 Welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town, I'm James Malan and this is an episode that we always look forward to. We get to get an update about the Arlington Center for the Arts from its director, Tom Formicola, who has joined me before but always remotely, so I am pleased to have him here in the studio for the first time, getting to see what he looks like in the flesh and we have a special treat as well because Pam Shanley, who is the operations manager for the ACA, is also here. And we are going to talk a little bit about things, getting an update on things that have happened since we last spoke to Tom, it's been quite a while. And then Pam especially is going to guide us through the open studios coming up on November 13th, which is a big, big date on their calendar and ours. So first of all, both of you, thanks so much for making the trek, it's nasty out and you made it over here and we appreciate it. It's good to be here. And welcome, this is what our studio looks like, we welcome you back again in the future. Tom, just briefly, bring us up to date, you get to choose what it is that you'd want to share with us, but you know, the ACA is always busy. So give us just a sense of what's been going on a couple of highlights since we last spoke. Well I believe we last spoke in the spring. And so Pam and I have been through 10 weeks of vacation arts camp with children and teenagers that went really well, completely successful, completely exhausting. And we're feeling great about that. You know, it was great to have, we were running at about 80% capacity this summer and that's because of social distancing. And it was great to have kids back. It was great to meet their parents every morning and talk to them about how happy they were to be working with us again. And we had a great group of teachers. And we went from the last week of June through the first week of September. It was a really good summer. I do remember talking to you about summer of 2020 and what you were able to do with in terms of kids and camp offerings at that point. And it was clearly circumscribed for a lot of very excellent reasons. How did this compare to that? So it looked a lot like the summer before, but with more kids. So we're still, we're not operating quite the way that we were before, before COVID because, you know, because we're still trying to keep kids in discrete groups so they're safe because we're also dealing with like a pretty vulnerable population. Absolutely. And one that's not yet vaccinated yet. And so, you know, and so the kids are moving through the day differently than they were in 2019. We're hoping in 2020 things start to look normal again. 2022. 2022, yes. There you go. So I didn't want to skip that yet. No, but I mean, clearly, yes, we are marching we hope, obviously in the right direction and that being back to you, being able to offer things the way that you traditionally have. So we're next month, we'll believe it or not, open up registration for our February and April camps. And in January, we'll open up registration for our summer camps. So we're, you know, I mean, we celebrated finishing in one week and then started planning again the week following. Yeah, you know, I think for a certain number of folks in town, the ACA is all about what it offers for their children. And, you know, obviously these are parents of children of all different ages who looked to the ACA for that. But I think there's a whole bunch of other people in town who don't even realize how big a part of what it is that you guys do is geared towards our youth populations. Yeah. Well, and you know, it's funny you should say that because then there's a whole other population that don't realize that we do anything for folks that aren't youth, right? So it really depends on what camp pun intended, what camp you're in. Right, exactly. How you see us. Which is great. So it's a lot of different things to lots of different people. So anything you want to point out in terms of highlighting from these past months, in terms of your offerings for adults, so to speak? Oh, Pam, can you actually, can you answer that? The artist toolbox? You want to talk about that? Yeah. Well, one of the things that we've been doing this year, you can probably talk about it better than me, is, you know, we realized with COVID that there was a gap right away in opportunities for local artists. So we started to do some professional development workshops online for local artists to sort of help them cope with sort of the changing environment and prepare them better to like, you know, build their brand online and sell things online. And also, these are, what they learned will also prepare them for, you know, even when they're selling, marketing themselves when they're selling in person again. The idea was also to sort of prepare them for participation in our open studios this year. The nuts and bolts of like selling your work, preparing it, doing the PR, the stuff that we don't like to deal with. I remember, right. And I remember talking to you, Tom, in our last update about that being kind of coming up as an offering. And certainly, I've got to imagine that there was a response from local artists to that because it's a great kind of offering that you were making there. And I assume it went well enough. Oh, it went really well. Lots of positive feedback from the artists that were participating, lots of positive feedback from the teaching artists that were leading those workshops, you know, that have a pretty significant profile, you know, beyond Arlington, actually, you know, throughout