As cultural spaces dwindle in Boston, artists get creative, founding galleries in a V-nosed trailer in a suburban parking lot, in a spiffed-up shed, in a dining room, in a studio, on a fridge. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/01/a...

Painter William Collin aims to show the tension between what is seen and what is felt. "I See Myself in You," at Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol Community College in Fall River (through Oct. 16), features his paintings of Black young men and boys. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/standing-i...

Here's your periodic "what the hell is going on?" update on the federal government and the arts. But also! Putting Disney in its place, how hubris leads to downfall, the force that bridges divides, and how societal upheaval parallels studio practice. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/cracking-o...

Meet illusionist Jeanette Andrews, visiting artist at MIT Center for Art, Science, & Technology interested in metacognition. Her October show at MIT, "The Attestation: A Performance of Illusions” uses magic to examine how polarized beliefs work. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/22/a...

Susan Jane Belton has spent her career avoiding the figure. Until now. For her show at Anderson Yezerski "Familiar Strangers" she painted people she found in snapshots. "In the spirit of 'if not now, when?' I decided to make a radical change," she writes. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/susan-jane...

I have house shame. I don’t invite people over. I bought my house 20 years ago, and mostly I’ve treated it like a burden. Recently, I sat with those feelings. Now, my iceberg of house shame is thawing – which is good, right? But it sure stings. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-iceber...

Alaina Mahoney fell in love with metal at MassArt. Now she's a blacksmith at AM Design and Fabrication, doing ornamental iron work and fabrication for artists. Alaina has a painting studio right next to the metal shop. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/08/a...

Conny Goelz-Schmitt resurrects vintage books into collages. The stories are gone. The bones remain, and they rise and dance. This may be a new language, but in it old books speak – if you’ll permit a pun – volumes. How she does it in today's Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/patience-b...

On Friday night on Boston City Hall Plaza, artist Adela Goldbard returned us to a first encounter between Europeans and Indigenous people, usin pyrotechnics to burn a quarter-scale replica of a Colonial-era ship. More in Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/whose-home...

Part of the statement from the @transjournalists.org on reporting details of the the Charlie Kirk shooting investigation. Full statement here: www.transjournalists.org/tja-urges-ca...

Sophia Ainslie's process for her "Woven" exhibition at Gallery NAGA entails dancing between stream of consciousness mark-making and appraising with a keen eye to complicate the image. Right brain, left brain, right brain, left brain. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/but-what-h...

Fear causes tunnel vision. Painter Andrae Green's "Paradise/Mash-up" at Boston Center for the Arts widens the lens. Green is from Jamaica, but it's not his immigration story that refutes the Trumpian world view. It’s the breadth of his imagination. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-best-d...

Mélieajade Tremblay-Bouchard went to circus camp when she was five, and a teacher there told her she had the body of a contortionist. Today, at 28, she's in the Montreal circus collective 7 Fingers, performing "Passengers" at American Repertory Theater. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/a...

Iwalani Kaluhiokalani's multidisciplinary installation The Radiance Chasers at Emerscon Contemporary explores light as creator and destroyer. She writes about making it – with painting, paper cut-outs, video mapping, sound, and AI – in Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/renewal-in...

“I call myself a wiggler,” popper Alanna Logan said. “My movement is a bit awkward, I have a hip-hop pocket. I’m more bounce oriented.” She took second place at Red Bull Dance Your Style East USA. She'll be in @bostonarts.org Arts HellaBlack Vol. 7 on Oct. 3. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/25/a...

Last week I introduced "This is not my story" in Ocean in a Drop – a memoir with video commentary reflecting on the limitations of childhood keep falling away. Here's Chapter 1: Midnight Mass, in which my father receives Holy Communion from my mother's lover. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/midnight-m...

In Andromeda Lisle's art, animal forms cascade with patterns referencing cellular structure and Indigenous mythology. She designed a mural of a humpback whale and calf at the new Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper Schools and Community Complex in Cambridge. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/18/a...

I wrote a memoir, "Communion: A Memoir of Family, Secrets, and Love." I resisted posting on Substack; I am fueled by writing about what’s happening today. Now I see I can tie it to today with video. There's no paywall. Come take a look. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/this-is-no...

