I’m totally pleased to report that I’ve received my second covid shot–Pfizer, at Fenway Park–and, despite a very sore arm, I want to offer thanks and kudos to CIC-health for a well-run and pleasant experience.

As I’ve written in the past, I spent 10 years as a client at CIC Cambridge, which offers shared office space to many startups in an environment that is uplifting, educational and supportive. I found the same at Fenway, which, I am embarrassed to admit, I had, before this week, visited only once in all the years I’ve lived in Cambridge.

I was able to park for free in a space with no meter across from Entrance A, on Jersey Street; someone called out on a loudspeaker not to come to the entrance until 15 minutes before the appointment time. So I waited for a few minutes, then showed my email confirmation to a pleasant fellow managing the door.

Inside, I picked up a new mask to replace my own, answered a few questions about my health status, and then got in line.

.While waiting, I took photos–which an assistant said was fine, as long as I didn’t show any faces. I found the covid advice amidst the ads for hotdogs and such amusing; likewise, red sox on the signs.

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Within ten minutes, I reached the front of the line and was directed to a desk where, it turned out, shifts were changing and a tech was advising another administrator, a doctor, how to work the computer system.

While waiting, I snappped photos of techs filling syringes at a station where spectators ordinarily buy beer.

Then, after asking a few questions and confirming my ID, the doc gave me the shot (it stung a bit) and told me he was glad I had come. I said I was, too, and also that HE had.

Next –into a waiting area.

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After hanging out for the required 15 minutes, I got a few more shots (haha) and resolved to come back for better ones on a nicer day.

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Heading back to Cambridge, I gave silent thanks to CIC and the team that had made what might have been a nerve wracking experience into a rather pleasant way to spend an hour or less. I’m greatful to be moving into what I hope will soon be a post-covid,”Go Sox ” world. Who knows–maybe I’ll even get to a game!

Anita M. Harris is a writer and communications consultant based on Cambridge, MA.

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

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Concord’s LaCoste Gallery has hit the ball out of the park yet again–this time with a remarkable and timely show by Massachusetts ceramicist Paul Briggs. The show, “Intuitive Responses: Poetic Justice in Clay,” centers on six sculptures, each inspired by a a specific poem written a noted black poet. The poets are: Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, Audrey Lorde, Harryette Mullen and Sonia Sanchez.

The works, part of Briggs’ “Cell Personae” series, are built and glazed to resemble prison bars and chains–but, as Briggs explained at an opening on February 13, 2021, they shows that despite oppression, the human spirit prevails.

Briggs writes in his artist’s statement:
The poetry series came about as a way to look for hope and strength during these difficult times and their impact on people of color. It is my work toward finding courage in light of my ongoing work concerning legal violence and incarceration, the disproportionate number of people impacted by the pandemic, and the awakening the siege on the capital brought about as we witnessed the different manner in which people protesting under the banner of Black Lives Matter received versus those flying banners of white supremacy. What became clear was the degree to which black poetry included so much pain and power.”

At first, I found the work intense and powerful, yet off -putting—I mean, who wants to look at what seem to be iron bars and cages in the midst of a covid pandemic? But when Briggs explained more about what the works showed, they became, for me, profound and freeing. One of my favorites, “I’ve Known Rivers,” was inspired by a poem in which Langston Hughes relates history and flowing water to the depth of the soul. Brigg’s sculpture appears to be an iron-bar frame, locked in place by knotted chains–but the knots seem to give way to graceful flowing arcs which escape the bars–forming a waterfall-like structure that cannot be constrained.

Another work, Brigg’s “Caged Bird, “, which includes sculptures of two birds behind bars, references the Maya Angelou poem of the same name. It’s final paragraph reads:

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

A link to the photos of the sculptures and their poetic inspirations follows the main writeup at https://www.lucylacoste.com/exhibitions/paul-s-briggs

According to Lucy Lacoste, the gallery founder and owner,

Briggs has said that ceramics are, for him, a way to philosophize concretely.” In this seemingly contradictory phrase, we already get a sense of his work, in which deep structures of thought and feeling find material equivalents. Briggs’ series Cell Personae exemplifies this approach. It is his personal response to the “other” pandemic raging through America – the mass incarceration of Black people, which is itself an act of grand-scale criminality. The works amount to a firm, resolved protest against this ongoing tragedy. Each is rectilinear, evoking the confining dimensions of a jail cell, and contains within it a nest of serpentine forms. They could be taken as symbolizing the psychic energy of imprisoned individuals – complex thoughts and emotional torment – or perhaps, more optimistically, the inevitability of eventual change. The works are remarkable for re-scripting the basic vocabulary of ceramics (slab construction and coils); Briggs brings to these familiar techniques a wholly new, compressed and clear meaning, of great relevance in this year of reckoning with issues of race in America.