the region, really. And Pam, you just alluded to the fact that it's the kind of stuff that you were saying we don't really like to have to deal with. And by we, I think you're speaking for artists themselves, of course, right, who, a lot of the time, just want to get to the work and don't want to have to deal with all the rest of this. And yet, how can really you get along? We're just overwhelmed by it, you know. It just seems beyond their scope. And we, like these workshops, broke it down into bite-sized pieces. That was the goal. Yeah, most artists don't become artists because they're really in love with the idea of, you know, the business part of it. And this obviously came about in response to conditions that we've been all, we don't need to speak anymore about. We know what we're talking about here. But can I assume that it's going to be something that you continue to do in the future? Yeah, so much, you know, we were talking before the cameras started rolling, so much of what we have started to do in the last 19 months are things that we will continue to do. Like it's impossible to think that there won't be a time when there's some kind of online programming going on. You know, our fall term is the bulk of our fall offerings are offered in person. But you know, there's a great big handful that will be offered online this fall. And then again in the winter, especially when the weather's bad, like, I mean, you know, apart from COVID, some people have learned that they have a preference for participating online because they don't want to travel in snowy weather. And most of our classes other than our ceramic can be done, can pivot online if it's a snowy thing. So that's fun, I mean, and challenging because we're still trying to figure out what the right mix is. Like what is the right balance? Like how much of, you know, how many of our offerings will be in person and how many of them will be virtual? I think we're going to be, you know, trying to figure that out for a little while. But we're not alone. I think all the folks that do work the way we are trying to find that balance themselves. I think you're right. And I think also there is that element that we have also found here at ACMI where once you are doing things online or remotely, you're expanding your potential audience so much and simply able to make certain kinds of offerings to a much broader population than you could ever fit into one of your studios or something like that. Exactly. So, you know, lessons learned and opportunities gained. You know, we all need to be able to identify things as positive things coming out of this whole experience, obviously. Pam, let me ask you before we start talking about the fall offerings that you were just mentioning, Tom, and specifically about the open studios. Because we haven't had you here before and therefore haven't had this opportunity, you are the operations manager for the ACA. So I hear a term like that and I'm like, I don't know what that means exactly. What is it that, so if there is any way to briefly summarize what it is that you do, is there a way? Well, basically I handle all the stuff, right? That's what Tom thinks of me as. Like, oh, and we need stuff. Oh, go ask Pam. She'll get the stuff. I help teachers get their whatever stuff they need and, you know, help hang the gallery shows and make sure we have everything we need for open studios and our off-site exhibits and all that sort of, I get the stuff part of it. We have an excellent director, of course, but we also have a communication person who does all the things behind the scene, so. And Pam is being modest. I mean, she's talking about the details of her job and I think it's easy to talk about the details because so much of her work is about details. But she literally moves us through the days and weeks and months. Like, you know, she's the person who sort of sees what's coming down the bike next and she's the person who's looking to see what all the pieces, what all the moving pieces are and trying to make sure that we're all, you know, working in concert with one another. That's nice. That's true. Let's go with that. Yeah, let's go with that. I would too if I were you, why not? But also it's max of, you know, that strikes me as being an inaccurate depiction and description probably of what you offer. Not only because it's part of your job, but maybe also just part of your personality. I have to say here at ACMI, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna gratuitously step right into our ACA update and give kudos to my colleague, Cheryl Bruce-Goulas who has the title here of administrative assistant. That barely scratches the surface on what she does for us around here in terms of very similar to what you were just saying and describing about Pam. We all need that, right? Any well-functioning workplace needs person or people who can pay attention to all the things that the rest of us are, you know, oblivious to or spacing out on or too busy to worry about or whatever. So. And Pam has a lot of history as well. I've been at the Art Center a long time, but it never felt, never feels like the same job. It feels like I've had about 20 different jobs because the Art Center has evolved and grown and so my job has evolved and grown and the things I do have changed, so. So speaking about changes in the things that you do, I know that you have run open studios or, you know, that the ACA has offered open studio, you know, yearly for a long time. Right, since 1999. And yet, this one is gonna be a little bit different, I assume. Every single one was a little bit different. Okay. This one we have at three different sites. Arlington Center for the Arts, Town Hall, and First Parish. They're all within walking distance, but we've never done three sites, but partly because of COVID, we needed to spread people out and at every site there's far fewer people than we would normally have, but we still have almost 60 people. 