September has been a great month for art shows in and near Cambridge. I’d especially like to call out an amazing exhibit of the work of ceramicist Isaac Scott called ” Mouros” which will be at Lucy Lacoste Gallery, 25 Main Street in Concord, Mass, through October 14.

Scott, now of Philadelphia, is a brilliant young sculptor and photographer whose photos of the 2020 riots in Philadelphia following the death of George Floyd were published by the New Yorker Magazine– earning him the National Magazine Award for Feature Photographer of the Year in 2021. He is also a fabulous sculptor/ceramicist.

Not long ago, Scott told me at the Lacoste opening, he visited a friend in Lisbon, knowing little about that city or Portugal. Taking tours of the city, he learned about its Moorish roots, legends of ghostly ancestors, and of the slave trade that originated in Lisbon the 1400s. Descended from slaves himself, he was fascinated by the stories he heard, and, when he returned to the US, crafted a series of ceramic heads, called “Mouros,” which, in the LaCoste exhibit, he pairs with photos he took of Lisbon and its surroundings.

“The exhibition powerfully brings to light the origination of the slave trade, references the African diaspora; and brings us back full circle to the present day with references to graffiti and hip-hop culture,” said Gallery Owner Lucy Lacoste..

One pairing includes a Mauro bust with a remarkable close-up photo of pigeons–whose ubiquity and flights all over the world seemed to parallel with the travels of Portuguese and other slave ships, Scott said.

“Pombo (Pigeon), 2023

Lacoste added, “In my over 30 years of being a gallerist, I’ve rarely seen an artist whose work is more exciting.  Here the artist pushes the boundaries of contemporary art by creating a dialogue between the two mediums of ceramics and photography to tell the culturally relevant story of the slave trade. “

Isaac Scott received his MFA from Temple University in 2021 under Roberto Lugo. Introduced to Lucy Lacoste in 2022, Scott was included in a well-received group show at the Gallery that year in which he showed his #Philadelphia Series, sculpture inspired by the 2020 Riots in Philadelphia, the city where he lives, after the death of George Floyd.

At Lucy Lacoste Gallery, 25 Main Street, Concord, Mass., through October 14, 2023.

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer and photographer who resides in Cambridge, Mass.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, also in Cambridge.

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At first, I thought I’d write about how surprised visitors to wealthy, traditional, suburban Concord, MA, would be to find a small ceramics gallery, owned by a petite blonde woman from Mississippi, showcasing the work of Black, East Asian, Hispanic, and other artists of color. But, of course, Concord is often considered the birthplace of the American Revolution and is, thus, the perfect place to bring the provocative, transformational work of talented artists from across the US to public attention.

As owner Lucy Lacoste explains, “The exhibition brings together artists of color … in response to the racial injustices that, while always present, have been brought to wider awareness by the protests after George Floyd’s murder.

“As a gallery, we want to expand our platform to include greater diversity in artists and content to more fully represent this new reality.  Art is a reflection of culture and history; thus, we want to show the art of those with lived experiences who are leading the way to human rights for all.”

This is not the first time the Lacoste Gallery has promoted social justice; Lacoste and ceramicist Lily Fein recently donated 18 per cent of profits from Fein’s recent show to the Black Lives Matter movement, and the gallery has frequently shown the work of artists from diverse backgrounds. But the current exhibit is unusual in that it features eight artists expressing the need for social justice–each from a unique and powerful personal perspective.

Natalia Arbelaez

Natalia Arbelez, 2018-19 Artist in Residence at Harvard, was born in Miami, spent the first four years in her mother’s country of Colombia, Medellin, before returning to the US–quickly learning English and forgetting Spanish within a month. Throughout her life, she writes, she has questioned her identity and felt a sense of loss.

Her work, concerned with an “essence” of the body, “fills that loss,” by allowing her to reconnect with her heritage–as she researches and preserves Latin American and Ameridian culture, people and identities lost through conquest, migration, and time –and gained through family, culture, exploration, and passed down through tradition and genetic memory…

“In my process of referencing the body, I have forgone the use of an actual and specific body.” Thus, “I can use the memory of my own body, the body of my family and ancestors to extend my memories to places beyond the body. I use these influences to contribute to a contemporary dialogue while simultaneously continuing the work of my ancestors. There has been so much loss and stigma of these communities that it is important to me that my work celebrates and honors them.”

