The Cambridge Art Association’s 70TH exhibition year, opened Friday, September 12, with the 70th Fall Salon, CAA announced in a press release, yesterday.

The salon  runs through September 26, 2014, in both the Kathryn Schultz Gallery (25 R Lowell St)   and
University Place Galleries (125 Mt. Auburn St). Awards were presented on Friday, September 12.

CAA Event Calendar

The opening  honored the memory of longtime member and supporter Mary Schein, whose husband, Edgar Schein, has provided longtime sponsorship and support of the Fall Salon. The 70th Fall
Salon features artwork in a range of media from 144 Cambridge Art Association Artist Members.

Of the prizewinners, who were each awarded $250, Edgar Shein writes:
Jim Kociuba (Cambridge, MA) – November Rain, oil on canvas
This painting captures the style, color and content of what I always thought Mary appreciated—gentle
colors, a simple natural beautiful theme of the receding stream, and a softness of style we associated with some of the paintings of Vuillard and Redon both of whom Mary loved. I have to admit after looking them up on Google that much of their work was anything but gentle and soft, but when they did achieve it, it had a special quality that always attracted us greatly.

Susan Burgess (Cambridge, MA) – Maine Retreat, oil on canvas
This painting is a wonderful reminder of the summers Mary and I spent in Maine. We divided our time
between Bethel, where I worked, and the ocean that she loved, having grown up in Carmel, California. The two coasts are totally different, with the young California coast plunging steeply into the sea, while the geologically much older Maine coast gently eases into the ocean as this painting so elegantly shows. Our favorite places were Boothbay Harbor and Rockland where we spent several summers at the grand old Samoset Hotel. The peaceful and calming and eternal vista of this painting could be seen over and over again all along the coast.

Upcoming exhibits: 

• Time Travelers – a small group show with work by Stephen Martin, Conny Goelz-Schmitt, and Lorraine Sullivan October 2–30, 2014. Opening reception, Thursday, October 2, 6-8pm at Kathryn Schultz Gallery
• 70th Members Prize Show, juried by Al Miner (Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)October 10 – November 15, 2014. Opening reception: Friday, October 10, 6-8pm at University Place Gallery
• Motion Envisioned – a small group show with work by Bea Grayson, Bob Hesse, and Ruth LieberherrNovember 4-29, 2014. Opening reception, Saturday, November 15, 1-3pm at Kathryn Schultz Gallery
• PLATINUM – Northeast Open Show, juried by Alise Upitis (Assistant Curator, MIT List Visual Art Center)December 4, 2014 – January 16, 2015. Opening reception Friday, December 5, 6-8pm at the Kathryn Schultz Gallery and University Place Gallery.

–Anita M. Harris
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm based in Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA. 

Anita Harris is a communications consultant and the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Femninine Identity (2014) and the forthcoming Ithaca Diaries, Coming of Age in the 1960s. (Spring, 2015).

Cambridge-based Latitude News is a global Website with a mission is to make what’s going on in the world relevant to what’s happening in the US.   It’s a sort of  “local global mashup” in which writers and editors produce stories that are ” fresh, relevant and crying out to be told,” says founder and veteran BBC journalist Maria Balinska.

Recent examples include :

• Texans Victims to Algerian Hostage Crisis?
• Do Casinos Prey on Asian Americans?
• In Turkey The Simpsons and Game of Thrones Are Blasphemy

Balinska points out that Latitude News stories have  been featured in the Christian Science Monitor, the Week, Mental Floss, Marketplace, Hoy and the BBC.  And PRX (the Public Radio Exchange, another Cambridge-based outfit) commissioned a series of monthly podcasts last summer.

Latitude News recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund production of  a weekly audio program, The Local Global Mashup Show,  that, Balinska says,  “will give you the inside edge on the stories that connect Americans with the world.”   It’s an ambitious project, Balinksa adds,  in part because it proposes to use  a subscription model in order to become a sustainable business.

For more info or to donate and receive a reward,  go to the Latitude News  Kickstarter page  before February 15.

–Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a collaborative team of experts in public relations, content marketing and new media services.

Cambridge startup  Latitude News and Public Radio Exchange (PRX) have  launched a  podcast series aimed at bringing global stories with local importance to new audiences.

