Dorchester Open Studios kicks off this weekend
(reproduced with permission from the artist)
Sandra Coleman is one of 20 artists showing their work at the First Parish Church during Dorchester Open Studios this week.
Dorchester Open Studios launches this weekend, and it promises to be the biggest turnout yet, with 122 participating artists, one third of whom have never before participated in the neighborhood-wide celebration of art.
It also marks a significant increase in participation over 2009, when 65 artists contributed. Last year saw a dip (in 2008, there were 86 participants), but Andrea Kunst, co-chairwoman of the Dorchester Arts Collaborative, the organization behind Open Studios, says she's encouraged by the increase.
Eight artists have opened up their home studios to the public (no one did last year), and the collaborative is courting more young artists and has live performances this year.
For a full listing of events, go to theDAC.org.
"What open studios is trying to do is represent all the people and the places and the histories of everybody who lives here through the arts," Kunst said. "Dorchester Arts Collaborative is exactly that. It's a collaborative. It's working with as many neighborhood associations and civic organizations as possible to try to facilitate and advance the arts in Dorchester."
The Dorchester Open Studios originated at the Pearl Street Studios but grew into a neighborhood-wide event when Rosanne Foley and Joyce Linehan teamed up and recruited other venues to create something on par with the open studios in the South End and Jamaica Plain.
"We felt it was important for people who came to Dorchester to view these wonderful art creations, talk to local artists, and experience the community in a really positive way," Foley said.
In 2002, Linehan and Foley founded the arts collaborative, and put on an ambitious open studios event.
"I was pretty ignorant about the whole logistical nightmare that open studios can be," Foley said. "We were just following the model of other events, that had a trolley that would take people around. That first year, we had something like 15 locations, which was, in hindsight, totally crazy."
There's no trolley anymore. But this year's guide map is unique because it includes not just artist spaces and gallery sites, but historical sites and places of interest in the nearly six-square-mile neighborhood.
It can be a challenge to draw non-residents into Dorchester, which doesn't have the same name recognition as an arts mecca that other Boston neighborhoods enjoy. It also has a rough reputation among non-locals to contend with, and, as the largest neighborhood in the city, it can be difficult to navigate.
"We're not the South End and we're not Fort Point, which are kind of destinations. People go there because they know the areas and they know their reputation. People don't know Dorchester," Kunst said. "One of our goals is to make open studios big enough and comprehensive enough and exciting enough that people who don't live here finally make the trip."
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