Manship Artists

The Manship Artists Residence + Studios property, a rare survival from a former time, was once at the center of an important art community that hosted some of America’s greatest sculptors and other artists. MARS is continuing the legacy of the Manship family of artists: Paul, John, and Margaret; and the artists who have historically come to Cape Ann to seek community and inspiration while living and working here.

MARS is connecting Cape Ann's cultural heritage with a new group of innovators, writers, visual artists, scholars and scientists, providing the local and global community space dedicated to self-discovery and creative exploration.

Based on a feasibility study supported by the Mass Cultural Council and conducted by the Alliance of Artists Communities, MARS is engaged in three years of pilot programming that includes artist retreats, workshops + exhibitions, and its core program of artists residencies. Currently there is no open call to artists during this test period. If you would be considered in the future when a call is initiated, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/VvCC6jjKowk7Q8sb6

Manship Artists Residency is an historic site that will be developed overtime according to ADA Standards for Accessible Design. Built in 1944-45 on the site of a former quarry, the building and grounds pose some accessibility challenges. The public areas on the first floor of the residence and barn studio are accessible and much of the immediate landscape surrounding the residence and studio can be traversed on foot or with a wheelchair.

Why did artists come to Cape Ann?

Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe journalist, examines the reasons while reviewing an exhibition at the Cape Ann Museum:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/art/2017/08/02/cape-ann-museum-show-looks-painters-love-affair-with-gloucester/JuAIofyXD2WrhE93XGfxDJ/story.html?event=event12

RESIDENT ARTISTS + GUESTS

Artists in Residence

Fall 2022

• Arpeggione Ensemble. The North Shores' only resident period-instrument ensemble will rehearse for their Fall programs and debut concert at STARFIELD during their residency. Planting New Roots will feature trailblazing music written on foreign soil by Mozart, Chevalier St-Georges, Reicha, and others for the flute, clarinet, and string quartet; it combines well-loved works with pieces by lesser-known and under-represented composers. Photo: Founders, Thomas Carroll and Andrea LeBlanc

• Hadley Mays. An actor, interdisciplinary performing artist, theater deviser and workshop facilitator, Mays will develop and workshop Sycoraxa, which takes its name from the witch in Shakespeare's Tempest. Conceived in Brazil, this full-length, multi-disciplinary theater piece explores and uses the conceptual figure of "witch' as a medium to revision some of history's framings. Photo: Puppet Showcase Theater

• Charles Coe. Manship Artist Charles Coe is returning to offer a Reading and Writer's Day Camp workshop as a fundraiser for Manship. Coe teaches in the MFA writing programs at Salve Regina and Bay Path Universities. He has been selected as a Boston Literary Light and his latest book, Memento Mori, was chosen as a "must read" by Massachusetts Center for the Book. Photo credit: Gordon Webster

• Dan King. Musician and producer, Dan King is well known for the many residencies he has held at several local establishments. Currently he is at the Studio on Rocky Neck with David Brown on Tuesdays. King will continue recording for his Gloucester Music 400+ project which he worked on last year at STARFIELD.

• Sharon Bates. A curator and visual artist who works in a variety of mediums, that include site-specific installations, sculpture, drawing and most recently printmaking. This fall Bates will continue her research on the Folly Cove Designers and complete several linocuts from her original drawings.

• Paul Miyamoto. Miyamoto's recent paintings are symbolic representations that examine the physical challenges of farm work and the institutional racism and incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. While at STARFIELD, Miyamoto will locate sites that Marsden Hartley painted, and look at the similarities they might share in regard to the landscape painting tradition.

• Ann Ledy. An interdisciplinary visual artist, whose mediums include works on paper and sculpture, Ledy works in situ and looks forward to drawing from the landscape of Gloucester. The resulting drawings will be the inspiration for a new series of sculptural works.

• Eve Rifkah. Rifkah is an historical poet writing on events and persons barely known about to give a voice to those who were unheard in their own time. Presently working on two projects; the history of and uses of food and the history of the 1966 gas explosion in downtown Boston in which 11 people died. Rifkah is the recipient of the 2021 Kunitz Award from the Worcester County Poetry Association. Photo credit: Betty Jenewin

• Charles Giuliano. Art critic and historian, former Suffolk University Professor, and publisher and editor of Berkshire Fine Arts, Giuliano and his sister Pippy Giuliano will research and craft the sequel to Gloucester Poems: Nugents of Rockport. Scheduled to launch during Gloucester 400+.

• Astrid Hiemer. As a former assistant director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT (today's Center for Art, Science & Technology), Hiemer has nearly thirty years of stories to tell about the behind the scenes evolution of what has become an international leader and hub for interdisciplinary innovation and problem-solving. She used her time at the Manship residency to craft her experience into a publication.