Latitude was founded earlier this year by veteran BBC producer Maria Balinska to bring “a new  brand of global storytelling connects on an emotional level to audiences who are curious about the world,” Balinka said.  Its  journalists–based in Cambridge and abroad, use  a Website, social media and podcasts to crowdsource stories that connect Americans with the world.

PRX operates public radio’s largest distribution marketplace, offering thousands of audio stories for broadcast and digital use. Signature PRX programs include the Moth Radio Hour, RadioLab, This American Life, KCRW Music Mine and the Public Radio Player.

Under an agreement announced earlier this week,  Latitude will produce 12 podcasts and broadcast segments for PRX showcasing a distinctive editorial style that links Americans to the rest of the world.

The first podcasts launched this week; one looks at why the US faces a shortage of cod and Norway does not; the other examines the role that one US preacher has played in the anti-gay movement in Uganda.

The Latitude News podcasts are hosted by award-winning journalist Daniel Moulthorp.

Moulthorp  is co-founder of The Civic Commons. He is also a former program host of 90.3 WCPN’s Sound of Ideas and co-author, with Dave Eggers and Ninive Calegari, of the best selling book Teachers Have it Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers (The New Press, 2005).

John Barth, Managing Director of PRX, said, “The extension of Latitude News to podcasts and broadcast is a natural step as PRX reaches engaged audiences hungry for more meaningful  international stories.”

“We’re thrilled to work with PRX to illustrate how our new brand of global storytelling connects on an emotional level to audiences who are curious about the world,” Balinska said.

The podcasts and segments are made possible by a grant to PRX by the Open Society Foundations aimed at expanding global storytelling for American audiences.

http://www.prx.org/group_accounts/142068-latitudenews

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

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group–an-award-winning strategic communications firm based  in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

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I’m pleased to report that Cambridge Community Television has once again received the Overall Excellence in Public Access Programming Award from the national Alliance for Community Media in its Hometown Video Festival.

 This is the eighth time in CCTV’s twenty-one year history that the station has received this award, recognizing the diversity and quality of CCTV’s programming, as well as its relevance to the Cambridge community.

CCTV competed in the highest budget category, against much larger access centers in major cities throughout the United States. Numerous CCTV producers also received high accolades in the festival:

Project Documentary’s The Dames, about Boston’s roller derby team, placed first in the Sports Entertainment category; teens participating in CCTV’s youth program were also recognized: Josh Washington and William Sheffield for their original teleplay “Homies”, Julie Pan for “King Open Extended Day Program”, Cody Romano for “Dawn”, and Alex Ayabe for his music video “Guarantee”, which he produced at Cambridge Educational Access.

 Laura Asherman also received an Honorable Mention for her video “You Contribute to Global Warming”. Watch some of our finest programming from 2008 in this video! You can also view the full list of winners at http://2009.acmhometown.org/

I’ve taken several excellent courses at CCTV–in Dreamweaver, Excel, and MS Publisher; also on video shooting and editing.  If you join, fees  are nominal–you get $100 worth of courses for $55–less if you put in volunteer time; more if you’re not a Cambridge resident.  It’s a great way to learn about new technologies,  learn television production, produce videos–even host your own TV program. Check it out!

Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA. HarrisCom also publishes www.blog.harriscom.com

With the ever increasing fall of bookstores and impending newspaper layoffs, I’d like to echo Alex Beam’s call for readers to reach for their wallets.

In case you missed his January 9 column, “Closing Costs,” in the Boston Globe, it opens: “Here is a dispatch from the Land of No Suprises: Bookstores–buffed by the recession, by Amazon, by electronic reading devices–are closing their doors”. He points out that, easy as it is to go to Amazon for books and read newspapers online for free, by behaving normally, “you kill the things you love.”

In Boston, after several waves of reporter buyouts, people keep telling me that they’ve dropped their subscriptions to the Globe because it’s gone downhill, and, anyway, they can get it on line, for free. Duh.

My apologies for stating the obvious, but many of my friends don’t seem to get that, in  a vicious financial cycle,  with fewer paying customers,   the paper can get fewer advertisers, revenues go down, and, as a result, the Globe and many other papers have had to  “encourage”  their most senior,  talented reporters to leave.  The Globe announced  a new round of editorial layoffs just last week.

I’ll be writing more about this–but for the time being, please support the  free press–by paying for it.

The New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, of Cambridge, MA.