The thousand pound block of "pure" white Italian Carrara marble arrived the other day. The delivery into my loading dock wasn't without stress full moments but it is now safe and sound in my carving studio.. -Scott.

Artccupy (Live Painting in Boston's Dewey sq!)

P.credit Liz Vequist

On Saturday October 15th artist Scott Cahaly brought his travel easel, canvas and acrylic paints into Occupy Boston! Since the beginning of the movement his drawing pad has been flooded with all the imagery that has been trickling down over the world wide web. Political, economical, symbols of piece and protest have been brewing in his creative mind. "With all this excitement going on, it has been a little hard to stay in my Somerville studio and paint" said Scott Cahaly
While walking back with a friend from the Columbus Day occupy march Scott said it would be worthwhile to do "live painting" in Dewey sq. The artist arrived there last Saturday and set up around 1:30 in the blustery wind and sun. "It was not easy, the painting and supplies kept blowing away and at one point during a passing rain storm a person saw me getting wet and gave me shelter from the storm with his protest sign!" These windy conditions marked an unknown collaboration in the piece because it blew a ripped in half one dollar bill right into his materials. "At this point I just stuck the ripped currency onto the middle of the painting, cause it is pretty much the reason why we are all here anyway...." "The painting created itself at this point, a giant peace symbol showed up with an image of the earth behind it and American flag below, with Bank of America Logo." The Wall Street Bull head showed up at the top of the peace symbol with a printed picture of the artist marching the week before holding up a sign referring to the dollar that said "your boss is watching."
There is nothing like the winds of change to inspire creativity, you can catch Scott Cahaly and other painters "artccupying" some sidewalk in Dewey sq. several days a week and making spontaneous paintings....

"Bust of Life"

This sculpture that I carved about thirteen years ago is about to leave the studio. It is a piece of Vermont Marble I got my hands on while carving stone at the Vermont Marble exhibit in the late 90's. It is about 23 inches high and 8 inches wide. I named it "Bust of Life" because ancient figural representations carved from the waist up were referred to as "busts" back in the Greco/Roman/Renaissance days. I added the "Life" part cause I see it as a very optimistic face and torso. Somebody was very interested at open studios 11 last spring and is about to come and take it home. It is always good when a piece of heavy rock's time has come to fly Z nest........... :)

SWID Festival Sculpture Installation.

I started and completed this found object sculpture installation at a festival I attended on fourth of July weekend in Central MA. The whole piece was a tribute to an artist friend of mine who died mysteriously on the west coast while trying to sell his paintings. It reminds me of a mix between an "Easter Island" head feel and a "Burning Man" feel. I am interested in doing more large scale projects like this in outdoor settings.... -Scott.

Live Painting....

I was asked several weeks ago if I would do "Live Painting" during a Wine and Food tasting party in Cambridge at the Sonesta hotel, I said yes... There were five painters there making live art and we had between three and four hours to complete a painting. I was a little stressed out for the first hour and a half while I executed a pretty (fail-listic) looking painting. I wasn't happy with it at all and started questioning whether or not I knew what I was doing. As I have done many times in my studio, I turned the canvas Vertical, and looked for a way in, a new possible form emerging and found one... "Wine Taster" acrylic on canvas emerged in front of over fifty people and was a good learning and remembering experience for me about my own creative process....

Somerville Open Studios April 30 & May 1

Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.” On April 30 & May 1, that is exactly what the Somerville art community plans to do. It’s a weekend of epic proportions where artists open their doors to the art-loving public. Breaking our own record this year with 391 participants, Somerville Open Studios has become the largest one weekend open studios event in the nation. From home studios to commercial buildin...gs such as Joy Street, Central Street, Vernon Street, Mad Oyster, Brickbottom, Miller Street, and Mud at Studios, this FREE citywide event showcases both the established and emerging artists working across a broad spectrum of fine art styles and craft – painting, sculpture, photography, fiber, jewelry, clay, glass and furniture – anything you might want to explore is here in the ‘Ville.

