The Cambridge Art Association’s 13^th National Prize Show,will open May 13, CAA announced today. The show will exhibit the work of 82 artists chosen by Dr. James Welu, Director Emeritus of the Worcester Art Museum from among 383 artists from 13 states.  Prize winners, include artists from Lexington, Belmont, Duxbury, Lexington Providence, Roslindale, Providence, and West Yarmouth.

The show will run  through June 26, 2014, at both the Kathryn Schultz Gallery (25 Lowell Street, Cambridge) and the University Place Gallery (124 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge).  An opening reception will be held on Friday, May 16, 6-8pm, in both galleries.

The prizewinners are:

Best in Show: Zoe Perry-Wood (Lexington, MA)

Mixed Media Prize: Warren Croce (Belmont, MA)

Photography Prize: Dorothy Pilla (Duxbury, MA)

Painting Prize: Wilson Hunt, Jr. (Roslindale, MA)

Sculpture/3D Prize: Jesse Thompson (Providence, RI)

Work on Paper Prize: Carol Flax (West Yarmouth, MA)

Welu, who selected  the exhibitors and the award-winners said: “Jurying the National Prize Show was exciting and challenging–exciting to see such a wide range of art from across the country, but challenging to narrow a field of over a thousand entries to an exhibition of about 85 works.”

In jurying the show,  Welu  focused on  visual impact and originality with the goal of representing the variety of media that was submitted, he said.  “I was particularly attentive to the artists’ choice and use of medium for expressing the subject of their work. It was reassuring to see so many fresh and innovative approaches to a number of traditional subjects.” Welu said he was also impressed by the number of outstanding abstract paintings.

Previous jurors have included: Toby Kamps (Menil Collection) Malcolm Rogers (MFA, Boston); Clara Kim (Senior Curator, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis); Joseph Thompson (Director, MassMoCA); Lisa Dennison (Guggenheim); Marc Pacter (Director, National Portrait Gallery); Robert Fitzpatrick (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago), among others.

–Anita M. Harris
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm in Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA. Anita Harris is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity, the forthcoming Ithaca Diaries–and managing director of the Harris Communications Group.

Spending a day out of Cambridge?  If you wish you were in Paris but can only make it to New York -– take your dreams to the Met and see  “Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris” and “Paris as Muse: Photography 1840s-1930s,”  (both through May 4) and “The Passions of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux” (through May 26)

[Rue de Constantine]
Charles Marville (French, Paris 1813–1879 Paris)
Date: ca. 1865 Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative Dimensions: 27.3 x 36.8 cm (10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.) Classification: Photographs Credit Line Permission Requested: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1986 Accession Number: 1986.1141
)

 

CHARLES MARVILLE AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Fifth Avenue at East 79^th Street

“ A bittersweet meditation on the meaning of nostalgia and the evolution of urban centers”

The Met’s current exhibit of Paris street scenes by 19^th-century French photographer Charles Marville is a revelation of memory and awareness that rebuffs the notion of nostalgia.

Marville (1813-1879), the son of modest tradespeople, used various techniques to document the destruction and re-creation of Paris from the early 1850’s through the 1870’s.  From 1862 on, he was the official photographer of the city of Paris.

    The neighborhoods and buildings Marville captured in these wondrous and sad images are long gone, having made way for the Paris of Napoleon III and his chief architect and planner, Baron Georges-Eugène Hausmann.The gilded, historic Paris that many of us know — the Belle Epoque city of grand boulevards and the Palais Garnier — was born in Marville’s time.  Preservationism was evolving, as well, through the necessary process of repairing and cleaning such monuments as the great cathedral of Chartres, Notre Dame de Paris, and the Sainte-Chapelle.   

