Arts Briefs – The Provincetown Independent
Nathan Tavares Explores Infinite Worlds
Boston-based author Nathan Tavares will read from and sign his new book, A Fractured Infinity, at the Provincetown Bookshop (229 Commercial St.) on Sunday, Dec. 11, 4 p.m.
Described as a story in the vein of “sci-fi flicks Arrival and Contact but real gay,” the novel follows a washed-up filmmaker who discovers that he is somehow connected to a predictive device from another universe — and that a different version of himself exists in an alternate reality. He then goes on the run through time and space with the man he loves to save both their lives. (A recent review in the New York Times called the novel “a very beautiful, tender portrait of a romance.”)
“I jokingly call it my ‘hit by a bus’ book,” says Tavares, “in that if I was hit by a bus tomorrow — which I hope I’m not, because I very much enjoy being alive — this is a book that I would have been really thankful that I wrote.” He says it represents everything he loves about literature and science fiction.
Tavares observes that science fiction “has historically been the straight white man’s game to play.” Few books or movies in the genre feature queer characters or place a queer love story at their center. In A Fractured Infinity, infinite realities exist — and queer love exists in all of them.
At home in Boston, Tavares works as a freelance journalist covering underrepresented communities, mostly through writing about food and culture. He says that Provincetown is his favorite place in the world. “The town welcomes all,” he says, “including gay universe-hopping lovers.”
The reading is free. See provincetownbookshop.com and nathantavares.com for more information. —Dorothea Samaha
Bringing Art to the People
The mural by Esteban del Valle in the alley next to Marine Specialties was the Provincetown Public Art Foundation’s first completed project. A bronze statue of Mary Heaton Vorse by sculptor Penelope Jencks that will stand in front of Vorse’s former home on Commercial Street is currently in the works. A waterfront piece by Mark Adams tracking the tides and the threat of rising sea levels is in the early planning stages. And artist Wendy Klemperer was chosen earlier this year for the foundation’s fourth project.
The PPAF will hold a community meeting at the Provincetown Brewing Co. (141 Bradford St.) on Friday, Dec. 9, 7 to 9 p.m. The evening will include a video montage by filmmaker Lise Balk King of highlights of the completed and in-progress projects. Adams will discuss The Breath of the Moon: A Tidal Ecology of Provincetown Harbor.
Adams says he is meeting with groups to get everyone on board and feeling represented. “Who has a stake in the harbor, who has a story?” he asks. “While this is an artist project, it’s important to have a conversation with the community. I want viewers to feel they are a part of it.”
According to the PPAF website, its goals are to help fund the acquisition, placement, and preservation of public art; to expand and strengthen the local art economy; to identify artists and artwork for public display; and to develop a master plan of locations for public art installations.
Sculptor and PPAF co-founder Romolo Del Deo sums it up: “Our mission is to elevate the past, illustrate the present, and look to the future of Provincetown — all through public art. There are so many important stories that can be told. We are trying to do that with art and make those stories visible.”
The meeting is free; all are invited. See provincetownpublicart.org for more information. —Sue Harrison
Bob Henry’s Cast of Characters
In Bob Henry’s new show of paintings at the Wellfleet Adult Community Center’s Great Pond Gallery (715 Old County Road), all of the figures are wearing hats. While each piece is strong individually, what’s striking is the statement the works make together.
The series of 50 or so imagined portraits (about 20 are in the current show) began with a single drawing of a boy wearing a dunce cap.
“After looking at this work for about three years,” says Henry in a statement accompanying the show, “I decided that I would make some new works using the same method: drawing a geometric shape, seeing it as a cap, and putting an image of a face below it. I then made the series of paintings based on those drawings.”
Like much of Henry’s work, the images exist in a space between drawing and painting, where outlines accompany washy passages of solid color. Although most of the work feels quick and gestural, some passages — like a cloudlike form hovering over the head of a man in one image — are built up through scraping away and layering.
Henry is skilled at capturing a range of expressions. The faces are by turns surprised, angry, furtive, quizzical, or sorrowful. Each of them seems to have been caught in a particular moment; the viewer becomes both witness and judge.
Together, the portraits create a tragicomic community. The characters are diverse: A sour-faced older woman hangs next to a sad-looking boy in a blue hat decorated with animal imagery. Another woman, her head sandwiched in a red square, looks like a nun from another century. An angry-looking man, in all white with mouth agape, could be a chef. While the people in Henry’s pictures could be characters from real life, they create their own society that exists parallel to our own. The world that results is testament to Henry’s power to create convincing alternate realities.
The show is on view through Dec. 31, with an artist’s reception on Dec. 11 from 3 to 5 p.m. —Abraham Storer
‘Songs to Light the Way’ for the Holidays
The Outer Cape Chorale and Chamber Singers, celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, will perform “Songs to Light the Way” at Provincetown Town Hall on Friday, Dec. 9, 7 p.m., and Saturday, Dec. 10, 5 p.m. Another performance is scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 11, 3 p.m., at Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans.
The chorale, founded in 2002 by conductor Jon Arterton, currently has around 70 members. “We range in age from 30s to 80s,” says board member Nancy Sweeney, adding that towns from Yarmouth to Provincetown are represented.
A highlight of the December programs is the choral work Frostiana: Seven Country Songs. Randall Thompson composed the piece in 1959 in Amherst, Mass., where poet Robert Frost lived for several years. It’s a setting of seven of Frost’s poems, including “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
The chorale is organized in three separate choirs: sopranos and altos, tenors and basses, and a cappella chamber singers. In Frostiana, this separation is emphasized as each movement has different voicing, creating distinctive moods for each poem.
The chorale will also sing holiday and spiritual music for both Christmas and Hanukkah, including a rendition of “Peace on Earth/Drummer Boy,” an arrangement made famous by Bing Crosby and David Bowie in 1977. All will be accompanied by Arthur McManus on the piano and a small chamber ensemble.
“There will be something for everyone,” says Sweeney. The performance is free; donations are welcome, and masks are optional. See outercapechorale.org for more information. —Eve Samaha