This abundant array of artists both educates the public and raises awareness of the vast cultural diversity within the city. Examples of skill sharing can be found through a variety of workshops and classes (welding
to kayak-making) available at the Artisan’s Asylum and private studios. With the help of participating SOS members, students at the Winter Hill School learn to express themselves through art and understand what it
means to be a professional artist. Parts and Crafts has started a new program based on Community Supported Education very similar to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) providing art and science
projects to children during school vacations.

My studio is at The Mad Oyster Building
2 Bradley st. Somerville MA

For more info visit the Somerville Open Studios website
www.somervilleopenstudios.org

Bristol Community College NESA show I'm in..

Inside/Out Gallery. Davis. Sq Somerville...

Art Show in Davis sq. Somerville Windows attached to CVS, sponsored by The Somerville Arts Council. Show runs through the beginning of march...

Change Makers Ball. Painting donated and sold!

What is the Change Maker's Ball?

Every year, Self Help Africa recognizes and celebrates the change that we see among the communities with whom we work.

Each year, tens of thousands more people will start a small business, have more than enough produce to eat and sell, introduce a new income to their homes, educate their children and expand their horizons because of Self Help Africa’s work in four key areas: food security, developing entrepreneurs, women and climate change.

Self Help Africa believes that working with communities in these four areas is the only lasting solution to breaking the cycle of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.

All funds raised at our Change-Makers Ball will go straight to supporting people – women, men, families and communities so that they have the tools and knowledge to be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

We aim to recognize four individuals who have put their names and support behind each cause to help to blaze a path to change for Africa. These are Self Help Africa’s Ambassadors for Change.

Our black tie event will showcase the four areas that we work in, and recognize our ambassadors for helping to bring change to the lives of so many.

Join us at the Ambassador’s for Change Ball to understand how we are working with communities in Africa to empower people to change their own lives, and how you can be a part of that change.

Margaret Brennan, a business reporter and host of Bloomberg TV’s “InBusiness with Margaret Brennan,” will act as master of ceremonies for the evening, which is sponsored by Digicel and includes a champagne and cocktail reception, gourmet dinner, live and silent auctions, and dancing to live music. The expected 400+ crowd of guests will be luminaries from the worlds of international business, finance, sports, diplomacy, publishing, philanthropy and development.

To toast the celebration, guests will have the chance to sip a signature Change-Maker's Cocktail, created especially for the night by two top tastemakers: World-renowned Chef Nils Norén is the former Executive Chef of Aquavit and now the Vice President of Culinary and Pastry Arts at New York’s French Culinary Institute and the Italian Culinary Academy, and he was a 2009 competitor on Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters”; Norén will joined by his colleague, Dave Arnold, the Technology Director at the French Culinary Institute and an expert on high-tech cocktails. Together, the talented duo will prepare both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions of their original cocktail blend.

Another highlight of the ball will be when Patrick Tully of PR/PR (Player Relations/Public Relations) takes the stage to lead a live auction featuring an array of exclusive international trips, unique experiences, sporting event tickets, golf outings, luxury products and more.

To showcase Self Help Africa’s four key focus areas – improving food security, helping farmers cope with climate change, developing entrepreneurs and investing in women’s start-up businesses – the Change-Maker’s Ball will honor four Ambassadors for Change, individuals who have put their names and support behind each cause.

The 2010 Self Help Africa Ambassadors for Change are:
Ambassador for Entrepreneurs: Heather James, Principal and Director of Research, Federal Street Partners, LLC.

Ambassador for Women: Ciara Smyth, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Ambassador for Food Security: Ronan Downs, Owner, Beckett’s Bar & Grill on New York’s historic Stone Street.

Ambassador for Climate Adaptation: Denis Hickie, Irish rugby legend and currently with Mainstream Renewable Power.