The exhibit, at 25 Main Street, Concord MA, will run Monday-Saturday 12-5 through March 13, 2021.

–Anita M. 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.

Our friend R in San Antonio reports on the current weather situation in Texas…perhaps giving new meaning to the idea of “power politics.” He asked that his name not be used. —Anita Harris

To our friends who have been worried about us because of the crazy weather:  

Thank you for your expressions of concern.  We are fine.  Here is the story.  

We heard that last Saturday, the temperatures would go below freezing and our insurance company (State Farm) advised us to keep the water running to prevent the pipes from freezing.  We did that, and the pipes never froze.  In addition, the external parts of our pipes have long been covered with insulation.  What I did on Saturday was to put heating pads on the external pipes and turn the temperature of the pads up to the maximum.  I plugged the heating pads into an outlet in our bedroom.  The window there is open a crack and I put towels there to keep from freezing.   We have slept very comfortably.  

On Sunday night, it snowed about 4 inches. and that is when the problems started, mostly for the city, not for us, but unfortunately for many of our friends.  The electric company instituted rolling blackouts.  In theory they were supposed to be 15 minutes on, 45 minutes off, each hour, but in reality, they morphed into 5 minutes on, 23 hours, 55 minutes off, every day or simply being off for a couple of days straight.  Since we use gas for heating and since our power never went off, we were fine, but many people we know were not.  Collecting the data from these people I gathered that the electric company was punishing the major individual users (i.e., people who use electricity for heating) and neighborhoods that are major users (i.e, ones with small houses close together).  Our neighborhood has houses that are pretty far apart so, collectively, I doubt that the neighborhood uses much electricity compared to many other parts of the city.   Also (alas) much of our neighborhood votes Republican and even though the city government is Democratic and progressive, the individuals in charge of the power grid are Republican appointees. They have done a miserable job. 

 To make matters worse, because of the power failures and the bursting of pipes, the city water company has had to cut off water from many people (add these to the people who have no water because their own pipes burst). The water company fears that the water will back up and that raw sewage will come out of the faucets so they have advised people to boil their water.  (Of course, if you have no power, you can’t boil water).  In our case, we get our water directly from the aquifer, via a pump located at least 300 feet underground.  As long as we have power, we will have no water problems but we are stockpiling some water, just in case.  So, many people have been freezing in the cold and darkness and suffering from thirst.  Our former governor, Rick Perry, a Republican, says that Texans would rather freeze than endure federal regulation.  The city has opened the Convention Center and other buildings to people who need to keep warm.  Naturally, these places would be superspreaders of the Covid virus.  And just when the city had turned the corner and cases in San Antonio were going down rapidly!  

It was very unusual to see our cars buried in the snow.  We had not had a real snowstorm here since January 1985.  The temperature on Monday dropped to about 10 degrees.  

In terms of our personal situation, the weather has affected us a little bit.  First, L’s second Covid vaccination, scheduled for yesterday, had to be canceled.  They are supposed to contact her soon to re-schedule.  Our internet connection vanished on Tuesday and has just resumed today (Thursday).  I called AT&T and they told me that the cold weather had damaged some of their centers so that the internet was going down all over Texas and Oklahoma.  Our newspaper stopped being delivered as did our mail and the recycling has not been picked up.  We even ran out of coffee, meaning that we are threatened with the end of civilization as we know it.  Yesterday, our daughter volunteered to go out to get coffee.  Fortunately, much but not all of the snow and ice had melted by yesterday.  There was such a mob at the grocery store that she decided to try a drugstore.  It too was closed.  Then another one had all the shelves stripped bare.  The next place she tried was also mobbed   She observed that the traffic lights on Bandera Road were off and the traffic was not moving.  She spent about 20 minutes at the same spot before the police came and pushed a non-functional car out of the way.  The next place she went to was closed but finally she found an open drugstore and was still unable to get the coffee.   

We tried phoning people.  I could call or text some people but my efforts to contact my Argentine relatives failed.  Linda and Sara had similar problems with their phones.  

This morning when we got up all the snow had melted.  The driveway had turned to a sheet of ice so I had to navigate it very carefully as I went to look for the newspaper, which was not there.  Then at 8 AM it started to snow and it has not stopped.  It looks like it could be a blizzard although no blizzard is forecast.  It will probably taper off.  The forecast says that we will be above freezing by Saturday and that next Thursday the temperature will be 77.    