   The impulse to capture the past while obliterating it from sight is the beating heart of these photographs, which preserve the gritty city of Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème and Hugo’s Les Misérables     .In Marville’s photos, the outskirts of this Paris still look rural, even desolate.  Most of its streets appear to be empty, in part because images were taken very early in the day, but also because Marville’s exposures weren’t long enough to capture pedestrians and carriages in motion.  The rare figures here and there were actually posed within the frame by the artist.The “Hausmannization” of Paris, a cramped, crowded, and less romantic city than the one we imagine, began in the 1850’s under Emperor Napoleon III.   In addition to clearing medieval slums, upgrading sanitation, building parks, and restoring public monuments, the creation of boulevards and wider streets was intended to thwart those who might build and mount barricades, as they  had in the uprisings of 1830 and 1848.Marville recorded everything.  The old buildings, covered with advertising and all kinds of affiches  touting such modern conveniences as the folding umbrella.   The glass-covered, shop-lined alleys called passages, soon to be overshadowed by the department stores, les grand magasins.  The old industrial areas that dumped waste into the Seine tributaries and canals.  The timeless stares of tannery workers.The emerging wonders of the city are displayed here, too.   Hausmann’s “street furniture,” advertising kiosks, gas lamps, and – mais oui – public urinals, are respectfully and meticulously documented by Marville’s camera.  Most remarkable, perhaps, are the photographer’s views of the Avenue de l’Opéra as it was being built in the 1870’s.  Leading to the new Opéra, now called the Palais Garnier, the neighborhood is shown post-demolition and pre-construction, looking like nothing so much as a war zone.One of the final ironies is learning that Marville himself was a victim of Hausmann’s grand plan.  The photographer’s own studios were demolished and, during the 1871 uprising afterthe Franco-Prussian War, the Hôtel de Ville came under attack and much of its archival material – including Marville’s work as official photographer — was destroyed.

The exhibition is a bittersweet meditation on the meaning of nostalgia and the evolution of urban centers, whose periodic re-invention is both necessary and heartless.  Nostalgia is a construct; there are many pasts beyond the ones we recall and imagine.   The home that you long for may be just one of a cascade of images, seen for an instant in a series of receding mirrors.

–Rachel Yurman,  Cambridge, MA
© 2014

 

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

 

 

Our friends at 360 Chestnut  and BTW [Behind the Walls Magazine [] present: 

DOES YOUR HOUSE KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT YOU?
What:  Panel presentation: impact of home energy monitoring devices on privacy
When:  April 8^th, 2014
Where: Cambridge Innovation Center, 1 Broadway,Cambridge, MA Havana 5^th Floor
With:  Deborah Hurley, Jim Bride, Joseph Kolchisnky, Jason Hanna, and Daniel Hullah. Moderated by Alexandra Hall & Harold Simansky

Google’s recent acquisition of “smart thermostat maker NEST” was met with excitement in the home energy world—Google is finally recognizing the importance of energy efficiency. But now that the excitement has died down, people are realizing that Google will be in their homes more intimately than ever before. What does this mean for Americans’ already compromised privacy?

On April 8^th at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square, 360Chestnut, Inc., and BTW: Behind the Walls magazine will host a panel discussion titled, “Does Your House Know Too Much About You?” Featuring experts on the home energy industry and “green” home improvement, the panel will address the looming issue of “smart” home monitoring devices: with sales expected to increase by 300% by 2020, are we giving up too much of privacy when embracing them?

The panel will include Deborah Hurley, a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science; Jim Bride, Founder and CEO of Energy Tariff Experts, LLC; Joseph Kolchinsky, Founder and Managing Director of OneVision Resources; Jason Hanna, Founder and CEO of Embue and Daniel Hullah, Partner and COO of Rockport Capital.  The moderators will be Harold Simansky, Founder and CEO of 360Chestnut Inc, and publisher of BTW: Behind The Walls and Alexandra Hall, Executive Producer of 360 Chestnut Inc, and Editor-in-Chief of BTW: Behind the Walls and COUPBoston will be the moderator.

The Panel:

Deborah Hurley is is a Fellow of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University and directed the Harvard University Information Infrastructure Project. At the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Paris, France, she was responsible for drafting, negotiation and adoption of the OECD Guidelines for the Security of Information Systems. Prior to joining the OECD, she practiced computer and intellectual property law in the United States. Hurley is Chair, Board of Directors, Electronic Privacy Information Center. She carried out a Fulbright study in Korea and is the author of Pole Star: Human Rights in the Information Society, and other publications. Hurley received the Namur Award of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) in recognition of outstanding contributions, with international impact, to awareness of social implications of information technology.