60 artists, yeah. Working on this, so that feels pretty good. And we have four sites if you count the Robbins Library, which is also joining the fund by doing a book and art cell of their own. So we really own, like, on November 13th, we own that whole block. I was gonna say, that is amazing that you've picked the four major venues in that one square block, if you wanna kind of look at it very broadly, and really gonna make use of each one of those. That's quite something, but what can people expect? I guess we're also interested to know, well, what are the changes, if any, or what is it that the artists themselves will be doing either that will feel different to them than it has before, or, and also for those who are going to be there in attendance, how is this gonna feel similar? How's it gonna feel different to open studios of the past? Well, we're delighted we can do it in person. Last year, we did it online, and that was great, and thank you, ACMI, for saving us and hosting us. But in order to do it in person this year, we're asking everybody wear a mask, and we're asking all of our artists to show that they've been vaccinated, or have a negative, what's that, what's that? A negative COVID test within 72 hours. There we go, back. And not just our artists, but our audiences too. All our visitors have to show it too. So everybody who's present. Everybody's gonna be participating, yeah. Be packing a vaccine. For the indoor programming. And so what Tom's alluding to is that we have a bit outside and a lot inside, and we'll start with Town Hall just to get us started. And Tom's, when you do an event like this, it's not just one person, it's a small army. Like Annalise Ruggles, our communication director, she's doing magic online behind the scenes. She did the card for this event, this beautyist card and posters. Yeah, we'll show that card there. So, and Tom actually has been spearheading our music component, which is sort of a mini porch festival. Turn that to him. So we, as you know, we haven't been able to do porch fest the last two years for a host of reasons. And, but we are committed to doing it in 2022 and we have a date. Saturday, was that? 2022, Saturday June 18th, it will be. So we're thrilled to be able to announce that and we wanted to announce it early. And in the meantime, we're hosting a porch fest stage as part of our Open Studios event and that porch fest stage will be on the steps of Town Hall. So it's outdoor performances, bring your scars and your mittens, that will happen throughout the day from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. We had a, we brought together a committee of porch fest volunteers and participants over the years and we did a call to local musicians. And we got 32 applications and we picked just four groups who will each play for an hour that day. We're super excited to have them. There'll be some jazz and some rock and roll and some folk and a little bit of bluegrass too. Wow. Wow, that is, that sounds great. Although I also commend you on your boldness for setting up an outdoor concert on November 13th in New England. Truth be told, like Pam and I talk about this all the time, I worked at First Night for five years. So weather doesn't scare me. It terrifies me. So it's a lovely kind of... Exactly. Really good for your dynamic, I'm sure. Tom's like, yeah, we can do that. You got it. Oh no, we can't do that. But we do have a backup site in case it does... If it's rainy or the weather is really prohibitive, we're going to the First Parish Church, we'll be in the sanctuary that day. Wonderful. Wonderful. So people who can count on music, you know, musical entertainment throughout the day. But I'm really gunning for outdoors. Yeah. Again, if it's just a question of bundling up, then I'm sure that both musicians and audience will be happy to do so. Yeah, yeah. So you've got that going on just outside of Town Hall. But inside Town Hall, we have 25 plus artists. And one of them is Anna Tai, who does this beautiful kind of embroidery. And usually think of embroidery as something small, and this is a delicate little pennant she did. But she also decorates clothes. And when I first saw her, she showed me a piece of embroidery this big. And at first I thought it was a painting. And then you get up close, and you see how she's taken threads and woven the hues of color with thread. It's just fascinating to see. And I think she does this 24-7. So at Open Studios, she'll be just all day long working on it so you can kind of go and see what she's doing, working on that. And this is just a lovely, lovely little piece she made for me. Yeah, as you describe the process even briefly, I'm thinking, oh my god, that sounds as labor-intensive as it gets in a lot of ways. But she just does it. Time-intensive as well. So we'll all get to enjoy watching her work for a bit. Yeah, and she gave Tom and I a little... She's so generous. She gave Tom and I a little thing that's in his office. A little gift flasher. Just a little... I want to call it a print because it looks like a print, but it's not. Right, and again, just judging from how you've described her process, it sounds like even a little print, as you said, is the result of a lot of