Jerome Greene's art taps Ptown's wellspring of beauty, community, and music. He's a plein-air painter and he sketches musicians as they perform around town. Provincetown Public Art Foundation invited Jerome to paint a trap shed mural on MacMillan Pier. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-lifes-...

At the White House, the Rose Garden has been paved over with concrete and the Oval Office has been adorned with Rococo gold gilding. Then there's the more insidious rebranding we can track by watching federally funded institutions. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/state-of-t...

At a 2021 residency, Carly Glovinski came upon the foundation of Wild Knoll, the house writer May Sarton's described in "The House By the Sea" back in 1977. She resurrected the garden. She still tends it. Her career is flourishing, too. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/04/a...

“Soul of a Nation: Voices of Resilience in Ukrainian Folk Art” at Fuller Craft Museum celebrates traditions kept alive by artists often under siege: Ukrainian Easter eggs, intricately patterned ceramics, wood carvings, embroidery, and more. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/06/a...

Twice last week, I looked at someone dear going having a hard time and thought, “I don’t have to take this on. They know how to take care of themselves.” It felt odd. I’ve always tuned into a friend's distress and sent my soul out of my body to tend to them. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/on-letting...

When Rachel Sumner was 18, she volunteered at the Telluride Blue Grass Festival. Last month, the Boston-area musician went back for the first time. Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light, and took home first prize in the Telluride Band Contest. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/28/a...

I was at ODD-KIN last week minding my own business when one a sculpture nudged me from behind. This is the first show of the Tory Fair's kinetic flowers – and they're amazing. Playful, sad, weirdly human. Here, Tory writes about making "Grief." catemcquaid.substack.com/p/jiggles-sw...

When so much feels beyond repair, why is art is more about comfort and joy? "A Gathering," curated by Olivia Baldwin at Brandeis's Kniznick Gallery, accepts that loss is inevitable. And still isn’t it glorious to be a living human who can love and express? catemcquaid.substack.com/p/arriving-i...

Jay Hungate has two creative deadlines looming. As a stone carver, he's working on 5½ tons of granite for a commission for the Lowell Cemetery. he said. Then there’s a giant snail on wheels — Hungate’s entry in the Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race on Sept. 20. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/21/a...

Phyllis Ewen's sculptural drawings address the changing volatility of Earth's surface. The ground we’re standing on is shifting right beneath our feet, and works like "Polar Melt" don’t flinch from that It's on view at Wellfleet Adult Community Center. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/rising-sea...

Fear is easy enough to name. But I don’t usually notice it from a place of reason and compassion. Usually, my inner narrative goes more like: “We’re all doomed!” Then, “Wait, that’s fear. Make it stop!” That only makes it worse. This morning was different. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-gulf-b...

This past school year, Szu-Chieh Yun led more than 170 Boston kids in the MFA's Community Arts Initiative. They made a massive mural, "Into the Forest," on view now. “There were 17 wolves in one forest.” Szu said. She asked, "How do you overcome fear?" www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/14/a...

James Parker Foley shared his process about Head Above Water at Sarah Bouchard Gallery. “This painting was about wanting to be in a different place with my body,” he said. “It was like, ‘This thing that I'm feeling every day. How does it make me feel?’” catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-open-s...

I went to see Marcy Hermansader's mystical show "The Secret Sky" at Pulp Holyoke and found myself caught up in her detail and otherworldly possibility. Seeing her work literally changed my trajectory as if I’d stepped out of logic and into reverie. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/going-wher...

Jennifer Day paints the ephemeral – light and water and clouds in grayscale. She's also a sculptor, demolishing and refashioning found objects. In "Scaffold" at Bromfield Gallery, she makes on construction sites, noting the transitory nature of the material world. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/07/a...

In Ordinary Magic at storefront art projects, Danielle Krcmar's work – mossy, stony, earthbound sculptures or spiraling clouds drifting overhead – frame Audrey Goldstein's more thunderous pieces, which might describe a purgatory between heaven and earth. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-center...