2021 Artists in Residence

Sharon Bates, Marla Blakey, Charles Coe, Nathan Cohen, Susan Erony, Paul Cary Goldberg, Jane Goldman, Caroline Goulding, Kaedon Gray, Donna Hassler, Natalie Hegg, Jay Jaroslav, Dan Jay, Jamileh Jemison, Kim Collins Jermain, Brian King, Dan King, Eileen Little, Erika Senft Miller, Wilhelm Neusser, Cynthia Pannucci, Mau Schoettle, Norah Solorzano, Richard Thieriot, Mia Rosenblatt Tinkjian, Laura Crook Waxdal

2021 Associate Artists

Karen Berger, Ted Bidwell, Karen Bird, Robert Bramhall, John Caggiano, Joe Cardoza, Katherine Cornog, Gwynne Flanaga Cox, Elliott Cutler, Andrea Dunn, Renee Dupuis, Don Falkenstein, Meagan Fratiello, Fran Freshman, Theresa Gambardella, Olga Hayes, Amy Hourihan, Leap Kasten, Ken King, Barbara Kremer, Nancy Legendre, Susan Lynn, Lee Marshall, Dennis Monagle, Mary Remillong, Brigitte Schacher, Katalin Spang, Norris Strawbridge, Alexander Whittaker, Peter Ziegler

2020 Artists in Residence

Charles Coe, Tsar Fedorsky, John Forti, Caroline Goulding, Joel Janowitz, Kim Collins Jermain, Anne Lilly, Vanessa Michalak, Erika Senft Miller (virtual), Cynthia Pannucci (virtual), Will Pappenheimer, Jacqui Parker, Thayer Tolles, Marc Zegans (virtual)

2020 Associate Artists

Willie Alexander, Henry Ferrini, Ken Kinna, Mary Pappenhiemer, Taylor Parker, Sarah Slifer Swift

Outside @ Manship Associate Artists

Artists Participating in Exhibition: Ted Bidwell, John Caggiano, Donna Caselden, Michele Champion, Kathy Chapman, Charles Coe, Kimberly Collins Jermain, Martha Doolin, Andrea Dunn, Tsar Fedorsky, Andrew Fish, Karen Fitzgerald, John Forti, Gail Gang, Wendy Garner, Paul Cary Goldberg, Martin Grealish, Holly Greene-Alto, Larry Grob, Peter Herbert, Ben Herbert, Richard Honan, Jonathan Hotz, Joel Janowitz, Dan Jay, Barbara Kremer, John LaPorta, Nancy LeGendre, Anne Lilly, Susan Lynn, Patricia McCarthy, Vanessa Michalak, Sarah LL Milton, David Montgomery, Nancy Muise, Jan Murphy, T.M. Nicholas, MaryO Pappenheimer, Will Pappenheimer, Dorothy J. Ramsey, Judy Robinson-Cox, Tom Robinson-Cox, Richard Roche, Elizabeth Roop, Michael Rosenblatt, Mia Rosenblatt Tinkjian, Liz Sibley Fletcher, Leigh Slingluff, Katalin Spang, Caleb Stone, Janet Sutherland, Susan Termyn, Constance Vallis, Peter Ward, Marny Williams, Claire Wyzenbeek, Heidi Caswell Zander.

Follow this link to the virtual exhibition which celebrates work produced by artists who were part of Outside @ Manship in 2020. Created in response to the Covid pandemic, this program provided a place for artists living and working on Cape Ann to be for a little while on the beautiful grounds of the Manship Artists Residency + Studios (MARS) in the summer and fall of 2020. Over 80 artists participated, 57 of whom submitted work and are included in the exhibition.

LINK TO ONLINE EXHIBITION EVENTS

summer 2020 resident feature

Ken Riaf

LOCAL Affiliate Artist

In January of this year online magazine the Other Cape called Manship Artist Ken Riaf a "Renaissance man" - and indeed the term fits! A former longshoreman and commercial fisherman, Ken currently practices civil rights law and is entering his fifteenth year of teaching law at Endicott College. But beyond his legal exploits, Ken is an author, sculptor, and playwright. He also shares the distinction with Henry Ferrini of creating the "best film about an American poet that was ever made" for Polis is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place.

Given his prolific nature, it's no surprise then, that Ken made extraordinarily good use of his time at Starfield in June: 

The nutshell version...I worked exclusively on finishing up the one-person performance piece "In Re Sanity." It's a pseudo-fictional work tracing a day in the life of the lawyer Jan Shlichtmann. Schlichtmann, the attorney in the Woburn, Massachusetts water poisoning case and main character in the book and film "A Civil Action," guides the audience from the film's concluding scene to the present, and to lessons he's learned in the intervening years about himself and the legal system. It's Jan Schlichtmann, as himself, in imagined circumstances. 

winter + spring 2020 resident feature

Vanessa Michalak

Essential Worker Artist!