Ashwini Bhat
Ashwini Bhat, born in Southern India,and now based in California, has an MA in literature and had an earlier career in Indian dance. She doesn’t say this, but to me, her work embodies twists and turns of such dance…and perhaps even of Indian sari’s. As her artist’s statement explains, “During shelter-in-place, I turned both inward and toward the world. This has been an intense time for self-reflection, for questioning my own identity as well as my identification with others and with nature, the world. These new sculptures reveal that focus on the alliance of inscapes and landscapes.”

Paul S. Briggs

The work of Paul S. Briggs, originally from New York State, to me looked like thick black iron prison bars, surrounded and locked with chains. Briggs, now Artist in Residence at 5the Harvard Ceramics Program and Associate Professor at Mass College of Art, writes: “This work is neither gendered nor is it about race, it does not respect person. Formally, it is using metaphor and metonymy. To be doubled up inside, tied in knots, feeling tight all over, is how many describe the everyday tension of existence in a society seized by pandemic and strivings to wake up from history and create a more just and loving society, the beloved community. The wounded, broken, pierced and knotted vessels have a presence of dignity and a certitude.”

Gerald Brown
Gerald Brown, a Chicago Southside native, currently teaches in Philadelphia. Her “sacred objects’ primary spiritual function is to demarcate space for ancestral as well as descendants of Strange Fruit, an expansive lineage of African Diasporic people in America.” Brown writes: “The forms possess the power to communicate ancestral blessings such as energy, memory, forgiveness and love, providing an opportunity for multi-layered healing personally as well as environmentally. These abstract portraits of Strange Fruit commemorate a range of subjects and their unique, complicated behaviors developed through resisting anti-Blackness. In the midst of survival, deadly environmental effects plague these inhabitants, causing a long-term development of various anti-Black tendencies. However, by creating these intimate moments to honestly learn from our past selves as well as provide guidance for moving forward, these forms become a beacon of solace in the face of violence.

The spiritual function of the sacred objects are activated through the choice of material and approach to construction. Action and touch carry energy, while clay records movement and memory. The way the marks are
made deeply affect the commemoration as well as the overall spiritual tactility function….There are a few adornments or appendages that are added to accentuate the form, but the work is primarily mirrored externally as internally to deliberately communicate the continuity between the spaces. Similarly, the improvisational, voluptuous contours also forge a sense of harmony between the observer and the Fruit, reflecting the natural duality between tumultuous chaos and intrinsic beauty, a core pillar of the Black experience. These dual energies flowlike water through the sacred objects, are transmitted through touch and absorbed by the recipient, rejuvenating inherited ancestral traumas and internalized anguish.

Aaron Caldwell

Aaron Caldwell, born and raised in Fresno, CA, is currently a graduate student at Illinois State University. As an artist, he is “interested in looking at Black and queer identity with a lens of interiority. [His] work is primarily inspired by Black folks’ history with moisturizing products for the hair and body, and my being conditioned to hold value in my hair, skin color and the necessary tools for care. Being considered physically ashy (white and dry skin) or socially ashy (wack, lame, ignorant) are lingo among Black folk.
“As a result, products like lotion or coconut oil have become a staple in the Black community, so I create objects that concretely elevate and highlight this relationship unique to Black culture. I also employ zoomorphic forms inspired by folktales and west and central african sculpture. The buffalo represents masculinity and manhood, the sheep represents queerness and the rabbit represents Blackness. My art narrates how I engage with my Blackness and queerness in private, through culture, and how these identities inform how I engage with the world.”

Renata Cassiano-Alvarez

Renata Cassiano-Alvarez, a Mexican-Italian artist born in Mexico City and now teaching at the University of Arkansas, works primarily in clay but a background in painting and drawing informs her practice–which makes stunning use of glazes.
She writes: “As a bi-cultural artist (Mexico/Italy), I have been preoccupied with the effects language has on the body and how to translate this phenomenon to process. This delving has led me to seek the transformation of the historical role ceramic materials have in the ceramic process. When this role is changed, it is possible to realize a physical metamorphosis of the elements. At the center, I am teaching ceramic glaze a new language. A material that historically has been relegated to surface decoration is able is able to become the structure of the sculpture itself by ways of casting. The result is a material with a new sentience, an outcome that does not resemble glaze as we traditionally know it, but rather a new vision with an expanded concept of possibility.
My sculptures reference the body and its contents and seek to give the transformation itself a physicality. In a way, I act as an archeologist to my own practice. I cut, excavate and carve the sculptures until I find what they are trying to tell me… Clay speaks many languages and keeps infinite possibilities. What I look for is for my sculptures to embody, become icons of freedom and force.

