MassMusings

 Our MassMusings podcast season 2, episode 2 features a conversation with photographer and educator Gary Harwood alongside the Museum's Curator of Football Heritage Bailey Yoder, and our Archivist Mandy Altimus Stahl.

Gary Harwood worked with the Massillon Museum on the original Tiger Legacy exhibition, which opened in November of 2012, and the subsequent version in 2015 which coincided with publication of an award-winning catalog. The current iteration of the project, Tiger Legacy: The Story Continues is a continuation of the original project. This exhibition is on view through July 10, 2022, in the Paul Brown Museum.  

Welcome to season two of MassMusings! In this episode of we interview current Studio M artist Michael Gill about his exhibition "The Grownups Keep Talking/Nobody Knows Why" which is on view through June 1, 2022. 

"Alex Vlasov: I Promise to Make a Fabulous PTG Tomorrow" is on view in the Massillon Museum's Studio M gallery from February 5 through April 6, 2022. Vlasov is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Cleveland Institute of Art with a Major in Painting and a Minor in Art History. The Museum presents this university student exhibition in Studio M to provide a venue for an emerging artist.

Join us for a special conversation with past Studio M artist, Carole d'Inverno. Carole exhibited "Transumanza: Massillon, Ohio" in the Museum's Studio M gallery from December 7, 2019, through January 26, 2020. 

"Transumanza" is an Italian word that loosely translates to crossing the land. “As a child growing up in Italy, each Spring during the full moon, I was awakened by the passage of shepherds driving their flocks of sheep to the upper reaches of the Apennine Mountains. The sounds of hooves, bells, dogs barking, and low whistles seemed magical,” d’Inverno said. “Transumanza is, for me, both an action and a metaphor that can be applied to the historical changes that have shaped the United States: our shared history of crossing lands, breaking boundaries, accessing and losing territories, our comings and goings.” 

The New York City-based artist delved into the history of Ohio and Massillon—glacial-age fossils, native mounds, the beginnings of the state, the story of Massillon’s founders and their legacy of abolitionism, the Ohio and Erie Canal, football, and the steel industry. “Everywhere I looked there was a story to be told. The work I produced for this show is, then, a kind of visual storytelling,” she said.

"Susan Byrnes: The Viscosity Series" is on view from December 11, 2021, through January 26, 2022, in the Massillon Museum's Studio M. "The Viscosity Series" includes vividly colored artworks inspired by landscapes that are made from transparent and opaque polyurethane cast into a shallow mold, a process of the artist’s own invention. Although the artwork is presented as wall-mounted, two-dimensional works, they have depth, weight, and density because they are made by pouring pigmented layers of viscous liquid into a shallow, flat mold.

Amy Swartelé: Supernormal is on view in the Massillon Museum’s Studio M from October 16 through December 1, 2021. 

Amy Swartelé lived in five countries before the age of 18, a nomadic experience that evolved into her love of travel and the strange. She learned early that what was considered normal or valuable in one place, was strange or devalued in another.

Swartelé envisions a group of characters—imaginary friends and alter egos—as carnival sideshow performers. “Where people break out of the little boxes of what is considered normal, is where I find people being most human and genuine, and that is more fabulous and interesting than the polite masks we so often wear to fit what we perceive to be society's expectations. I think we are all ‘other,' I think we are all supernormal, and I think we should embrace and celebrate that fact,” Swartelé says. The carnival, she explains, was a place where all members of society, no matter how different from each other, could mingle and interact, and traditional norms and expectations were put aside for a time.

Finding connections and dialogue and emphasizing the value of difference and discourse seems paramount to the artist. Her paintings playfully merge a range of styles and media because that process, for her, reflects the range of human possibilities. She sees how very different things can fit together without taboos. This family of sideshow characters melds species, genders, the animate, and inanimate.

Learn all about "Hoard Couture: Where Art Meets Fashion", on display in the Massillon Museum's Studio M until October 6.  Judi Krew's ongoing wearable art series uses clothing design to creatively display a collection of items, explore contemporary social issues, and works with unconventional materials as textiles.  

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of speaking with Carlos Jones from Carlos Jones & The PLUS Band for a new episode of our podcast, MassMusings! We had such a wonderful conversation, and are excited to share it with you.

This episode of MassMusings features a conversation with internationally acclaimed artist John Chang.  Born and raised in Shanghai, China, the artist is currently based in Southern California. His solo exhibition in MassMu’s Studio M runs through August 11, 2021. 
In Ink—Transformation of Calligraphy  accentuates the visual and human aspects of the characters, the mark, and the gesture, transcending the text and the medium, extracting from language meaning beyond its surface value. 

Join us for MassMusings Podcast Episode #3, our in-depth conversation with CAN Triennial Exhibition prize winner and current Studio M artist Rebecca Cross.  Cross exhibits her artwork nationally and internationally, including in New York City, Sweden, Paris, Budapest, and Nagoya, Japan.  Cross is fascinated by mining the ephemeral potential of transformed materials, where line is made by shadows and delicate forms hold the memory of solid objects.  Her exhibition is on view in Studio M through June 16, 2021.