Interesting that our Republican senator, Ted Cruz, who fought until the last minute, claiming that Trump won in November, has flown off for a Mexican vacation in Cancun, while his constituents freeze in the dark and are afraid of drinking the water here.  I propose that, in the spirit of denialism, which he is very good at (e.g. climate change), Ted demonstrate that the water situation is fine by drinking a glass of tap water in Cancun.  

Life is interesting here.  So far, we are all fine and likely to stay that way.  

Un abrazo, as they say in Texas.   R

–Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. R is a childhood friend.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a PR and digital marketing firm, also in Cambridge.

A friend told me recently that during Covid, with no students and many beloved businesses closed, she finds Harvard Square so depressing that she no longer wants to go there. I have a different take.

It is true that early in the pandemic the Square was desolate.

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But since the Phase I reopening last summer, I’ve gone there almost every day.

After running on the Charles River, I often head to Henrietta’s Cafe for coffee, outdoors–yes, it’s freezing– but the wonderful staffers there have pretty much gotten me through the year. (Their number is sparser now: with limited seating and very few customers, several servers have been laid off, others work just one day a week instead of their previous five, and those who returned to college in the fall have not been brought back, at all). But those who are there graciously ask me about the book I’m working on, and even laugh at (some of) my jokes.

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A few weeks ago, I took a longer look –camera in hand. Yes, Dickson Brothers is closed, the “Dewey Cheatem and Howe” office of public radio duo” Click and Clack” is gone, as are tea shops, coffee shops, and stores like Staples that I’ve frequented for years.

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The Red House, once my favorite restaurant, still serves great food but mostly, since even before Covid, it’s a pot shop. Book stores-turned- clothing stores have been turned into banks; the former Au Bon Pain is now the Harvard Student Center; Legal Seafoods has been shuttered and sold; the iconic Out of Town News has closed, and the newstand that once stood on the corner, opposite, is now a milk bar.

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Walking around, I tried to imagine riding a bike into the Square or eating at Charlie’s Kitchen in a plastic hut.

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I was pleased to see that Cardullo’s has survived, along with national chain stores like CVS, Starbucks , Peets Coffee, and the Gap…

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At Citizens Bank , I was welcomed like a long lost friend. (In the summer, they cheered me on when I showed up with the pool noodle I carried for social distancing…or, perhaps, they were just overjoyed to see a customer–or any human face) .

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By now, the Charles Hotel has been remodelled–It still has its fancy modern exterior, but inside, the lobby has been divided into smaller, cozier rooms with a historic, bookish feel.

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The Coop is under construction; as is the block where Curious George, Deluxe Tea, Urban Outfitters and Dickson Brothers used to be.

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I found myself rushing to capture as much of the present as I could before it became the past. In the near-wreckage, I came across this mural signed “by Dennis.”

Around another corner, while I shot photos of pictures of the old Square superimposed on what will be walls of the new , a construction foreman yelled out, “You’re not allowed to do that!” I asked, “Why not?” He said, “Just kidding,” and insisted on taking my photo, with my phone (Covid be damned!), alongside a construction truck.

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After that, I spritzed on some hand sanitizer and headed home –feeling not depressed but, rather, elated…. by the people, by the energy, and by the beauty of the changing scene: its light, its lines, its colors, its shapes. Snapping photos, I had become part of that scene, experiencing my own transformation, excited to see what the world will look like after Covid, after Trump, after this difficult winter, as we create new futures for ourselves and for one another.

–Anita Harris is an award-winning writer, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA.
-New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a PR and digital marketing firm, also in Cambridge, MA.

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.

As a blogger and journalist, I’ve been appalled by recent attacks on the free press by the current administration.

This is not to say that I haven’t been a critic of the press myself: soon after college, I became a journalist by founding a weekly alternative newspaper called the Harrisburg Independent Press (yes, aka “HIP“)–partly in response to the traditional media’s failure to address many social, economic, and political issues of the day. (I’ll be writing more about HIP in the months to come; I’m now working on a book about my experience, there) .

After a year in Harrisburg, I wrote for two alternative newspapers: the Boston Phoenix and the Real Paper, in Cambridge.

For various reasons (mainly that neither paper would hire me full time or even put my name on the masthead–well, the RP already had a woman reporter–she covered “women’s stuff” ) I decided that in order to get anywhere, I needed some establishment credentials so went to New York, for journalism school at Columbia.