Sydnie Jimez
Sydnie Jimenez, born in Orlando Florida , ia a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She spent much of her childhood in Georgia as a “non-white-presenting person. “Growing up with the white side of her family, she was only reunited with the Dominican side of her family in adolescence. Most of her work , she writes, “is inadvertently informed by a feeling of cultural dysphoria. ” With her sculptures, she tries “to invoke a sense of familiarity and security within community while expressing a suspicion, frustration and/or anger toward societal ideals rooted in white supremacy and European colonization.”
The figures in the current show “were made during the peak of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time as protests by black and brown youth that were sparked by police brutality and the deaths of black people by police including the murder of Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and George Floyd to name a few. These figures are referencing protestors, protest, and a feeling of discontent, disorientation, and unease left in the wake of these deaths whose murderers were not brought to justice.”

Anthony Kascak

Anthony Kascak, has an MFA from the University of Arkansas School of art and BFA’s in art practices and psychologiy from the University of Colorado, Boulder. The Lacoste exhibit includes two wall pieces from his
MFA thesis show, and a wall piece made shortly after that. “I am interested in exploring how I can incorporate photography into my ceramics practice; I have done this directly through photographic decals as well as with physical touch and visual perception through ceramic frames and fragments,” he writes.
“These ceramic frames contain images and actions: fingerprints preserved and highlighted with glaze, photographic ceramic decals of my body, as well as adorned shards and cracks of ceramic pieces that highlight the fragility of the ceramic process and specific details of photographs. The physical touch involved in the ceramic process not only emphasizes the marks made to reference the literal act of touching, but also the vulnerability and potential of the material itself.”
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I wish that, in this post, I could do justice to the brilliance of the exhibit…but it’s well- worth a visit to the gallery to experience the profound ideas and emotions it evokes. The ceramic pieces, writeups and the show as a whole serve as a transformational bridge from our individual and collective pasts– inspiring what I hope will be a universally shared, just and creative future.

Empowering Voices will be on view at Lacoste Gallery, 25 Main St. in Concord, MA until October 10, 2020.

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, also in Cambridge.

Ever wonder why people collect art?

You can find out at “Through the Eyes of a Collector,” an exhibit  opening Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018 and running through Feb. 28 at the Lacoste Gallery, in Concord, Ma.

The exhibit offers an insight into the art collecting practices of Steve Alpert, an avid ceramic art lover and collector for more than 40 years, according to  the Lacoste invitation.  Alpert has served on the board  of MFA Boston, as Board Chairman of the Institute for Contemporary Art, and was  founder and Chairman of Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

In this show, he  brings together a diverse group of artists whose work ranges from studio pottery to figurative and sculptural ceramic art.

 

 Gaden of Eartlhy DelightsThe artists include:Michael Ashley, Ashwini Bhat, Rick Hirsch, Jeff Kell, Eva Kwong, KyungMin Park and Jack Thompson.

The show, which runs through February 28,  represents Alpert’s vision.  Its goal is to inform new generations of ceramic art fans and collectors on how to begin an astute ceramic art portfolio.

Opening Reception with Artists: Saturday, February 3, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Panel Discussion: Ceramic Collecting for the New Generation,   Sunday February 4, 2:00 PM 

The exhibit, opening reception and panel discussion are free and open to the public but kindly RSVP for the panel discussion.

LACOSTE GALLERY
25 Main Street Concord,
MA 01742 978-369-0278
Email: info@lacostegallery.com
Web: www.lacostegallery.com 

–Anita Harris

Anita M.Harris is a writer, photographer, communications consultant and art lover based in Cambridge, MA.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a PR and content marketing firm, also in Cambridge. 