Joseph (Joey) Kolchinsky is the founder and Managing Director of OneVision Resources, a company that merges his curiosity with technology and passion for simplicity. The firm is redefining excellent service for the modern family, providing comprehensive and stress-free support to members across a growing range of needs including personal technology, smart home design, and health management. Joey lives in Boston with his wife Jennifer and daughter Penelope.

Jim Bride has over a decade of experience in the energy and environmental industries. He launched Energy Tariff Experts, LLC to address an unmet need in the marketplace for accurate utility rate and energy cost information to enable more informed energy investment decisions. Prior to Energy Tariff Experts, Jim spent over four years at EnerNOC, a pioneering Smart Grid firm.

Jason Hanna is the CEO & Founder of Embue; a Boston-based company developing connected heating & cooling controls for residential and small commercial application. Jason is also the Founder & Board Chairman of Greentown Labs, a Boston-area incubator for clean energy and hardware companies, now home to over 40 emerging start-ups. Jason previously worked in high technology and was responsible for building an organization that automated over $1B of transactions for EMC Corporation.

Daniel Hullah is a Partner and COO of RockPort Capital a multi-stage venture capital firm that invests in the areas of alternative and traditional energy, mobility, and sustainability.  Daniel is an active member of the screening and diligence team and has worked on multiple transactions in several key cleantech sectors most notably solar energy and green buildings.  One such company is EcoFacto, a leader in home energy management, providing user-friendly active management of residential and small commercial thermostats using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model.

Harold Simansky (moderator)  is the founder of 360Chestnut.  Before 360Chestnut he was involved in the creation of Green Guild of MA, LLC, a full-service energy audit and home weatherization company that has helped over 1,000 Massachusetts home owners make their homes more energy efficient.  Earlier, Harold was the developer of one of the first green, LEED-certified residential buildings in the Boston-area.  Harold also has experience in the world of finance and as a consultant with Bain & Company. He is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Brandeis University.

Alexandra Hall (moderator) has more than ten years’ experience as a critic, lifestyle writer and editor of lifestyle topics in Boston and beyond. Alex has covered fashion, travel, entertainment, food, beauty, books, and the arts. She is currently editor-in-chief if COUP Boston, the city’s only luxury digital lifestyle magazine, and a freelance writer for publications including: Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit, Town & Country, and Elle Decor.

360Chestnut is a multi-platform media company that helps consumers make their homes more sustainable, healthy and energy efficient.  This free-to-the-consumer service provides engaging experiences, expert information and personalized access to the 5000+ rebates that pay homeowners to be more energy efficient, as well as a connection to those who can do the work.  360Chestnut also published BTW: Behind the Walls magazine in partnership with the Wall Street Journal.

BTW: Behind the Walls is a quarterly magazine focused on healthy, sustainable and beautiful homes.  It is created in partnership with the Wall Street Journal and is distributed to more than 50,000 Wall Street Journal subscribers in MA, NH and VT.

COUPBoston is a multi-platform online magazine dedicated to all things innovative and forward thinking in Boston’s lifestyle community.

Info@360 Chestnut.com

–Anita M. Harris
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm based in Cambridge, MA.
Anita Harris is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Womenand the Quest for a New Feminine Identity, publisher of New Cambridge Observer, and  managing director of the Harris Communications Group. HarrisCom provided editorial advice on the above writeup and is listed as a co-sponsor of the event.

Anita Harris speaking at the Lincoln, MA Library

Had fifteen seconds of fame on Friday, March 21, when I commented on Sheryl Sandberg’s Ban Bossy Campaign for PBS’s To the Contrary. The program, which airs nationally and on the Web, is public television’s all-female news analysis series–now in its 22nd season. You can view the program at http://www.pbs.org/to-the-contrary/watch/2885/contraception-cases;-ban-bossy;-congresswomen-and-leadership. 

My taped interview introduced a segment about Sheryl Sandberg’s campaign to expunge the “b” word (that would be “bossy”) from our vocabulary. I’d posted a New Cambridge Observer blog questioning whether the campaign will promote or harm good leadership among girls earlier in the week.
The program also covered the Obamacare Birth control mandate. Guests included:  Former Congresswomen Blanche Lincoln, Carol Moseley Braun, Connie Morella, Barbara Kennelly and Mary Bono. Panelists were Amy Siskind, The New Agenda; Kay Coles James, *resident, Gloucester Institute; Avis Jones DeWeever, NPR host, and Rina Shah, Republican strategist.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and Marketing firm based at the Cambridge Innovation Center, in Kendall Square, Cambridge. Anita Harris, HarrisCom’s Managing Director, is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity.  Broken Patterns is available at Amazon.com, Kindle.com, and at the Harvard Bookstore, in Harvard Square.

