Quarries, Poles Hill, Ocean Ledges and gratitude weave through the following essay, with 30 plus photographs.

Keith Haring made thousands of unsanctioned chalk drawings in New York City subway stations. Most of them were promptly thrown away or papered over by subway authorities. Only a limited number survive to this day. Seventeen of these historic drawings will be exhibited publicly for the first time at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center

It has taken months for Martin Mugar to get a fix on the remarkable Philip Guston exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The work is now on the road. Mugar attempts to unpack the complex phases of the work from initial Social Realism to Abstract Expressionism to a late phase entailing controversial cartoonish images of the Ku Klux Klan. Initially the late work cast him as a pariah in the art world. During which he taught at Boston University and was embraced by like minded professors and students.

In short order, playwright Lynne Kaufman offers enticing insights into two contrasting, important modern poets, and the simple production succeeds through fine acting. This compact but impactful taste of familiarity fully satisfies on its own, while many attendees will want to learn even more about these fragile artists and their robust literary works.

The Komische Oper Berlin is one of three opera houses in the Capital. Committed to presenting lighter fare, it just celebrated its 75 birthday in January with a big gala and two operas by Jaques Offenbach: Oyayaye and Fortunio's Lied.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is pleased to announce the first round of recommended awards for fiscal year 2023, with more than $34 million in funding to support the arts nationwide. This is the first of the NEA’s two major grant announcements each fiscal year and includes grants to organizations through the NEA’s Grants for Arts Projects, Challenge America, and Research Awards categories.

VERY is pleased to begin the winter season with Death Show, a special compilation exploring how death reveals itself as both an unspoken subtext and conscious motif in the work of ten artists. Employing diverse mediums, these artists express the material and existential implications of the force that affects all.

Thursday, January 26, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, January 27, 1:30 p.m.; Saturday, January 28, 8 p.m. Andris Nelsons leads the world premiere of American composer/guitarist Steven Mackey's Concerto for Curved Space, a BSO co-commission (Thursday and Saturday concerts only). Mackey's style embraces influences ranging from Beethoven to modern rock.

He’s been making jazz, and nurturing young jazz artists, for more than 50 years, and it’s about time we paid tribute to Mike Schiffer. At the age of 93, he is still playing local gigs. But this time, on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 29 (4pm), he’ll be in the audience with the rest of us lucky jazz followers.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC),  announces the 10-minute plays, playwrights and casting for the 12th Annual 10X10 New Play Festival, part of the 2023 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival. Performances February 17 through March 5, 2023.

Some Like It Hot is fun, tuneful and worth spending Broadway prices to see. Is the musical really an adaptation of the classic slapstick, Billy Wilder comedy?

A vibrant equity national touring production of "Aladdin" is playing in Miami through Sunday. "Aladdin" offers a feast for the eyes. The popular musical's basis is a 1992 animated film, which an ancient folktale inspired.

The Clark Art Institute hosts three free events as part of I/O Fest, the Williams College Department of Music’s annual immersion in the music of today. Students in the music program take audiences on a tour of new sounds and adventurous music during a concert for families on January 15.

The artist Marjorie Minkin divides time between Boston and the Eclipse Mill in North Adams. Her Lexans have been shown in galleries and museums in MA, NYC, LA, Michigan, Canada, France, Belgium, Germany and Seoul. This is the first time a solo installation will be shown in Boston.  The work will be exhibited in the Atrium gallery at the Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston from January 5th through March 30th, 2023.

Here’s my list of the best Connecticut productions I saw this year. Instead of ranking them, I’ve just listed what I found particularly noteworthy.

The works in On the Town celebrate city life and community, illuminating a Boston area of the past through the vision of one of its more unique residents. Arnold Trachtman’s paintings tell stories and reveal an artist as deeply invested in his neighborhood as it was in him.  

Around Six years ago, I signed up for the National Geographic Family History DNA Test.  For around $125, I received a Cheek Swab Kit and some paperwork.  I was instructed to reveal nothing more than my Name and Age.  A few weeks later, I received a box which included a Printed Brill Family History based solely on the DNA I presented.  The National Geographic Report let me know that I am Jewish and that my Father’s Family started in the Middle East and traveled to Sicily around a thousand years ago. 

Gallery NAGA welcomes 2023 with a selection of works by two artists, Cheryl Ann Thomas and Michael F. Rohde, in a feat of interdisciplinary collaboration. This exhibition was first organized by the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona California and curated by Jo Lauria, Adjunct Curator for the American Museum of Ceramic Art and a design historian based in Los Angeles, California. 

It comes as a surprise to noone who attends Met Operas that the House is in trouble. Only Peter Gelb, who at first said that people were asleep after Covid, seems to find the Met Opera's failure to sell tickets news. His response is also odd. The operas he proposes to produce to cure are chamber operas unsuited to an opera house too large for our times.

Her father, an artist, took the poet Eve Rifkah to the Museum of Fine Arts. There the young girl became intrigued by Suzanna Valadon the model for Renoir's stunning Bal a Bougival. She has written a book of verse comprising conversations with and about herself and the legendary artist/ model. Our paths crossed at Manship Artists Residency.

With the 2022 publication of Gloucester Encounters: Essays on the Cultural History of the City 1623-2023, edited by Martin Ray, we have a kick start launch of a year of commemoration in 2023. Originally planned for six writers it was expanded to 36 by editor Martin Ray. It reads like a pot luck supper with savory chapters as well as many not so. But you won't leave it feeling hungry for Gloucester.  

Zen Buddhist teaching and the use of Koans are for the purpose of disabusing one from thinking, and instead simply acting.  Quiet oneself sufficiently, be fully present in the moment, and the correct response to the moment will arise on its own – naturally, instinctively, organically.

 Julia Bullock and the American Modern Opera Project brought a new version of John Adams’ and Peter Sellars' El Nino to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, known for its support of the arts and blessing of all animals. This will become a traditional performance.

"O Christmas Tree," a new holiday play with music, made a triumphant world premiere at South Florida's Thinking Cap Theatre. The playwrights are Thinking Cap's Artistic Director, Nicole Stodard, and Thinking Cap's Managing Director, Bree-Anna Obst. The world premiere marks just the beginning of "O Christmas Tree's" theatrical life.

The Guggenheim Museum releases its schedule of exhibitions for 2023.