labor and love. And Anne is just one of many. And I brought a few things that I had from home. Another, there's a number of fiber artists and this is Beverly Hinckley and she does quilts. So we have several quilters actually. We have Rising Star. There's another one, but she's at a different site. So that's Martha Ingalls. She's going to be at First Parish. So we have a woodworking person, Gary Holly. And I think of him as a wizard because he has these beautiful wooden bowls and then he embellishes them with this magic surface on the rim. And I can't tell you what he's going to do because every time he's always experimenting and he's always changing. And that's what I love about Anna and Beverly and all the artists in Open Studios. You think you know them and then they come with this whole new set of things. Another artist in Open Studios is Betsy Cogswell and she does felt. So this is a pillow she made and I had it at home and it's very comforting. Yes, it looks like it has already served its purpose for a while. It's been loved by my kitty, but anyway. And we have Jewelers. We have Sharon Stafford. She's a jeweler extraordinaire because she uses wire and she creates woven vessels out of this wire. She creates earrings and she also does a line of ornaments for like holiday sales like this. One on my Christmas tree every year. And so her work is exquisite and we have, oh, what else do we have there? It's a wide variety of materials. There's of course print makers, people who draw, people who paint. Just trying to think of people who pop out. Oh, I know, Jen Flores. She's a painter, but she does clothing. So you can imagine if a painter is making clothes, it's gonna be a different vibe. So that's wonderful. In Chicago, she does these kicky little skirts that are fun. We have a bunch of artists. That's just Town Hall. And there's poetry on the second floor. So there's music, poetry and visual arts and the poets are only there from one to three and that's just Town Hall. There's two more sites to go to. Yeah, with great stuff. And again, like people can come and watch demos, they can come and we're hoping buy art and support our local artists. And it's November 13th, it's time to start thinking about holiday shopping. Yeah. Because early this year. Well, it's kind of perfect timing for those who are a little bit more prepared than myself, for instance, when it comes to holiday shopping. I'll see you on the 13th. That will be a great help, that's for sure. But a lot of people don't buy at Open Studios, but they think about it and then they contact the artist later. We're hoping they buy the day of, of course, but it's kind of a gift that keeps giving. And obviously with 60 artists, as you said, you've picked out a few who came right to mind for different things. Right, exactly. And things that I had at home. Right, exactly. But clearly you're going to, you know, the audiences, the kind of roaming audience among these different sites is going to find something to love in every one of them. But you're going to find diversity at every site. Like at First Paris, there's some ceramic artists. There's a glass, a couple of glass artists, jewelers, painter, collage artist. So there's at every site where there's ACA or First Paris or Town Hall, there's a mix of medium. You're not going to find like one room of painters. It's all kind of diversified. My sense is that Open Studio is a, is a big moment in the ACA calendar every year. Is that, is that accurate, Tom? Yeah, I think it is. You know, it's certainly like one of our, I mean, I refer to our signature events and they include certainly Open Studios and Porch Fest. I mean, there are events that like the community, and I mean, the community really looks forward to year after year and we look forward to presenting year after year. Part of our mission is building community. Those events like have everything to do with that. And a lot of what you guys do is of course geared towards either, like it is offered through the form of classes or workshops or things that invite specific populations in and do some training, do some, you know, have some fun, et cetera. But these events that we're talking about, you know, Porch Fest again, already date set for June 2022 and we'll hear more about that plenty more in future iterations of this update and in other ways. But that in Open Studio, as you just said, that's for, you know, everybody. But it's for the artists who are visual artists, musicians, the public. And you know, including people who are just wondering by, like, you know, that, I mean, that's what's beautiful about it, right? It's very accessible. Like even if you don't know it's happening, you might stumble upon it. But everybody will know it's happening. Yes, of course they will. Gosh darn it. Here we are at ACMI. But they got to be packing their vax card and the mask. Or have a picture of it. Or have a picture on their phone, which is what I have. Yes, please, please. Let's take a moment and just make sure that we can make it very clear for our audience exactly what we'll do and what won't do. So I know you've already said the different pieces, but go ahead and kind of give us one synopsis of, hey, if you're thinking about coming, here's what you need to know. Yeah, so you need to either have your vaccination card with you or you need to have a picture of your vaccination card. Both will do. And the picture can be obviously, you can just take a picture on your phone, show your phone. And we'll be just asking, when you enter a space, we'll be asking you for that. Obviously, for outdoor