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Sasha Patkin
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Jan 2, 2024 4:44 pm
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Detail of "In Harmony #86"
Transcendence: Awakening the Soul Griffin Museum of Photography 67 Shore Rd. Winchester, Mass. Through Jan. 7, 2024
It’s often said that photography is one of the hardest art forms by which to create anything original. Nature photography has always felt to me as particularly hard hit by this phenomenon. There’s so much beauty inherent in nature that it seems especially difficult for a photographer to avoid trite, overseen tropes, lend a unique perspective, or tell a story that hasn’t already been told. As anyone who has ever tried to photograph a landscape can attest to, attempting to convey the vastness and wonder of nature into a flattened, limited frame, stripped away from all other sensation, almost invariably leads to disappointment.
Xuan Hui Ng’s exhibition, “Transcendence: Awakening the Soul,” on view at the The Griffin Museum of Photography until Jan. 7, manages to breathe some of the life back into nature photography – if that’s even the best categorization for the poetic, often abstract impressions Ng’s work conveys. While her photographs are of nature, they manage to feel much more like scenes from a personal diary, imbued with the weight of memory and recognizable personal emotion, rather than solely conveying an external reality.
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Sasha Patkin
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Dec 21, 2023 10:22 am
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Sasha Patkin Photo
“Gluskabe Comes Home" by Richard Steitmatter-Tran.
The Myth of Normal: A Celebration of Authentic Expression MassArt Art Museum 621 Huntington Ave. Through May 19, 2024
Sitting in the middle of a gallery at MassArt Art Museum is a giant beaver. Ripping out of its belly in horror-movie fashion is what seems to be an infant.
The effect is disorientating, strange, and perhaps a little morbidly comical. It’s weird, and that may be the point.
Curated by Mari Spirito ‘92, The Myth of Normal: A Celebration of Authentic Expression, on display at the MassArt Museum until May 2024, features the work of 30 alumni to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and makes you rethink the way you see the world.
How many different ways can you decorate your yard for the holidays? You might opt for the classy, minimal look with classic winter colors. You might choose a whimsical aesthetic with bright and multicolored lights, or you might prefer an over-the-top look with giant inflatables. Or, if you’re 61 Putnum St. in Somerville, you might decide to create a portal to a prehistoric hellscape featuring a T‑Rex nativity and elves being torn to shreds by the skeletons of demon hellhounds while a raptor skeleton in a Santa hat flies overhead.
As the weather turns from bright and autumnal to dull early winter, corners of Boston can feel like rows of endless gray, beige, and brick. This was the oppressively drab mood as we headed through Malden last week, past leafless trees and dead, brown yards in search of some lunch.
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Sasha Patkin
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Dec 6, 2023 11:25 am
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Dan Fox Photo
The cast of T: An MBTA Musical
T: An MBTA Musical The Rockwell 255 Elm St. Somerville, Mass. Dec. 1, 2023
Loving to hate the absurd incompetence of the T is a time-honored Boston tradition as old as the train itself. The cathartic experience of venting about the T (a nickname for the MBTA, or “Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority,” for any non-Bostonians) is a bonding and a uniting force of frustration in a diverse city, as easy to spark a conversation with as talking about the weather.
T: An MBTA Musical proudly carries on this tradition. It opens with the classic 1940s song “Charlie on the M.T.A,” which tells the tale of Charlie (whose face still appears on the transit “CharlieCards”), a man stuck on Boston’s subway system, unable to pay the exit fares to leave the train. At the Dec. 1st performance, a gray-suited, fedora-clad Charlie (Robbie Gold) strolled into a lonely spotlight with a guitar to sing his solo, eventually taking on a character role in the larger musical, which was accompanied by a live on-stage band.
Close your eyes. Imagine a sunny corner cafe with tiny outdoor tables, where there are always people milling about and chatting. A place that is open until 3 in the morning six days a week. The space is small, but the staff is neighborly and attentive, the menu is full of items you won’t find anywhere else, and the bakery cases are full of colorful treats.
Are you on an international vacation? Is the smell of falafel drifting from a Mediterranean cafe?
Open your eyes. You’re in Allston, Massachusetts, and this trip is courtesy of Turkish Lazuri Café, whose menu is a true culinary passport to Turkey.
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Sasha Patkin
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Nov 21, 2023 10:27 pm
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Jennifer McClure Photo
Sasha Patkin Photo
How Easily We Are Undone Jennifer McClure’s photography Leica Gallery Boston Through Jan. 28, 2024
“I never expected to be a mother,” Jennifer McClure writes in her artist statement. “I was forty-six when she was born, and I spent twenty-one days in the hospital after. When I got home, we had a long process of getting to know each other. She became more of her own person, while I let go of the self I thought I knew.”
We hear the same narratives over and over all our lives. For women, these often include narratives of when we’ll marry, have kids, get a house, and settle down. But many of our lives don’t conform to standard narratives, either because we don’t want them to or because life often doesn’t work out as expected. Jennifer McClure’s photography is an examination of these narratives — how we build them, how we topple them, how they influence us, and what happens when we confront them. McClure’s exhibition, How Easily We Are Undone, on display at Leica Gallery Boston display until Jan. 28, offers a deep dive into her complicated relationship with motherhood.
