South Shore Art Center

Hidden and obvious sightlines

"The Louvre'' (mixed media),  by Donna Ingemanson, in the "Sightlines'' group show at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Mass., through Dec. 22. The gallery says that while this piece  has no obvious "sightline," unlike some other work …

"The Louvre'' (mixed media),  by Donna Ingemanson, in the "Sightlines'' group show at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Mass., through Dec. 22. The gallery says that while this piece  has no obvious "sightline," unlike some other work in the show, it has a layering of various elements to draw eyes down to the bottom of the piece, where there sits a sketch of the Louvre itself.  (See the famous I.M. Pei pyramid in front of the museum.) The show's works offer many different conceptions of sightlines and horizons.

 

 

Pompeii in Cohasset

From "Once There Was a House…Echoes from the Villa of Mysteries,'' a site-specific installation by Laurie Kaplowitz and Katha Seidman at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Mass., Sept. 16-Nov. 6.The artists write: "'Once There Was A House' &…


From "Once There Was a House…Echoes from the Villa of Mysteries,'' a site-specific installation by Laurie Kaplowitz and Katha Seidman at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Mass., Sept. 16-Nov. 6.

The artists write: "'Once There Was A House'  is based on the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii, a house where time has stopped, millennia have passed, and as if through a wormhole, we look on recognizing much, wondering at more.'' 

There are many lost-world villas  in Cohasset, too. It's a old colonial town/fishing village that morphed into, in part, a summer place for rich Bostonians and shoe moguls from Brockton until finally becoming mostly an affluent Boston suburb, with sky-high real-estate prices.

During the heyday of its summer-place epoch -- from about 1900to 1930 -- some summer people had the fad of putting up Italianate stucco mansions (with fountains, etc.) on bluffs along its rocky coast and behind itsuncomfortably pebbly beaches. Some of them looked like knockoffs from Pompeii.

   

 

Resinous reverie

Guiliani_04_CapePines2 -1  

"Cape Pines'' (print) by ANN GUILIANI, in the show "Printmaking: the Image Conceived and Transformed,'' at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Mass., Sept. 12 through Oct. 19 in the show "Printmaking: the Image Conceived and Transformed,'' at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Mass., Sept. 12 through Oct. 19.

The smell of the pines as one drove south from Boston and into Plymouth on the approach to the Cape on little, two-way Route 3A is a fond memory of those whose childhoods antedate the Interstate Highway System.  And the farm stands along the way, from Marshfield south.

 

 

An old-fashioned face

northend  "North End Saturday" (photo), by JUDITH MONTMINY, in the "Synergies: New Gallery Artist Expo," at South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Mass.

What a face of weathered wisdom (however misleading it might be)!  Of course, he would be told not to smoke a pipe -- danger of oral cancer.

But pipe-smoking used to be considered a sign of calm, good humor and, yes, a kind of healthiness. A lot of doctors smoked pipes; it went along with their bow ties. But then, they'd do ads for cigarettes, too.  Just look in a big magazine from  the '40s. "Not a cough in a carload!"