-W. -B.C. Hello, Boston. This is WBCA 102.9 FM, Boston's Community Radio Station. I'm your host, Tommy Shanafield, and this is a new program, Observation Room, Boston, or Orb, where we're speaking to artists and organizers about spaces and places in Boston and beyond. And I'm very lucky to be joined by Rayber Amphonauer, a filmmaker, community leader, advocate for affordable housing, especially affordable artist housing. One of the co-founders of the Midway Artist Collective and the founder of the Museum of Scenographic Design. He has recently curated the Synographers' Exhibit, featuring works by John Cocklan and Franco Colovetia at the Midway Gallery, and we are very happy to have you here, Rayber. -Thank you so much, Tommy. Thanks for the invitation. It's wonderful to be here. -Yeah, so obviously you've done quite a lot, and you're doing quite a lot, and I'd be interested to know what started you on this path to doing these things related to the arts and especially spaces for artists. -Well, I was a young kid. I was very interested in film and filmmaking and interested in animation. My brother, my identical twin brother, was interested in puppetry, and we were always, as we were growing up, doing all kinds of interesting, creative things. We grew up in Manhattan, and Manhattan is a place where you get quite used to not having a lot of space, so we were used to operating out of very small spaces, but as our ambition and our interests began to expand and grow, we needed more space, and as we moved to different places and locations, space was always front of mind for us. Eventually, I had found myself in Boston. My wife and I had moved to Boston, and we received a living and working here in Boston in a studio, and we received a note under our door that said that the building was being put on the market for sale, and the note also said, "The sale will not affect you," so as soon as we heard the words, "The sale will not affect you," we knew we had to do something, but we were very fortunate to be living amongst a community of other artists, and to be living amongst a group of people who had an ambition to not only make permanent the artists who lived and worked in the community, but also had had an experience of having done that over the last number of decades, and so we were aided by the momentum of the sense of a community, and wanting to preserve that and continue that, and that's what led to all of us rallying together to purchase the building that we were all living and working in to prevent it from becoming the story that has happened so often in so many places around the country. The challenge with many of these things, of course, is how do you bring a community together to affect that goal, and that was something that we had to learn very quickly when it came to Midway Studios being put on the market for sale, but the result of that, of course, is that now a decade later, having operated the building under Midway Artist Collective for just over a decade, we're really seeing all of the fruits of our collective efforts, including this most recent exhibition, the Mazdao exhibition, the Cenographers, which we were very pleased to host at Midway. Do you want to talk a little bit about that Cenographers exhibit, and especially the two artists that it's centered around? Yes. Well, the basic concept of the exhibition is to bring forward elements of live performance design that are not normally seen, and what that means is that when you go and see a production, let's say you go and see an opera, or you go and see a large theatrical presentation, there are many elements of that production that are never seen by the audience, and one of those most significant elements is the design, in particular, of the sets. Those scenes are designed by designers who interpret the literature and the dramatic action of the performance, and through that interpretation, create a visual expression and a dimensional expression of the text and the action, and it makes such a significant component of our experiences of going and seeing live performance, but it is in and of itself an art form that is not often exhibited or not often even understood, and so what we've done is we have curated an entire collection of materials that are both painted, drawn, but also models that have been built, and these models are the kinds of tools that are used just internally within the opera companies or by the directors to understand how they're going to organize the production, how they're going to have performers downstage or upstage, and how the visual texture and visual landscape will unfold over the course of the performance, so they're really tools, but they're also so visually captivating in and of themselves, it would be easy to understand them as works of art because they are miniaturized versions of the sets that can often be operated in the way that you would operate a theater with scenery moving and things flying in, flying out, but also renderings, drawings and paintings and sketches and architectural drawings that capture what that scene is on the stage, and so in the sceneographer's exhibition, visitors are invited to come and explore this work and explore these sketches to see a dimension of live performance that they've very likely never seen before and quite possibly maybe never even contemplated. Something I loved