You don’t need to be a geek to get into some of the newest technology for keeping track of your health. I was blown away when I heard about pill bottle caps that will tell  you (or your doctor or your caretakers)  if you’ve forgotten to take your meds…a kazoo that measures the chemistry of the air from your lungs…and a telephone that can assess whether you’re depressed–from the tones of your voice.

These gizmos are the brainchildren of David Rose, an entrepreneur who is now the CEO of Vitality, Inc., in Cambridge.  Rose has also invented bathroom scales that can show whether you’ve lost or gained weight, an umbrella that can sense whether it’s going to rain, and objects that assess air quality.

Rose was one of four panelists who spoke last week at a program sponsored by the Medical Development Group about some astounding new health gadgets, most of which are actually on the market. (MDG is a Boston area organization for individuals involved in the medical device and technology industries). 

Rose focused on the above-mentioned pill bottle “Glo-Caps”, which “sense”  when a patient takes a medication, and, via a wireless Internet connection, show health care professionals, patients or caregivers whether reminders are needed.  

The caps light up, play a melody, and even ring a home phone to remind patients to take their pills.  The caps can send weekly emails to remote caregivers, create accountability with doctors through an adherence report, and automatically refill prescriptions. 

Glo-Caps are not currently available for purchase by individuals, but they are being used by patients enrolled in programs sponsored by certain health insurers and pharmacies.

Panelist Ben Rubin, Co-Founder and Chief Technology officer of Zeo, in Newton, MA, described Zeo’s novel  headset and device that monitor an individual’s REM sleep and factors influencing sleep patterns.  Knowing how well you sleep is important because sleep is closely tied to health conditions like obesity, depression, diabetes and the like, Rubin said. “If you measure it, you can manage it.” 

Zeo’s sleep devices, which cost $250,  connect to  an Internet site. For an additional $100, Zeo provides email advice coaching to help individuals improve their “sleep hygiene.” 

There’s also a  Smart Phone application designed to promote better sleep:  using the Ap, you put your phone under your pillow to measure your movement (and restlessness) during sleep.

Panelists also described glucose monitors that send data to doctors via patients’ Smart Phones and Nike running shoes that measure your steps. At one point, Rose pulled out a keychain that tells him whether he’s met his daily walking goals and whether he’s on track (ha ha) to meet his monthly goals.

Also mentioned  were Internet tools such as a Google Ap to measure flu trends; Healthmedia, through which Johnson & Johnson provides digital coaching for managing stress and chronic disease, Philips Direct, which provides live coaching over email, and various “calorie and other body monitors through which individuals can receive online coaching through gyms.

All of these devices fall under a category moderator David Barash, MD, CEO of Concord [MA] Health Strategies calls “local health monitoring” –meaning that the devices can be used by patients or consumers almost anywhere–rather than just at home or in a hospital,  doctor’s office or lab.

 According to a recent review by my client, Scientia Advisors, “remote health monitoring” devices are the fastest growing category in a booming home health care market. 

The devices are growing in popularity in sync with an aging population, increasing chronic disease, and new Internet technologies, Barash said.

Panelist Frank McGillin, Vice President of Global Marketing for Philips Healthcare, which markets a variety of home monitoring devices, said  remote monitoring  will become increasing important in light of growing health care costs.

Gillin cited government statistics showing that  health care current accounts for 17.6 percent of the  gross domestic product in the US, and that by 2050, half of the population in the developed world will be chronically ill—making traditional medical care  fiscally overwhelming. 

Devorah Klein, PhD, a principal at Continuum, in Newton, MA, who designs devices and evaluates patient adherence to therapy regimes for diabetes, asthma, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and erectile dysfunction, emphasized that  simple designs are key because “many patients are not all that interested” in learning to use devices.

And Barash pointed out that while many consumers may be intrigued by these gizmos, doctors have been slow to embrace them.

 For one thing, with a dearth of clinical trials to assess devices’ effectiveness, insurers are reluctant to reimburse doctors for evaluating the data thus compiled.

For another,  it’s not clear how doctors can manage or assess  potentially large amounts of additional data, or  how data collected for individual conditions can be assessed in relation to data collected elsewhere for other, possibly related, conditions.

–Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is published by the Harris Communications Group, a  writing  and public relations firm in Cambridge, MA.  All rights reserved.