Interesting article I read in Art New England

             
                  I recently read an article in the Sept./Oct issue of Art New England - a profile

describing a new regional nonprofit journal, "having a focus on how art & design are changing our urban

landscapes, one city at a time." A wonderful idea, but I had one problem: it showcases artists only

in the age bracket of 20 to 40 years old, something which has been happening for a number of years.

My comments to the magazine are below.


         August 31,2012  
                       Dear Ms. Tolnick Champa,
                       I have admired your magazine for many years; I no longer live in New England, but I was born in the Berkshires, and pursued my life-long study of art beginning at the Massachusetts College
of Art.
                       On reading your profile article "View from the Outpost"I was very impressed with the
project of creating regional journals. It is a fine idea that will benefit artists everywhere....except for
one thing....the author states that the focus is"neither traditional or institutional".   In my opinion,
it is exactly the opposite. In the past 50+ years, a "tradition" has evolved to exclude artists over 40
years old from participating in many gallery and museum exhibitions, and, recently, from  many
competitions. This especially affects older women, who, in many cases, had to wait  for their
children to be grown to have the time and money to begin to produce art, while facing the "tradition"
of being excluded from large gallery exhibitions while we were still young (remember the Guerilla
Girls? ) Now we are faced with the "problem " of being too old to be considered effective as artists.
I strongly disagree with this, particularly if we are considering regional art - it is the older members of a region that are the backbone of the culture you are describing, so please don't exclude us once again -
 we have a lot to offer.

                                                                           Sincerely,
                                                                           Fay Wood,  Clove Church Studio