Many Dorchester and Roxbury artists see themselves as all working somewhere along the same continuum, so it’s not surprising that there are Dot residents participating in this weekend’s Roxbury Open Studios and Roxbury residents planning to exhibit during Dorchester Open Studios (DOS) later this month (October 23-24).
This Saturday and Sunday, October 2-3, some 70 local artists will be welcoming visitors to their studios and group show locations during the 2010 Roxbury Open Studios (ROS).
Now in its twelfth year, ROS is an annual two-day, self-guided tour that invites the general public to interact with Roxbury-based artists working in a wide range of media. The event is free and open to the public and will feature works for sale, including photography, paintings, quilts, jewelry, sculpture, mixed media and home décor.
Group display sites will be staged at Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square and the First Church of Roxbury in Eliot Square. Northeastern University’s African American Master Artists in Residence Program (AAMARP) near Egleston Square will open individual studios and the exhibition gallery. Other colleges opening art galleries especially for the event include Mass College of Art and Design’s Black Artists Union at the Student Life Gallery, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts graduate gallery in the Mission Hill Building, and the Resnikoff Gallery at Roxbury Community College.
ROS is sponsored by ACT Roxbury, the cultural economic development program of Madison Park Development Corporation. Dorchester resident Candelaria Silva-Collins was director of ACT Roxbury from its inception in 1998 until August 2007 during which time she conceived, initiated and nurtured not only ROS but the Roxbury Film Festival and other cultural initiatives like the Roxbury Film Festival and the Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall. Silva-Collins maintains her affiliation with ROS by leading an annual walking tour of the historic neighborhood Highland Park/Fort Hill neighborhood.
Here’s how she describes Saturday’s free 1 p.m. tour: “We get to see working studios within artist’s homes as well as a small group show in the First Church of Roxbury and the art produced at the Hawthorne Youth & Community Center, which is housed in a trailer. There are artists who have lived and worked in the neighborhood for decades and newer arrivals. Art, craft, architecture, history, creativity, beauty and gritty determination – it’s all a part of this tour.”
Among the Dot residents exhibiting during ROS are Darlene Smart of “A Good Piece of Glass” showing her etched glassware and framed etched inspirations (First Church) and Johnetta Tinker, the Director of Community Programming for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum(mixed media at her Brunswick St. studio).
Roxbury residents who will be part of Dorchester Open Studios include Charlie Smith, a sculptor who will be at be exhibiting for the first time at the Humphrey Street Studios as well and others who will be at group shows at Laurence Martin Pierce’s African Winter Gallery and Valerie Owens’ newly opened Hancock Gallery 309.