New England Sculptors Association (NESA)

The New England Sculptors Association, organized in 1948 and one of the oldest sculptors associations in the United States, represents a diverse membership of nationally and regionally recognized sculptors.

NESA members work and show throughout the world, and are represented in numerous private and museum collections.

NESA, with an increasingly expanding membership, eagerly reaches out to aspiring as well as established sculptors. Its members are selected by jury and work in a variety of media.

Please view our Member Galleries and Exhibitions pages. Contact a sculptor directly from the Member Gallery, or go to the Contact link to request information about pricing information and availability of sculpture.

NESA sponsors exhibitions and lectures, and promotes the work of sculptors of all levels of experience. We encourage you to become a member. Go to the Contact link for more information.

http://www.nesculptors.com

SWID!

I will be showing artwork here on the fourth of July weekend!
For more info... http://www.heartbeatcollective.org/front

Somerville Open Studios May 1-2, noon - 6pm

Somerville Open Studios

May 1+2, 2010
Saturday + Sunday, noon - 6pm

http://www.somervilleopenstudios.org/

Hello and happy spring to everyone. It is that time again when over three hundred visual artists in Somerville throw open their doors to the public. This is my eleventh open studio.... I've been embedded in this studio for a decade making art and being an artist. I knew from my first art class in college that art was no casual thing for me! My drive to produce beautiful things has been almost in full steam this spring. I have been carving Butterflies out of stone since my return from the Tropical Mecca of Costa Rica. I always look forward to helping new and past collectors in acquiring and owning my work. On that note I have a repository of about twenty older paintings that I have priced at five-hundred dollars or less (20%) off and as always during open studios I honor a (10%) discount on all works purchased throughout the event! This will be the first year I will also be opening up my little carving studio across the hall so people can get a feel for my carving! process! I do hope you can find a little time in your busy spring weekend to see some of my art.

I hope this note finds you well and the sun shining above you.....

Very Satisfying Photo Shoot.

photo credit: Peter Paradise


I just recently had a photographer over to the studio named Peter Paradise! I have been a big fan of his work for years. So much so that I maid a painting after one of his portraits of a Belly Dancer named Sara Wood! Peter has been a guy I see at community gatherings all the time and has a great rep. as a photographer of local musicians, dancers and hoopers.
His work is very clean and very distinctive. He actually told me during the shoot that he hopes people won't like twenty percent of the work he does, this really caught me off guard.
Peter arrived around three and it was a clear sunny day and the sun was shining bright in my studio as he detected with his light meter!
I am still amazed by the way he brought me out of my familiar facial expressions and set a tone for the kind of pictures he wanted to take. He told me to stop frowning and exude confidence which I think I did in the end! I really appreciate the way he took the image of me that I see all the time and changed it into the image he saw with his camera. I just wanted to take time to post some of the pics here as they are quite good.............