performances, we won't be doing that because it's impossible to do that outdoors. But for all of the indoor activities, we'll be asking for folks to share that info with us as they enter. And also, if they don't have a vaccination, they can also show us proof of a negative COVID test within 24 hours. One of the PCR tests because they're time-stamped. And if you go to, say you go to town hall first, you're gonna get like a little sticker, some sort of proof. And then you can go into ACA or first parish. Like you don't have to go through it again. Right, so the first time, right, the first time you enter. I didn't know that. Well, I just found out about it. Well, that seems efficient. We're trying to figure out ways to make it streamlined. We know it's an inconvenience, but we also wanna keep our artists safe and we wanna do our bit to keep our community safe. And frankly, it is a very familiar inconvenience for virtually all of us. But we're live. Right, I mean, Arlington's a pretty special place. I mean, it really is, I've said that to you before, but it really is. You know, we started doing this in September with our classes. Like, so folks that are coming to our classes or to an exhibit, we're also requiring vaccinations. And we were prepared. I mean, we prepared ourselves to answer questions and to talk with folks that might feel frustrated or upset. I haven't really had any of those conversations yet. And we just had that gallery show that opened last Thursday for real. And so on, so everybody pretty much, I mean, it was only a few people who showed up and didn't realize they needed to bring that. They were very understanding. They're coming back to see the show another time. But the show was so successful that we actually had an overflow crowd. We had to have people waiting in the hallway to go in. I mean, I've been using the phrase return to community celebration a lot. And boy, this really felt like people were ready to return to a community celebration. Yeah, so I'm not sure if we actually said what that was. Like, I know we talked about it before we went on air, but I'm not sure if we've talked about real. That's your opening time. Great. I got it. I might need to help. We've only got a couple of minutes, but. So we just had our first gallery opening in like nearly two years. And we have a great exhibit. It's called Real. Pam, I'm terrible under the spotlight. It's co-curated by Dan Ciaferini and Gwen Chason. And it was juried by Fill Young. Thank you. They've done fabulous work. It's about 50 works by almost as many artists featured on our walls. The work is tremendous. And there's so much talent out there. It was really interesting. We didn't have anything to do with the selection of the art, but we collected it for the jurying process. And there was so, so much terrific stuff that didn't even make it into the show because there was so much stuff and we only have so much wall space. But after the jury, the jurying was done, we all went into the gallery and we're like, well, not that piece. They didn't choose that. I mean, it really was. Right, you went to look at the rejection and you were like, what? Right, there was so much good stuff. We're gonna put that one in. And that'll be up during Open Studios. Yeah, and it'll be up through January. And so we're still asking for visitors to make appointments to come, but we have, I think it's Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays every week. And if somebody can't make it during that time, they're always welcome to contact us and we will schedule a special time for them to come in and take a look. So you're actually looking at 50 artists plus the 60, so there's 110 artists in the show. Right, you mean between the Open Studios and the Galleries. And the Galleries. That is, that's a great way to look at it. So we only have almost literally a minute left, but I wanted just to invite you to, anything that we haven't mentioned that we should have, I know you had talked about fall programs that are going on in the way that they have before. I can see that you also have a postcard there for. People sometimes think that if they, if they haven't registered in September that they've missed the boat. And that's not true because we actually have classes starting periodically across the whole term. Because some classes are nine week classes and some are four week classes. And then we have some one session workshops too. I can tell you there's two things that people have been calling a lot about lately and that seem excited about. We have a music appreciation class called Composers in Exile that Dottie Bursting is leading for us. And people seem really excited about that. The other class that's coming up is a wreath making class that people seem super excited about. And it's making a wreath with found materials. So we're not talking necessarily about like your very kind of traditional holiday wreath. Though, artistic license might lead you there. Right, but found materials perfect for this community and this time. No doubt about it. All right, I'm gonna have to rather abruptly wrap things up here. It has been great to talk with you both. Pam, thanks so much for accompanying Tom for this particular trip and we hope you will in the future as well at some point. Tom, great to see you. Pleasure. I have been of course, speaking with two of the luminaries over there at the Arlington Center for the Arts. Pam Shanley, their operations manager and Tom Formicola, their executive director. This has been the ACAA Update. I'm James Milan. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.