The Scorbutic Eye

Please join us on Saturday, July 7 from 4-6 pm for cocktails to celebrate the closing of Nicole Duennebier's solo exhibition View into the Fertile Country. 

More common in the Golden Age of Exploration, the "scorbutic eye" refers to a heightened sense of vision caused by scurvy, which made the world appear highly and overwhelmingly decorative. Explorers travelling to new lands who were afflicted with the scorbutic eye would sometimes faint from the visual intensity of their surroundings. Inspired by this bizarre phenomenon, Duennebier paints and draws imagined landscapes that invite viewers in to explore features that are simultaneously beautiful, intricate, and grotesque. 

Come experience the scorbutic eye for yourself! We'll have a signature cocktail and some snacks to celebrate. Read more about View into the Fertile Country here.

Above: Nicole Duennebier, Folded Landscape at Dusk, acrylic on panel

Outside|In

Bringing public art into the gallery

Together with the Arlington Commission on Arts & Culture and Arlington Public Art, 13FOREST Gallery is pleased to present Outside|In, a series of artist talks about public art along the Minuteman Bikeway. 

The Minuteman Bikeway has been a vital thoroughfare for commuters and those seeking recreation for the past 25 years. Passing through the historic area where the American Revolution began, the Minuteman Bikeway now unites the towns of Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, and Bedford, and is one of the most popular and successful rail trails in the United States.

To commemorate the Minuteman Bikeway's 25th anniversary, a series of public art projects are being installed along the beloved path. Collectively known as Pathways, these installations inspire conversation and appreciation for a treasured local resource which runs just a few blocks from the gallery. 13FOREST Gallery is happy to further these conversations by hosting talks with the artists behind these works. Join us this summer and fall to learn more about public art and the important role it plays in our community. 

Pathways is supported in part by a grant from the Arlington Cultural Council, a local agency funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. The Rhetoric of Opposites is supported in part by a donation from SunBug Solar. The installations can be found between Linwood Circle and Swan Place, near the Kickstand Cafe.

Schedule of Events

Sat 7/29/17, 4-6 pm: The Rhetoric of Opposites, Nilou Moochhala

Wed 8/30/17, 6-8 pm: Flutter, Claudia Ravaschiere and Michael Moss

Sun 9/24/17, 2-4 pm: Down the Wormhole with Skunk

Sat 10/21/17, 4-6 pm: Ripple, Adria Arch and the Arlington Knitting Brigade and Current, Frank Vasello. Event details here. 

Featured Artists

Ripple, Adria Arch and the Arlington Knitting Brigade

Created by Adria Arch and the 57 volunteers of the Arlington Knitting Brigade, Ripple celebrates art, nature and community. Brigade members knitted and crocheted unique panels using a shared palette developed by Arch. Wrapped around tree trunks, their work has transformed a small grove of Norway maples into a magical place of the imagination -- filled with vibrant color, varied patterns, and rich textures.

Current, Frank Vasello

Current is a site-specific sculpture for the Minuteman Bikeway that is constructed entirely from natural materials gathered along the Bikeway. The sculpture responds to the unique location and terrain along the bike path, giving new life to the dead and cast-off materials it is comprised of.  Vasello's work is often concerned with death and the cycle of rebirth as well as mythology. 

Down the Wormhole with Skunk

Artist Skunk is the Fleet Admiral of SCUL, a sci-fi fueled bicycle chopper gang. SCUL members create fantastic bicycles, known as ships, which they use to complete patrol missions around Boston. Skunk's ship, Cloudbuster, is the flagship of the SCUL fleet, and is "somewhere between an elephant, a garbage truck, and a rift in spacetime."

Flutter, Claudia Ravaschiere and Michael Moss

In both Eastern and Western thought, the butterfly represents transformation, freedom, joy, and the power of change. The butterflies of Flutter are formed in a contemporary material, translucent Plexiglas; perched on a chain link fence they negotiate the boundaries between the urban and natural worlds meeting at the Bikeway.

The Rhetoric of Opposites, Nilou Moochhala

The Rhetoric of Opposites juxtaposes words with opposite meanings in pairs along the Bikeway. By bringing these polarizing words into the public realm, Moochhala invites bikeway users to think about where they come from and where they are going, and how words can divide us or bring us together.  

Speaking Freely - An evening with the ACLU

Above: Sarah Rushford, Alluvion (Drawing 2), graphite on paper with scratched text from the U.S. Constitution

Join us Saturday, February 25, from 4 to 6 pm as we welcome Jessie Rossman and Carl D’Apolito-Dworkin for a reception and discussion on civil liberties, design, and resistance in this time of political upheaval. The conversation will address the ACLU’s current and upcoming work, the ways in which social impact design can positively affect our communities, and how all of us can participate in productive political action.