having seen the exhibition myself was how you in its design combined, as you say, all of these different things, these models, these paintings, these sketches, and it was also laid out to give the sense of the energy of the time in which it would have been created, to put that in other words, there were these, what was it, it was, there were certain antique jars of, it was a miracle whip jar that I really liked, and it's where you would might, you know, wash off paintbrushes or something, and these different paint tubes and these little things to give the sense of an active space where things are being worked on, and I really liked how it had that energy of a space where a project is actively being developed. Yeah, well the idea came through conversations with John Conklin and Franco Colovecchia and speaking with them together and individually, you know, understanding that the pieces that we're exhibiting are in fact a part of a process, which is to say that both John and Franco's view is that the ultimate expression of the work that they're contributing to is the performance, and so it becomes quite unfamiliar to have these elements exhibited in any form, but in particular outside the context of a performance, and so I began thinking of ways in which we could clearly place them as a part of a process, and of course it's so fascinating to imagine that these pieces are made by hand. No 3D printing, no laser cutting, no computers of any kind because of the period in which they were made, which is roughly from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. There's some pieces from the early 2000s, but because of the period that John and Franco both worked in, the pencil was the dominant tool and glue and illustration board and paper pulp and all the kind of physical matter that you would imagine being part of a romanticized process of art was really what was at the center of their medium, and so it came quite naturally that those works would be surrounded by the tools that helped create them. I mean, if you think of the works themselves as a tool towards the production of a live performance, then it becomes quite natural to say, well, in service to showing tools that create live performance, let's also include tools that create the tools, and for Franco and John, I think that that also connects very deeply to their kind of natural studio habitat, which is to say that they are two people who are surrounded by research and books, and they do not suffer the kind of culture of a studio where everything finds a home at 5 p.m. These are more spaces that they have nested into for decades, and with that comes a real richness and a real sense of place, and certainly in spending a lot of time in both of their studios, particularly Franco's, you really grasp the inner workings of their mind, because in essence, their studios become expressions, outward expressions of everything they're thinking about, which is quite an exciting landscape in which to see their work. In the context of, I think, more traditional concepts, so much of what we do now is bound into a computer or to a device that it creates a kind of invisibility of the mind. You can't really climb into the mind, because a lot of the mind is in bits and bytes folded into a device, and so... It felt like in this exhibit, you were able to really sense the literal texture of the works, as well as the figurative fingerprints that was all over what they had been working on. Absolutely. I should also add to your miracle whip observation, which is that Franco and John are improvisationists in many dimensions of their work, and their studios reflect that, which is to say that if there are empty jars laying around, they'll use those jars to hold water, to clean brushes, and so it takes on that quality and that texture. These are artifacts from their actual studios, but we also studied photography of their studios in the 70s and 80s, and then went out and found identical make and model of some of the perhaps most unfamiliar things you would ever shop for. I never thought that we would be looking particularly for a 1987 role of bounty paper towels, but we managed to find one. Where did you find it? We found it from a seller who had sold us some material several years ago in New Jersey, some antiques, and I had just provided to him a list of things that we were looking for, and he said, you know, oddly enough, I have a whole bunch of old cleaning supplies that have not been opened, and this was this perfect, perfect thing, because it was identical to the object that was in the background of Franco's studio, but really this is underpinning a phenomenal multi-decade international contributions made by both John and Franco to the world of design, which irrespective of the lack of exhibiting these kinds of works historically, the contributions that they've made directly to the stage and to the way in which imagery on the stage is conceived and absorbed and soaked in by an audience. That is really what is at the heart and the center point of the exhibition, and we're very excited to have partnered with Boston Lyric Opera and with Midway to be able to have a wonderful 7,000 square feet to showcase all of these works, about 400 works. Yeah, and something I appreciate is how it's open to the public. You walk into the space and you're right there in the exhibit, and