Anita M. Harris (Not to be confused with the Anita Harris who wrote two of the books used to illustrate my introduction).

The event will also honor constructivism pioneer and MIT Professor Seymour Papert for his contributions to education, including his promotion of technology use in classrooms.

Small Solutions (www.smallsolutionsbigideas.org) and OPEN   (www.oneplaneteducationnetwork.com)

Panel Topics & Presenters

–Anita Harris

Boston area  startups Cocoon Biotech, Riparian Pharmaceuticals, Cellanyx Diagnostics, and DavosPharma  were awarded$22K in funds and in-kind services at an innovation competition held by Biotech Tuesday, a Cambridge-based networking organization for life science professionals.

left-to-right : Execs from EMD Serono, Novartis and Lab Central

At an event on November 19th event, executives from EMD Serono, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and LabCentral chose the winning startup pitches from among five finalists’ presentations. The finalists were selected from an initial field of thirteen online entries based, in part, on online feedback from BiotechTuesday members. The three winners were all therapeutics and diagnostics startups proposing solutions to challenging medical problems.

Cocoon Biotech, Inc., led by CEO and founder Ailis Tweed-Kent, a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital won the $5000 EMD Serono Innovation Award.  Cocoon Biotech is developing a silk-based gel for injection into the joint to provide long lasting joint support and lubrication in patients with osteoarthritis.  EMD Serono is the biopharmaceutical subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a global pharmaceutical and chemical group.

Riparian Pharmaceuticals, led by Will Adam, Chief Scientific Officer and President, won both the $10,000 in-kind Novartis Innovation Award and the $3000 in-kind Pharmatek Innovation Award. Riparian Pharmaceuticals is focused on therapeutics that induce an anti-inflammatory response in cells to address diseases such as atherosclerosis.  Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc. discovers and develops new and innovative medicines. Pharmatek Laboratories, Inc. is a premier pharmaceutical chemistry development and manufacturing organization supporting the pharmaceutical & biotechnology industries.

Cellanyx Diagnostics, led by Co-Founder and CEO Ashok Chander, won the $4000 in-kind LabCentral Innovation Award.  Cellanyx is developing a prostate cancer diagnostic based on culturing tumor biopsy cells that promises to be much more accurate than current diagnostics.  LabCentral provides fully functional lab space, permits, waste handling, plus all reasonably common lab equipment for bioresearch.

In addition to awarding startups, the event also acknowledged the contribution of life science products and services in enabling cutting edge research for new therapeutics.  DavosPharma won the Most Innovative Product or Service Award in recognition of its Anthem-GenTox product. This product offers scientists a high throughput genotoxicity assay based on human cells with greatly improved accuracy over conventional methods.

“This was Biotech Tuesday’s first innovation competition–but by no means its last, “said BioTechTuesday Co-Founder Seth Taylor, who organizes BiotechTuesday and served as master of ceremonies for the event.” The feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly in favor of the competition,” Taylor said.  “We look forward to continuing our efforts to engage our broad community of life science professionals in supporting innovators.”

The competition took place at District Hall, a new event space at 75 Northern Avenue in the Boston Seaport District.

–Anita Harris

Anita Harris is a writer and content expert based in Cambridge, MA. 

New Cambridge Observer is published by the Harris Communications Group,  a PR and marketing firm based at the Cambridge Innovation Center, in Kendall Square. HarrisCom offers writing and content services for clients in healthcare, life sciences, biotech, energy and the environment.  Full disclosure:  HarrisCom handled media outreach for the event as a probono sponsor. 

Clean tech meetup Boston 2013

Ordinarily, at business meetings,if you work in the kitchen, you stay in the kitchen.