Upon graduation , I stayed in New York–working first for a fellow who was a bit of a maniac (he drooled when he yelled at me), then for the city’s major Muzak station. ( I won awards for documentaries including one from a radical feminism perspective on prostitution and pornography in New York–more to come on that, as well) a. After that, for five years, I covered health, science, technology, law and justice –and other topics!–for MacNeil/Lehrer (now the Newshour), of PBS.

Eventually, I returned to Boston to teach and write; subsequently became a communications consultant, author, blogger, etc. etc., which I’ve now been for more than 20 years.

...in July 1973, an alternative weekly newspaper in Boston called The Real Paper offered this for a lead headline: “Women Derelicts: To Be Old, Homeless and Drunk.”

The story said there were as many as 1,000 poor women living on the streets of Boston. The tales were disturbing. Ordinary women with names like Mary, Ann, and Masha, living in squalor in abandoned buildings; too sick from drinking to work; selling sexual favors for $1 in bars and alleys. And always looking for a place to sleep.

One doctor quoted by reporter Anita Harris was skeptical there was a problem at all. “You must have been talking to the women’s libbers,” he told Harris. Yet it turned out the city’s welfare department had quietly started a homeless women’s division.

This story gripped [Kip] Tiernan and wouldn’t let go. It shined a light on a strange truth in the upheaval of the early 1970s: Women were unequal to men even in poverty.

Ultimately, Tiernan founded the shelter, which became a model for many others, nationwide.

Because I had lived in New York for so many years, I had no idea, until last month, that my article had had such an important impact.

This past weekend, the Globe published “Making a Difference,” a letter to the editor in which I thanked Healy “for her remarkably well-researched piece on Rosie’s Place and for tracing its founding back 47 years to an article I wrote, which until now, I had no idea had profoundly impacted the lives of so many women.

“These days, with the free press under assault, Healy’s article provides yet more evidence of the power of the press to make the world a better place — simply by telling the truth. Thanks, Beth Healy, for paying it forward.”

I hope to continue pay it forward…That is, to make a difference through this blog, my books, and other writing. I also hope that the free press will survive…flourish, even…to give the truth a voice in these difficult times.

Anita Harris is an author, blogger and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. (She is not the British rock star, the Somerville School Committee member, or the Australian feminist writer).

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and digital marketing firm also based in Cambridge.

Now that Massachusetts has made it into phase 3 of the covid reopening, I’m pleased that our new cases are remaining low and that, perhaps in light of what’s happening elsewhere in the country, more folks seem to be wearing masks, outdoors.

I’m also pleased that, of late, no one has cursed me out (and vice versa) and that those who do call me names now use positive terms. Yesterday, someone actually called out “genius” and the day before, “creative! ” Sometimes, I hear people chuckling as they pass by.

That’s been true for a few weeks, now–ever since the Christmas Tree Shop reopened and I was able to buy a pool noodle which I sport to maintain social distance of almost six feet when running on Fresh Pond or the Charles.

It wasn’t really my idea (a friend told me he’d seen people doing that in New York’s Central Park) but, hey, I’m willing to take credit if this becomes a Cambridge fashion trend. (And I hope it does).

I’d also like to thank some folks and organizations for helping me through the pandemic—in what has not been an easy time:

Ranger Jean, of Fresh Pond, who listened and commiserated when I told her about the maskless covidiot who called me a motherFxxxr when I told him masks were required; she told me not to interact, that people should feel happy on Fresh Pond.

Heidi M. of Evolve Fitness of Cambridge and Framingham, whose Zoom Zumba class, smile and joy lifted my spirits on Saturday mornings before the covid reopening.

Jennifer Miles, whose City of Cambridge online yoga classes continue to provide me with peace, calm and a regular schedule. https://www.facebook.com/huronvillageyoga

Heather Cox Richardson, whose biweekly lectures on political history have taught me ever-so- much about the situations we are facing today .

-The good-natured helpful people at Trader Joe’s and CVS, and the nice older Star Market checkout clerk (I don’t know his name) who offered that he went to Boston College, not BU; and the Starbucks barista who wished me a good day as I walked out the door with my half -caf .

-Virginia and Maya (in the photo below)and Sheldon at the newly reopened Henrietta’s Cafe, at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, whose spirit, joy , encouragement and coffee (!) give me great energy to complete my book-in progress.

And Sarah, for taking the photo of me with the pool noodle, and for adding that cinnamon to my coffee!

–Anita Harris

Anita M. Harris is an author, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA.