This program is part of our current exhibition, Transition of Power: 2017. 13FOREST Gallery is pleased to donate a portion of the proceeds from this exhibition to the ACLU of Massachusetts.

Jessie Rossman joined the ACLU of Massachusetts as a staff attorney in June 2013. She has both trial level and appellate advocacy experience, and litigates on a broad range of civil rights and civil liberties issues, including privacy and technology, free speech, reproductive rights, and gender discrimination.  She was recognized as a 2015 National Law Journal Boston Rising Star. Jessie has a law degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University. Before joining the ACLU of Massachusetts, Rossman served as a law clerk to Judge Raymond C. Fisher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She also worked as a staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan and as a litigation fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Carl D'Apolito-Dworkin is the Chief Designer for the architecture firm, Preston Scott Cohen, Inc.  He is the project leader for the new wing of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, the new Performing Arts Center in Bogota, Colombia and the new Museum of Science in Heifei, China. His work was recently featured in the American Pavilion of the 2016 Venice Biennale.  Carl received his B.A. from Yale University where he received the Louis Sudler Prize for the Arts and his M. Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal for overall academic achievement.  Carl specializes in the generation of architectural geometry through modeling and computation.

Director's Cut: 'Imber's Left Hand' Post-Screening Reception

Join us at 13FOREST Gallery on Saturday, October 29, from 5:30 to 7 pm for a post-screening reception of Arlington International Film Festival's acclaimed film, Imber's Left Hand (62 mins). 

We will be joined by director/producer Richard Kane, co-producer Melody Lewis-Kane and art critic Rebecca Nemser who will collectively discuss the film as well as the incredible life and work of Somerville artist Jon Imber (1950-2014).

Imber's Left Hand will be screened at 4 pm as part of the Arlington International Film Festival (AIFF) at the historic Capitol Theatre in East Arlington. Tickets available here. 

After the film, stroll down to 13FOREST Gallery for refreshments, Q&A with the film's makers and the opportunity to view Jon Imber's paintings up close. We have partnered with Imber's Boston representatives, Alpha Gallery, who are loaning us a selection of Imber's later paintings for the event, so that the public may personally experience the paintings and themes of the film.

Reception will begin at 5:30 pm, discussion at 6 pm. This event is free and open to the public, and is not limited to AIFF ticket holders.

Film Synopsis: A bittersweet and deeply moving document of Jon Imber, a local artist who lived and painted among us and his courageous and darkly humorous response to a diagnosis of ALS. The film traces Imber's life, career and adaptations, switching from painting with his right hand to his left, then to both as the degenerative condition progresses.

"Director Richard Kane’s bittersweet and deeply moving film," Maine Sunday Telegram. In the summer of 2012, painter Jon Imber was diagnosed with a fatal degenerative disease, ALS. Imber’s Left Hand tells the story of this artist’s courageous and sometimes darkly humorous response to such a sentence. The film traces his adaptations, from switching from painting with his right hand to his left, and then to both hands as the condition progresses. Adversity only makes him more determined to paint, and paint he does: more than 100 portraits in a four-month span. In the film we first encounter Imber in his Somerville, MA studio. He and his partner, painter Jill Hoy, analyze a self-portrait and talk about the anxiety to come. The painting becomes an unsettling metaphor of Jon’s psychological journey living into his dying through his art. In one scene, while reviewing family photos, he comes across a picture of himself at nine at a Passover Seder. Hoy says it’s his Judaism that’s at the root of who he is. “How so?” Imber asks, to which Hoy replies, “How you present yourself, your sense of responsibility, your constant search for truth and authenticity.” The way in which Imber carries on that search against the greatest of odds is at the heart of this portrait. Especially moving is the way in which members of the Stonington, Maine community rally to support Imber—dropping by to give him a back rub or bring a dish to eat—even as he invites them to have their portraits painted. In the end, Imber’s Left Hand is a testament to the life-giving force that is art and the ability of two people and their community to face an uncertain future with passion and resolve. "A masterpiece of intimacy in the face of tragedy, “Imber’s Left Hand” is an extraordinary accomplishment in film. It is the eulogizing of the creative force and artistic life of one of America’s leading painters – in his own vibrant voice," Daniel Kany, Maine Sunday Telegram.

"A masterpiece of intimacy in the face of tragedy, "Imber’s Left Hand” is an extraordinary accomplishment in film. It is the eulogizing of the creative force and artistic life of one of America’s leading painters – in his own vibrant voice," -Daniel Kany, Maine Sunday Telegram.