But, on Tuesday, Nov. 12,  in an unusual turn of event, following brief talks by  Alicia Barton, CEO of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and James Graham, clean tech dealmaker (yes, that’s really his title) at  the UK Trade and Investment Agency in Boston,   the chef in charge of food for an elegant reception at the Global Clean Tech Meetup 2013, took center stage. In  explaining how his kitchen at the  Boston Seaport Hotel is working toward sustainability, Chef Khaled Abi Issa said:

“At first it seemed like a difficult thing. But  after you move past the resistance to change and the doubters and the initial up-front expenses….to our surprise, it seemed very much achievable.”

Chef Khaled and his team started with recyling, then began to collect food scraps for composting, he said.  They then focused on building  relationships with local and regional suppliers– farmers, bakers and cheese makers.

The kitchen now has its own  herb garden, makes honey on the hotel campus, is increasingly using recycled containers, has eliminated styrofoam from the campus and has embarked on an initiative to reduce energy use in its storage areas.

“This is an ongoing process, it’s hard work and we are not there yet, but we feel good about our commitment, he said.

The “green kitchen”effort is part of an overall campaign by the hotel to operate in an “eco-friendly” manner, according to  Katie Watson, conference manager at the Seaport Hotel World Trade Center.

As described on the Seaport  Web site, the campaign, called “Seaport Saves”  is dedicated to increasing sustainability and conservation. “It is possible to coexist in a delicate balance with the natural world while providing exceptional service in a luxurious setting.” the Website reads. (The hotel features “environmentally friendly guest rooms,’ local, farm to table organic dining options, green cleaning practices. It also offers complimentary electric vehicle charging stations; and bicycles and helmets  for guests).

At the reception, I  also spoke with:

• Howard Simansky, CEO of  Cambridge-based media company 360 Chestnut and  board member of SmartHomze, which he described as “the world’s first line of affordable, net-zero-energy homes.” Solar powered, all five sizes of Smarthomze use proprietary building systems and new materials to ensure lower costs, high quality, and a healthier environment, he said. I also met (among others):
• Jim Bowen, Boston-based Division Manager for International Renewable Energy at Vertex Engineering, who is working on a major solar site in Mexico City
• Chad Joshi, President and CEO of Altranex, a Toronto company with  a waste-based  biofuel to replace diesel–unusual in that it remains fluid in very cold temperatures
• Paul Laskow, of SaveEnergySystems in Somerville, which offers technology to help mid-sized companies measure and conserve their use of fuel.

BTW–In case you’re curious about the green kitchen’s menu: the beef, artichoke pasta,  lamb, burger sliders, spinach pie, and pastries were delicious.  I especially liked the chocolate-filled chocolate bonbons…and the Pinot. But, with apologies to the chef.the lentil burgers…not so much.

I wish I could have spent more time at the meetup–which included many high level speakers ( Masschusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Diarmuid O’Connell, VP of corporate and Business Development at Tesla Motors, for example) and companies from as far away as Norway and Israel. For more information, about the meetup, go to the conference website at https://meetup2013.pathable.com/#meetings.

As for the MassCEC: it began operating in 2009  with the goal of accelerating the growth of the Massachusetts clean energy industry. According to Catherine Williams, the  CEC’s  Senior Director for Communications,  as the  first agency of its kind in the US. , the Clean Energy Center:

(1) Provides financing and planning assistance to communities, businesses and residents seeking to adopt clean energy projects including solar, wind, biomass, water and organics-to-energy technologies.

(2) Works  with clean energy businesses to grow their operations, provide training and workforce development, develop industry reports and sector analysis, and act as a connector across the clean energy ecosystem from academia and incubators to entrepreneurs and investors.

(3) Provides strategic and early-stage investments growing clean energy companies in order to promote the development of innovative technologies, leverage private capital and create jobs in the Commonwealth..

The  Center is financed by  the Renewable Energy Trust Fund,  created by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1998 as part of the deregulation of the electric utility market. The trust is funded by a systems benefit charge paid by electric ratepayers of investor-owned utilities in Massachusetts, as well as municipal electric departments that have opted to participate in the program.

—Anita Harris

Anita Harris is a writer and consultant based in Cambridge MA. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group,an award-winning  PR & market development firm based in Kendall Square. HarrisCom specializes in outreach for health, science, technology and energy in the US and internationally.