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Sasha Patkin
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Nov 20, 2023 10:13 am
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Sasha Patkin Photo
Adrian Todd Zuniga hosting Boston's 17th Literary Death Match.
Literary Death Match, The Brattle Theater 40 Brattle St. Cambridge, Mass.
When I think of a literary reading, I think of cardigan sweaters, stuffy rooms, and restrained academic earnestness. When I think of a death match, I think of an all-out, no holds barred, brutal and unholy spectacle.
So if I hear of something called a “Literary Death Match,” there’s a 100 percent chance I’ll attend.
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Sasha Patkin
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Nov 13, 2023 10:42 am
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Sasha Patkin Photo
One of the lunchboxes created at a Boston workshop.
Lunchbox Moments: Seek Understanding. Share Stories. Stop Hate Pao Arts Center 99 Albany St., Boston Through Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024
When did you realize that you were different?
For most of us, there isn’t just one singular moment. We have entire lifetimes of collected memories where we come in and out of focus, blending in and contrasting against the world around us and noticing how we, our cultures, our families, or our traditions are or are not the norm.
The idea of a “lunchbox moment” has emerged as one such familiar point of connection for many within the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. It can be defined as a formative moment in which a traditional Asian meal was brought to school and elicited some sort of reaction from non-Asian peers.
In order to share these stories and empower the AAPI community, artist Amie Bantz has collected many of these lunchbox moments and curated them into Lunchbox Moments: Seek Understanding. Share Stories. Stop Hate, which is currently on display at the Pao Arts Center until Saturday, February 17, 2024.
As Bantz says “I have a lunchbox moment; my mom has a lunchbox moment; nearly all of my AAPI peers have a lunchbox moment. These stories make up a collective identity that is equal parts profound, beautiful, comical, and heartbreaking.”
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Sasha Patkin and Kelley McLaughlin
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Nov 10, 2023 10:04 am
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Sasha Patkin Photo
The Dried Bean Curd Salad
Home Taste 58 Mt Auburn St. Watertown, Mass.
When we think of comfort food — food that warms our hearts and bodies and makes the world OK again — we think of noodles. Ramen, pho, macaroni and cheese. There’s nothing like coming inside from a brisk fall day and sitting down to food that’s clearly been prepared with care and delighting in the comforting textures and sensations of a warm noodle dish.
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Sasha Patkin
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Nov 7, 2023 10:58 am
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Sasha Patkin Photo
"Jamaica" by Just Bloom'd Weddings.
Voyage The Prudential Center 800 Boylston St Boston, Mass.
Even as the weather outside hurtles ever forward toward the wrong side of fall, the inside of the Prudential Center was full of flowers and life for Voyage, a temporary installation created in partnership with Fleurs de Villes and featuring the work of local floral artists. Eighteen mannequins, each decorated by a different florist, were adorned with stunning arrays of flowers to represent different global destinations.
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Sasha Patkin
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Oct 25, 2023 1:51 pm
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Jim Sabitus Photo
The cast of Lizzie, The Musical, from left: Temma Beaudreau, Liza Giangrande, Sophia Muharram, and Nora Sullivan
Lizzie, The Musical Umbrella Arts Center 40 Stow St. Concord, Mass. Through Nov. 5, 2023
Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.
Or at least that’s how the children’s rhyme goes. In reality, Lizzie Borden was acquitted;, it was her stepmother, along with her father, who was killed; a hatchet was used as the murder weapon; and the victims received far fewer than 40 whacks. Nevertheless, the grisly Fall River, Mass. murders have captivated public imagination for over 130 years, with truth often taking a backseat to fiction.
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Sasha Patkin and Kelley McLaughlin
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Oct 19, 2023 2:40 pm
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Arepa Jardinera.
Orinoco Harvard Square 56 John F. Kennedy St. Cambridge, Mass.
We’d heard many good things lately about Orinoco, a Latin kitchen inspired by “taguaritas,” rustic, family-run eateries found along Venezuelan roadsides, so we decided to drop by and check their array of Venezuelan and Latin American cuisines for ourselves.
Orinoco has three Boston locations: South End, Brookline Village, and Harvard Square). The Harvard Square location is tucked away behind a sweet little recessed archway under the trees, so, even before entering, we were immediately struck by the intimate and inviting atmosphere. Inside, the decor was tastefully done, with a mix of folk art and family photography adorning the walls. The dim lighting and soft music in the background set the perfect mood for a relaxed dining experience, and we immediately agreed that it looks like a great spot for a date. Especially if you sit out on the lovely outdoor patio.
I was gazing upon a Michelangelo. Except, it wasn’t a Michelangelo. It was an artist’s painstakingly recreated version of “The Damned Man,” a figure in The Last Judgement fresco on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel who realizes he has been condemned to spend eternity in Hell. The oil on canvas before me, titled “The Damned Guy,” was painted by Clarence Leroy Hinds and hangs in The Museum of Bad Art. A caption on the wall nearby reads: “The artist sought to improve upon Michelangelo’s masterpiece by clothing him in a bright green Speedo, and adding a disjointed eyeball over his left shoulder spewing what appears to be toxic slime.”
