Soup Kitchen Seeks Volunteers

The Soup Kitchen in Provincetown (SKIP) is seeking new volunteers for its upcoming season, starting on Monday, November 5. They will join SKIP’s dedicated team in Fproviding lunch to members of the Outer Cape community on weekdays through April 26.

Orientation for new volunteers, as well as those returning, is scheduled for Tuesday, October 30, 11 a.m., at the Soup Kitchen’s location in the United Methodist Church, 20 Shank Painter Road, Provincetown. The session lasts just under an hour.
At this year’s orientation, attendees will receive a revised Volunteer Handbook. It now answers several of the basic questions new recruits might have. It also covers such things as volunteer responsibilities, shift times, contacts, health department rules, etc.

“The commitment of volunteers is the single most important factor in SKIP’s success,” says Daniel Elias, SKIP board chairperson. “They help with food preparation, set up, welcoming guests, serving, and cleaning up. Plus they enjoy working with other dedicated volunteers.”

Last season, the volunteer team included 60 people coming from as far away as Eastham. Some volunteered for one shift on one day each week. Others came several days each week. “They all shared the good vibe that comes from helping others,” says Elias.
Volunteers can choose from two shifts. The first is from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. for cooking and set-up. The second is from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. for serving and cleanup.

SKIP extends its thanks to all its past volunteers and invites them to return for another season. “If you haven’t volunteered in the past, we ask you to consider participating,” says Elias. “Come work with a great group of people for a very worthy cause.”
SKIP is fortunate to have many volunteers who return each year. One of them has been volunteering since the Soup Kitchen began in 1992. But it needs to add new members to meet its growing needs.

Those interested in attending or for questions about any other SKIP matters, call 508.487.8331 or email [email protected]. Those who would like to participate but aren’t able to attend are also encouraged to contact SKIP by phone or email. Visit ptownsoup.org for more information.

TEDx Provincetown Videos Now Available

TEDxProvincetown took place June 30, 2018 at Fishermen Hall in Provincetown to a sold-out house!  The inaugural 2018 edition of TEDxProvincetown included 10 speakers. If you missed it, you can hear their talks online on the TEDx YouTube channel. Visit tedxprovincetown.com to see videos of the following talks: Ali Sands’ “Love Appears in Whatever Form It Chooses” – What happens when your husband used to be your girlfriend? In a personal and emotional talk, author Ali Sands explores how romantic love can endure through a couple’s most vivid, life-journey changes—including changing genders; Michael Moore’s “A Fix for the Imperiled North Atlantic Right Whale” – Is your lobster worth the extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whale? Veterinarian Michael Moore explores how tragic whale entanglement—caused by lobster fishing and other line-based fishing—are unnecessary with new technology that promotes both whale health and your lobster dinner; Roxanne Layton’s “Soundscape: How it Affects Body and Mind” – The sounds you live with—your soundscape — have direct impact on your good health and happiness. Through an innovative hybrid talk and musical performance, international musician Roxanne Layton explores how sound everywhere from noisy city streets to the local dance club can “entrain” you and affect your health and psyche; Jay Critchley’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Corporation” – If a corporation can be a person, why can’t a person be a corporation? In a high-energy and engaging performance, multimedia artist and provocateur Jay Critchley explores how the corporate platform can be repurposed for social change; Anne Stott’s “Get Lost (to find your creativity)” – Inspiration can come in the least expected places. In an engaging hybrid performance of song and talk, singer-songwriter Anne Stott examines how letting go of expectations can spark fruitful, career-making creativity; Romolo Del Deo’s “ReNaturing Light” – The quality of light we live in has direct bearing on our health and happiness, especially as we navigate a world of so much artificial light. Sculptor Romolo Del Deo uses art history, and the unique light of Provincetown, to examine the quality of light as both a tool for creating and living well in the modern world; Maria Giese’s “Hollywood Interruptus: The Battle for Women’s Voices In Entertainment Media” – Women directors are a scant fraction of filmmakers in Hollywood, the world’s largest entertainment and culture-making machine. That vivid inequality is central to a heated gender discrimination battle and activist Maria Giese is leading the charge. Here’s the employment equity challenge that lies behind #MeToo and #TimesUp; Frank Strona’s “What the Bears Can Teach Goldilocks” – “Bear Culture,” a supportive, global community of mostly large, mostly hairy gay men, has evolved and thrived through ideas of inclusion, diversity, self-acceptance, and self-expression. Health advocate, diversity specialist, and “Daddy Bear” Frank Strona explains what Bear Culture gets right as lessons for Goldilocks and the rest of mainstream society; Noah Wilson-Rich’s “Honeybees from Cape Cod to Mars” – Before sending bees into space, we must shift our perspective away from why bees are dying, toward why they are surviving: habitat diversity. Engaging speaker and bee ecologist Noah Wilson-Rich uses bee hives, honey DNA, and citizen science to capture data about our environment, our botanical mix, and ways to take those lessons around the world and all the way to Mars; and Tianna Esperanza’s “Black with (some) White Privilege” –  Singer-songwriter Tianna Esperanza brings her electrifying, original soul-punk style to explore her own mixed heritage – and empathy – in a special cool rap/spoken-word talk about race in America. “We will not let black or white ‘culture’ be defined,” she says. “And ultimately keep us confined. Because there is no culture in color.” Music over anger.

Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative Awards Two Outer Cape Organizations

Payomet Performing Arts Center and Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) were each awarded grants from the Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative. A partnership between two Boston-based foundations, Barr and The Klarman Family Foundation, the initiative is a $25 million, six-year investment in 29 arts and cultural organizations from across Massachusetts. Participating organizations receive flexible, multi-year operating support grants, in addition to training and technical assistance from TDC, a nonprofit consulting and research firm. Payomet’s engagement in the initiative begins with two grants totaling $312,000 over three years, and PAAM’s begins with two grants totaling $387,000 over three years.

Payomet’s producing artistic director Kevin Rice, in a press release, says, “Payomet is thrilled to announce its selection as a grantee of the Barr Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative.  We are excited to join hands and share resources with this cohort of 29 arts and culture organizations across the state.” In a release from PAAM, the organization says, “This grant will enable us to take big swings in the coming years–we can’t wait to share our plans with you!”

Representing diversity across artistic disciplines, geographic reach, stages of organizational development, and budget sizes, the 27 other organizations participating in the Initiative are: Academy of Music Theatre (Northampton); A Far Cry (Boston); Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield); Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (Boston); Boston Modern Orchestra Project (Malden); Cape Ann Museum (Gloucester); Community Access to the Arts (Great Barrington); Community Art Center (Cambridge); Community Music School of Springfield (Springfield); Company One Theatre (Boston); The Dance Complex (Cambridge); Design Museum Boston (Boston); Double Edge Theatre (Ashfield); Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts (Boston); Featherstone Center for the Arts (Martha’s Vineyard); Fitchburg Art Museum (Fitchburg); Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (Great Barrington); Merrimack Repertory Theatre (Lowell); New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks! (New Bedford); New Bedford Symphony Orchestra (New Bedford); Norman Rockwell Museum (Stockbridge); Now + There (Boston); Raw Art Works (Lynn); The Record Co. (Boston); SpeakEasy Stage (Boston); Worcester Art Museum (Worcester); and Zeiterion Theatre (New Bedford).
For more information about the Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative page, including the ideas underlying the effort, key elements of the experience for participating organizations, selection criteria, and evaluation findings, visit barrfoundation.org/what-we-do/barr-klarman-massachusetts-arts-initiative.

A Call To Artists At Cusp Gallery

CUSP is excited to announce its first Call To Artists contest: Red! During the inception of CUSP Gallery in Provincetown, an element of Red was brought into the fold by installing a wall of old fire brigade shovels from Belgium. The red handle of one of the shovels inspired artist and owner, Curtis Speer, to paint the gallery door red to help draw clients to the new space on Bradford Street.

And now, after a successful second season, Speer has decided to open the gallery to local artists of all genres and invite them to create and submit work to be considered for a limited time exhibition of 11 artists at CUSP Gallery during the month of December.

The theme is RED and can be interpreted in any way the artist feels worthy. ​Submissions are open to: writers, painters, sculptors, photographers, graphic designers, and those who specialize in pastels and mixed media. Size Requirements: Finished art works must meet a minimum size of 12” x 12” and maximum size of  24” x 24” and may fall anywhere in between.

The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, November 21 at 11:59 p.m.​

All art is to be submitted via email to [email protected] for consideration. Please use the word «RED» in the subject line. In the body of the email, include the size and medium of your piece, as well as your name and a few sentences about the work you are submitting. Please attach either a PDF of your writing submission or a low-res jpeg of your fine art.

The 11 winning artists will be contacted via email. Upon receipt of this email, the artist will then have one week to ship or drop off their accepted fine art to: CUSP Gallery, 115 Bradford St., Provincetown, MA 02657. All work must be delivered ready to hang, no exceptions. If the art is not ready, then it will not be shown.

All chosen artists are encouraged to publicize their exhibition via social media, websites, and emails. CUSP Gallery will also promote the “Call to Artists” exhibition and its winning artists on all of its own platforms. An opening reception will be held for the winning artists on a date to be announced.

There will also be a number of other red-themed events taking place at CUSP Gallery for the duration of the “Call to Artists” exhibition, including a reading by Cape Cod author Chase Berggrun from their first book, R E D (Birds, LLC, 2018). Please additionally note that being accepted to exhibit your work at CUSP Gallery is not a promise for artist representation but a chance to get your work seen in a real space for clients and collectors to view and purchase your work. The gallery will take 30% of the sale price (as listed by you the artist) and give the artist 70%. Visit cuspgallery.com for more information.

Twenty Summers to Share Videos and Podcasts from Season Five Festival

Twenty Summers is proud to announce that it will release videos and podcasts from its 2018 season festival of concerts and conversations that took place in the Hawthorne Barn in Provincetown this past spring.

The organization is sharing a teaser of its 2018 videos and is announcing its plan to release a new set of videos and podcasts each week throughout the month. Twenty Summers Season Five took place May 18 to June 15, 2018 and included 12 events that were equally entertaining, thought provoking, and inspiring. Watch or listen to fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi being interviewed by actor Alan Cumming; journalist Jodi Kantor on her important work; concerts by musicians Dar Williams, Kevin Morby, Martha Wainwright, and Bedouine; author Michael Cunningham on his literary inspirations; and many more.

Each season Twenty Summers professionally films and records all of its public events in order to share its exciting and relevant programing with the rest of the world for free and to open a window into Provincetown’s artistic community. The content will include full-length videos and podcasts from each concert and conversation, plus short topic clips and single song tracks. Videos will be shared on Twenty Summers’ website 20summers.org/videos and via YouTube and Vimeo, and podcasts via Apple Podcasts, GooglePlay, Spotify, and Soundcloud. The videos will also be available on Xfinity’s On Demand channel later this winter. For more information, visit 20summers.org.