As both an artist and a currently employed nurse my work in the months spent at the Manship Artist Residency reflects both my love of nature and my sense of responsibility to the community as a healthcare professional during the pandemic.

The body of work created about nurses and public health reflects my interest in both art as an activist tool and a means to process my thoughts and feelings. This is not the first time I have made work involving my views on healthcare and my role as a nurse. I have turned to painting and creating visual imagery at various points in my career to process my personal experience and also to raise the general public's awareness about what the role of the nurse truly entails. As nurses we fight to save patients' lives in our day to day roles, but we also fight to improve our healthcare systems. We fight for safe nursing to patient ratios and currently we fight for the bare minimum, personal protective equipment. The painting National Nurses United Illustrates this, based on a photo taken of nurses protesting the lack of the essential PPE and asking that president Trump enact the Defense Production Act.

As a Maine native and a lover of nature, the landscape has always brought me endless joy. When I am not working as a nurse you might find me hiking a trail in Dogtown or painting by a quarry. Since moving to Gloucester in 2017, the quarries and Dogtown’s Babson Boulders continue to fascinate me. I chose to synthesize images of existing Babson Boulders with my own public service announcements related to the pandemic in pencil drawings. Lastly, when the difficult news became too much I looked to the landscape to escape and find peace as depicted in the series of works depicting the quarries within the Manship property. During this chaotic time it was nature and witnessing the coming of spring  that helped me stay calm. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to balance my work as an essential employee with the creative and nurturing energy made possible by my time spent at the Manship Artists Residency + Studios.

Vanessa Michalak

Click on images to scroll through artwork…..

The play is slated to have a first run at Gloucester Stage Company next season. Ken shared about the value of his "Manship experience:" It was great in very many ways - I could go on about it. It cleared my head and let me think out loud in quiet. I'm sure it's great with other folks around but for me I needed some Garbo time and got it. I only live 10 minutes away but I never went home in the 2 weeks I was there. 

Ken's residency demonstrates MARS commitment to our community of artists and the local cultural organizations that also provide support and opportunities for creatives. This residency is the fourth "collaboration" of sorts between the Gloucester Stage Company and MARS.

Manship Artists is grateful to have been able to offer essential worker Vanessa Michalak a residency, especially since her residency on Rocky Neck had to be postponed due to the coronavirus.

Dogtown Art Show | A Walk in the Woods

Dogtown Art Show, a Walk in the Woods was filmed and produced by Ken Kinna of B-Roll Films. The video captured the October 26th one day pop-up event and was included in Green Space exhibition.

Special thanks to JANE DEERING GALLLERY for Video Share + following “Dogtown Art Show” press:

Vanessa Michalak, a lover of the great outdoors, envisioned Gloucester’s Historic Dogtown as the perfect place to settle her easel and paint plein-air style. A generous tree provided support; sticks and stones became small shelves for materials. During the spring and summer of 2019, the artist trekked a mile into the woods carrying her supplies. These daily walks became part of her painting process as she moved along paths in search of inspirational spots. By summer’s end, she had produced dozens of paintings. Feeling the need to share her work and experience with others, the idea of the Dogtown Art Show, a Walk in the Woods was born. It took place on the 26th of October 2019. Michalak exhibited her plein-air paintings along the trails in Dogtown and invited the public to view her canvases while walking the paths. The Dogtown Art Show paintings were exhibited at Jane Deering Gallery in April 2020.

Vanessa Michalak, National Nurses United, inspired by Getty Image by Nicholas Kamm/AFP

From one generation to the next….

Paul Howard Manship (1885-1966)

Paul Manship was one of the most famous American artists of the first half of the 20th century. He was the youngest fellow ever awarded a Prix de Rome in 1909 – the highest honor accorded artists at the time. Considered the pioneer of American Art Deco, Manship returned from his fellowship at the American Academy in Rome to become one of the most sought-after artists in the US, defining American sculpture for over two decades. His work is all over NYC and among the most prized possessions of major museums.

John Paul Manship (1927-2000)

John Manship created his own residency abroad as an itinerant painter, traveling throughout Europe following his graduation from Harvard in 1948. He settled in Rome for a time and later New York City and Gloucester, MA. John was a prolific painter, often painting two or three paintings a day. He described himself as a "portraitist of places" and was especially found of painting his Cape Ann surroundings. Following his father's death, his wife Margaret encouraged him to also take up sculpture.

Margaret Cassidy Manship (-2012)

Margaret Cassidy won an international sculpture contest that offered her a three-year fellowship at the Villa Schifanoia in Fiesole, Italy. While there she began an association with master sculptor Antonio Berti, with whom she studied and assisted for several years while working on a sculpture for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and other major monuments in Italy. Primarily a sculptor, Margaret also developed new techniques for working with stained glass. She was an avid archivist as well.