, May 3, between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. to see the artwork. The lecture starts at 4 p.m. On Sunday, May 4, see the artwork between 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Doors reopen at 6:30 p.m. for live jazz with Ameranouche and The Julie Lavender Quintet at 7 p.m.
Admission to the show and lecture costs $5, and concert tickets cost $15 for adults, $10 for kids age 14 and under. Buy them at Lull’s, Brookdale’s, Monument Square and Harvest Markets in Hollis or call 465-2918.
• Reflection: A local architecture buff offers his views on the new Currier Museum of Art expansion, exploring whether or not it can be classified as “starchitecture,” and his disappointment that the new lobby is somewhat anticlimactic as an entry. “The Currier used to have an entrance; now it just has a door, in the middle of a glass curtain wall obviously intended to defer, or even hide behind, a gi-normous, bold, newly acquired sculpture by Mark diSuvero, called ‘Origins,’” writes Don Kreis, general counsel to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. Visit hippoarts.wordpress.com for more. —Heidi Masek.
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