it just has a very welcoming presence in that way. Yeah, well, it was by both design and, of course, these things are a gas. They sort of expand to fill whatever container you put them in. Midway is very fortunate to have a gallery in its entire ground floor that connects all of the ground floor cultural tenants. We filled every inch of the, especially the front piece, the gallery that we could, and that branches into, of course, the new space that Boston Lyric Opera and Midway Art of Studios are opening, the Opera and Community Studios, which will be a space that anchors Boston Lyric Opera's rehearsal and production operations, but it will also act as a home for other companies and residents for rehearsals and productions throughout the city of Boston. So we're very excited about that. And for this to be the inaugural exhibition seemed fitting given that there were rehearsals happening for Boston Lyric Opera on the lower level, and they could be overseen from the upper level by the guests coming to enjoy the exhibition. And the Midway Gallery and Midway Art of Studios is at 15 Channel Center Street in the Fort Point neighborhood, which is, what you say, is it Seaport or South Boston or something that isn't either? It is something that is entirely unique. The Seaport is really, if you, if you talk to the, you know, friends and colleagues and people who live in the neighborhood, Seaport proper really begins at Seaport Boulevard moving north. Fort Point is really from Seaport Boulevard to West First or West Second Street, and then South Boston is, of course, you know, the entire South Boston moving to the east and south of West First or West Second. It's a neighborhood that is nestled between the Fort Point Channel and the Convention Center, and it has a very unique distinct character. It has the old Morton Seaport, Boston Wharf Company, brick and beam warehouses, and those buildings were particularly attractive in the 1970s for artists to live and to work. And of course, they started as places for artists to work and became places for artists to live first without, you know, permitting or permission per se. But then over time, a number of groups of artists had been successful at being able to to stabilize their buildings and to purchase the buildings in a variety of different structures. So the 249A Street Cooperative was the first, followed by 300 Summer Street. And then Midway Artist Studios, eventually having been created as a space to really act as a lifeboat for artists that were losing their spaces. Eventually, it itself became vulnerable to commercial sale, which was when the residents were notified that the building was being put on the market for sale, and when we rallied together to purchase the building. So this is the third artist building, the first major, the third major artist building within the Fort Point neighborhood that has been purchased by the residents themselves, in which the residents now are serving in a leadership role. And over the last decade of owning and operating the building, you know, it's been a very positive collection of success stories, starting with stabilizing rents for the building, expanding our ground floor cultural spaces to occupy the entire footprint of the ground floor, hiring an arts staff to help in managing the arts mission of the building and in helping to program and operationalize the gallery and other other ground floor arts amenities. And most recently, of course, the expansion of 15,000 more square feet added in partnership with Boston, Eric Opera, to the cultural footprint of the building. What's happened now, of course, is that there are, you know, primarily midway is surrounded by undeveloped parking lots that are owned by postal service or owned by the convention center or owned by the Gillette Company. And so, of course, there is an ambition and a movement and an energy to continue the development of housing, and of course, artist housing, to try to restore the 600 units of artist housing that were lost over the course of the early 2000s when many artists were displaced from the neighborhood. As the big dig concluded, the work that had been invested in the big dig resulted, of course, in the real estate values skyrocketing, and it became quite challenging for artists to persist in that neighborhood. But we're doing 51 more units with related beal as part of their channel side development, along with the 1000 seed amphitheater that will be overlooking the four point channel, and a very robust public art program. And we're very excited about working with the Gillette Company and Procter & Gamble as they began planning their 31 acre site, which will be coming online in the coming, coming, coming years. Well, that's all very exciting. We're just going to take a brief break and then we'll be back in a moment to discuss the future of the Museum of Scenic Graphic Design, Ray Bromfenauer, who's our guest today, and everything else. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] We're being here to discuss the Museum of Schenographic Design, the Midway Artist Collective, which again is at 15 Channel Center Street in the Fort Point neighborhood of Boston. This has been observation room Boston on WBCA 102.9 FM Boston. I'm your host, Tommy Shenifield, and this is your community radio station. [Music] [Music] [Music] (upbeat music)