What fun to visit with puppeteer Sarah Nolen in her studio! The resident artist at Puppet Showplace Theater is gearing up to perform her original show "Party Animals," written with composer Phil Berman, at UnCommonStage July 5. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/23/a...

For Ezri Horne and Indigo Conat-Naar's project, "You draw my house, I'll draw yours," in "Going Nowhere in Either Direction" at Piano Craft Gallery, each described their memory to the other. In today's Ocean in a Drop, they describe how that process went. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/intimate-d...

This is a picture of Ai-da, a robotic artist. An Ai-da painting sold for $1.1 million at Sotheby's last November. But can Ai-da make art? New technology throws the rulebook out about imagination and identity. How will AI will shape humanity? catemcquaid.substack.com/p/reach-out-...

For decades, Ann Ledy worked all in black and white. When a Manship Artists Residency brought her to Gloucester in 2022, everything changed. "Ann Ledy Paints" is at Jane Deering Gallery. Ann writes about "Portals" in Work in Progress in Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/color-was-...

The inaugural Arrival Art Fair is underway in North Adams this weekend. In 2023, founders Yng-Ru Chen, Crystalle Lacouture, and Sarah Galender Meyer booked up Tourists, where they're hosting panel discussions, exhibitions, live music and more than 30 exhibitors. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/13/a...

Boston City Archaeologist Joe Bagley and his team have been unearthing untold stories in Charlestown as we approach the Battle of Bunker Hill's 250th anniversary. They want to know more about the citizens who fled the chaos – including women and people of color. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/11/a...

Bianca Fields' "Endships" just ended at LaMontagne Gallery. Bianca uses paint to get at the goop of society, the soul, the shadow, and it's alchemical. She makes space on her canvas for the disowned, the tender, and the wild. Here's how she made "Maskia." catemcquaid.substack.com/p/enter-into...

13. When everything your parents taught you about being a nice girl, all the care they took in shaping your world, slams into reality. I started wearing a hat.Today's Ocean in a Drop is about being 13. Trigger warning: A boy exposes himself in this story. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/hat-girl-p...

Artist Milisa Moses helps nature speak through sunlight, placing photo-sensitive paper outside on the beach. Her show Sun Writings is at Farm Projects through June 9. In today's Ocean in a Drop, how she made Betelgeuse (Marconi Series). catemcquaid.substack.com/p/light-scribe

Kirstin Lamb blends Photorealism, cross-stitch patterns and paint in images inside forests. She's this week's Work in Progress artist in Ocean in a Drop. In June, she curates "Thicket" at Overlap in Newport. She has a solo show coming to NAGA in September. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/lost-in-th...

There's some terrific art to see in the MFA thesis shows BU, SMFA at Tufts, and MassArt. These shows are always forward-thinking. Several artists make work combining queer ecology and the juiciness of the subjective experience. Here's today's Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/when-hiera...

The NEA canceled funds to MASS MoCA and Fuller Craft Museum, among others. The letters indicated the grants no longer reflected the priorities of this administration. Other institutions face subtler threats. Who determines how we tell the American story? catemcquaid.substack.com/p/who-tells-...

I stopped by Helena Wurzel's studio to chat about painting and motherhood. Lanie's fluid, pattern-rich work is autobiographical. Now, it's the kids, the family… and the stuff they generate. Including the mental workload. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/05/a...

Lucy Kim tries to get vision to go on the fritz. Her op-arty paintings are sculptural casts of ordinary things. Lucy made a cast of sand at low tide and painted it with patterns from orchids. You can see it in her upcoming show at at Praise Shadows Art Gallery. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/28/a...

Kristen Mallia organized "Dirt" at 249 A St. featuring her ritual-based and graphic work and Big Dig photographs by Don Eyles. I invited Kristen to chart the making of a work. She opted for "Substratum," a compost project and a framework for generativity. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/unknowns-r...

This week has been filled with fear for me about the country, about democracy. About my sick cat. Worries snowball, and I snap into old patterns that blow small anxieties to cartoonish proportions. What to do with my inner drama queen? Witness. Breathe. Wait. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/when-we-lo...