Pura-Vida, Costa Rica

It has now been several weeks since my return from the land of infinite paradise, Costa Rica. I wish I could sum up in feelings and sensations the way I still feel because of this land I visited for fifteen days including my birthday. Since I am blogging I will try to do some justice with words. Paradise, faith, the reward of trusting in self, just to name a few..... To have gotten out of the US and to a new country for the first time in twelve years is EXACTLY what I needed! It took so much emotional, psychic and physical inertia for me to take this trip, I still can't believe it did it. The land itself is like Jurassic park without the dinosaurs. As you are flying into the airport you fly right next to a volcano and arrive onto a land, half mountainous and half coastal! The land itself is like VErmont, Colorado, California etc. all rolled into one!
My time was divided up between the Diamante Valley and Dominical, sea side town! Vista after vista of beautiful trees, valleys, sunsets, Trees, waterfalls not to mention some very large spiders and Scorpions. One night while using the bathroom I noticed a huge tarantula spider on the door, so I decided to go elsewhere. This time on the farm was incredible and filled with friends from back home and new friends. After a week here we all emerged into the ocean town of Dominical. This fit me perfectly cause it was my first real taste of the culture of the country.
The locals and visitors there, which there are many as it is a big surf town have an expression "Pura Vida" Pure Life which they say and almost wish to each other as they walk down the street! It was in the recognition of this custom that I totally understood and begin to wake up to the blissfull feeling of life these people live each and every day. It was like being born again in the joy that is "Pura Vida." Not that life is not pure everywhere, but in this place, the set is fraught and filled with characteristics of paradise like the temperature, and it was hot, to the sunsets, ocean waves, puffy clouds and all the trappings of the tropics. One of my favorites was the cold coconuts chopped with a large knife and drunk using a straw! I also had the pleasure to experience many "vortexes" while on the coast. Beaches of such beauty and magnetic power, I felt them lifting my own vibratory energy field. On my birthday four of us hired a taxi to take us to a special beach "las Ventanas" the windows. Upon arrival to the beach our friend Jake scaled one of the many coconut trees there and cut down fifteen coconuts from which we drank from the rest of the afternoon into the sunset. They actually put a candle in one and sang me happy birthday. It was the best Birthday ever! We explored to caves within a cliff from which the ocean was whipping into and making a frightening noise. In no other beach in my life have I ever felt such raw power and mystery. We stayed for the amazing Pacific sunset and quickly got off the beach and back to the taxi before it got to dark! IT's funny, this whole day was so amazing and went past in the blink of an eye, like I knew it would.
I'm still sitting with the lessons and beauties I learned from this incredible place. I also think I re-met myself, a part of myself I had forgotten about not having taken a trip like this in so long. I know this was the first of many and hope to journey to Peru next to check out Machu Pichu and some of the other temple sights. My trip to Costa Rica taught me how to really trust in myself and the universe......................

Blackest Light

BLACKEST LIGHT

the multi-media art of scott cahaly

October 15 – November 30

Artist Reception: Friday November 20, 2009, 6-8 pm

Munroe Center for the Arts

1403 Massachusetts Avenue

Lexington MA 02420

781-862-6040

Scott Cahaly: “I am a Lexington native who never made any art until I entered the University of Vermont. As a student there in the mid-nineties, I saw a Picasso exhibit at UVM’s Fleming Museum. This is my earliest memory about art. I just kept going back to that show over and over again, absorbing its artistic inspiration and energy. Today, my modest hope for Blackest Light is that an Art Span student finds his or her way into the gallery, sits on the bench or relaxes on the floor, and absorbs some of the creative energy that I’ve poured into these works in stone, paint, charcoal, and photograph.

"I am both a sculptor and a painter. Even when I paint, I feel that I am dealing with sculptural form. When I tone down color and allow it to fade to black, I’m left alone with form and space, whether I’m working in two dimensions or three. I begin each new work with an open mind and a hopeful heart; no piece is ever planned at the outset.

"Blackest Light is an intimate show that includes work from my earliest art-making days to the present. The common thread among these pieces is their darkness. Yet within each of these dark works, there is light. In some cases, the light is literal, represented by lighter paints. In other cases, the light is provided “off-stage” by the flash of the camera, or is expressed only metaphorically within the content of the piece.

"Two charcoal drawings date back to the mid-nineties and have never before been exhibited; even then, when I was just starting to make art, I took charcoal to white paper and carved away the white space to create figures. At the time, this process was utterly mysterious and completely inspiring to me; I had no conscious idea of where this visual information was coming from. These pieces, although primitive, are filled with visionary figures that emerged unbidden out of my creative subconscious, foreshadowing the reductive process and imagery that were to become hallmarks of the next thirteen years of my sculpture and painting. Lastly, the show also includes a Paul Weiner photograph, taken using a flash in my Somerville studio, of me and a large marble statue I carved by hand from a 5000 pound block of marble .

“I am very pleased with the way this show emerged, and am most grateful to the Munroe Center for hosting it.”