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

This past weekend, I was ecstatic to attend my first gallery opening since March, when shelter in place restrictions began. I was equally ecstatic that this was at Lacoste, in Concord; that it featured the work of a 20-something Newton native, female artist; and that. in keeping with the Lacoste tradition of sponsoring diverse and female artists the gallery will be donating 18 per cent of sales to the Black Lives Matter cause. And also: that I learned a lot.

The exhibit.
The exhibit, “In Response to George Ohr,” features the work of Newton, MA ceramicist Lily Fein, who. in January 2020, traveled to Louisiana and Mississippi to to study the work of George Ohr -an American ceramic artist and the self-proclaimed “Mad Potter of Biloxi.” ^[1] 

Ohr, born in 1857, died largely unknown in 1918. For decades, his pots sat in a garage behind his sons’ gas station in Biloxi.  But “his work is currently viewed as ground-breaking and a harbinger of the abstract sculpture and pottery that developed in the mid-20th century. His pieces are now relatively rare and highly coveted^,,” according to Wikipedia.

Fein writes that she “was attracted to how Ohr inverted the metaphor of the vessel–what one would expect to live in the inside of the hollow object manifests itself on the exterior of the pot. In turn, as much as a pot references the human body, Ohr put the insides of human bodies on the outside of his pots. He made the underlying connection between the vessel and the body overt: putting excremement in teacups and making vulva piggy banks. [This is Anita: Ew…sounds gross]. He was not shy, which posthumously gave other clay artists permission to play.”

Fein went South thinking that seeing Ohr’s work in the stacks at the New Orleans Museum of Art and at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi would bring “revelations and new approaches” to her own work. As she moved through the stacks and and “made work” in the South, she realized that that she needed to claim her relationship to Ohr apart from him and the objects and persona he created–asserting her own narrative through repeated motifs and gestures–“in conversation with Ohr’s signature twists and folds, but continuing to change.”

Whereas Ohr used a pottery wheel in creating his vessels, Fein’s work begins with coiling the clay, and pinching it. She then alters the pieces and changes their form. Often pushing out from the inside of the vessel, creating rib-like features, she squeezes parts of the exterior to create folds, and sometimes uses a needle to methodically poke holes in the surface and create a new texture. “I am continually reminded of how Ohr claimed his clay gestures in his lifetime while I continue to develop my own, in mine, ” she writes.

Unaware of any of this upon entering the gallery, my friend Chrissie and I did not know quite what to make of Fein’s work–but found it beautiful, intriguing, and sometimes humorous. For example–I probably shouldn’t admit this– one vessel looked to me like someone’s legs sticking upside down out of a wine jug. Chrissy discovered an image of a corresponding Ohr vase on the site of the Museum of Metropolitan Art, below.

Lucy Lacoste, the gallery founder and owner, explains that “Ohr’s pots have a flamboyant sensuality often bordering on the erotic. They can have a visceral, direct sexuality, as can be seen in his famous money bank—the front is a vulva and the back, a breast.”

I couldn’t readily find an image of the money bank online–so will leave that to your imagination. But here’s one of Ohr’s pieces that one might perhaps, consider sensual/sexual:

Lacoste explains that “Lily Fein’s sensuality is intuitive, organic, implied—naturally reflecting the outer female sex organs.  This is evident in her Vulva series.  The edge is important. The clay reflects the way she touched and pinched the clay—as if it were skin. ” Link to video

In Fein’s show, I found one work especially interesting. It was roughly shaped, with shiny royal blue glaze on the inside–and a flat-finished outer surface that Fein said she had stuck many times with a needle–and was meant to look “bruised.”

Commitment to Diversity
Regarding the gallery’s commitment to diversity, Lacoste writes on her website:”Like many other businesses in the arts, we are searching for ways to fight the injustices that remain prevalent in this country.  

“Now more than ever, it’s important to go beyond saying we stand with oppressed communities. We must take measurable actions.  We do agree that if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. 

“Out of regard for the important protests occurring across the country, we postponed the Fein opening June 21. To amplify voices less heard, Lily Fein and the Gallery are committing 18% of sales from this exhibition to the Boston chapter of the Black Lives Matters organization. 

“Our statement is brief out of respect for those with lived experiences who are leading the way to human rights for all.”

Earlier, Lacoste presented $2,500 to Emerson Hospital for its  COVID-19 Relief fund. The money was raised by the sale of work by Montana ceramic artists Beth Lo and Adrian Arleo and by Lucy Lacoste Gallery.

Numerous recent Lacoste exhibits have been devoted to the work of women from a multitude of backgrounds.

The current Lacoste show will be on view through June 27, 2020 at 25 Main St., Concord, MA. Link to Website

–Anita M. Harris
Anita M. 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.