MassArt Alumnus, Steve Locke, MFA ‘01, joined GBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen to discuss his career and the role that art plays in our every day lives, which includes his his recent installation for Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s 150th anniversary.

In Locke’s latest work, bright pink neon lights up part of the MassArt building’s facade, emphasizing the word “NORMAL” emblazoned on the wall. Locke’s goal, as he says, was to highlight the school’s history as a place of furthering public education: “I wanted to highlight the fact that MassArt is a teacher’s school. It’s a school that trains teachers, and it’s a public school, and I wanted to affirm the value of public education.”

In the interview, speaking:
Jared Bowen: “Have we lost our way that the arts are normal?
Steve Locke: “People think the arts are outside of themselves…and I say to people all the time, everything in your life was designed by a creative person, an artist or designer. The coffee cup you drink out of, the shirt you wear, all the apps on your phone, the interior of your car, teh Benjamin Moore color of the year, all that stuff comes through the arts. People think it’s somehow separate or different from their lives, but it’s not.”

Listen to the interview

“40 Part Part” by Jace Clayton
On view at the MassArt Art Museum through July 30

Artist Jace Clayton grew up in North Andover and graduated from Harvard before recently returning to the MassArt Art Museum for a series of three installations, including the striking “40 Part Part.”

Inspired by artist Janet Cardiff’s presentation of 16th-century choral works, Clayton creates what appears to be a “minimalist sculpture” consisting of 40 speakers on stands around the room. Audiences are invited into the space to connect their phones to the speaker and listen to music of their choosing. As part of the installation, Clayton has designed an algorithm that changes how visitors hear the music.

“You start playing the music,” Bowen described, “and it gets absorbed because of this algorithm into different ways throughout the room. So it will come from just one speaker or you’ll just hear part of the sound and then the rest of that sound is distributed through another speaker around the room.”

He added that “it was such an odd feeling to have this piece of music that you know so well, that’s kind of fundamental to your upbringing and then have it just completely distorted and dismantled and played with. It kind of almost felt like I had stepped into a different reality.”

“Normal” by Steve Locke
On view at the MassArt South Building

One of Boston’s “great stars,” Steve Locke [MassArt Alumnus, MFA ‘01], has returned from New York for an installation on the exterior of MassArt for the institute’s 150th anniversary. The title gets its name from the term “normal school,” which was used to describe MassArt at its founding. (Today, such an institution would be called a teaching college.)

Locke’s work uses pink neon to outline the letters of the word “normal” in the brickwork to emphasize that the arts are normal. “The arts aren’t something exceptional, they’re just a normal part of our life,” Bowen said.

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Massachusetts College of Art and Design is pleased to present MFA Thesis 2023, showcasing the work of 12 Master of Fine Arts candidates in the final semester of their graduate programs in 2D/3D Fine Arts, Photography, and Film/Video. The exhibition is on view in two parts at the MassArt x SoWa gallery through June 4, with a student-curated on-campus component, My Feelings These Days, on view at the college’s Doran Graduate Gallery through June 2.

Featured 2023 MFA Thesis artists include Yukai Chen, Hadis Karami, Catherine LeComte, Kierra LoRayne, Lucie March, Dara Morgenstern, Yuxiao Mu, Yana Nosenko, Ashley Pelletier, Katalina Simon, Piyu Somani, and Jialin (Tiffany) Wang.

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Jason Guerette has also joined Live Furnish as its digital stylist. He most recently spent five years as a 3D stylist at Wayfair for exclusive brands including Joss & Main, Birch Lane, AllModern and Perigold. He comes from an extensive background in photography.

He received his bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he majored in fine arts.

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In one sense, the local connection is institutional. The Massachusetts College of Art and Design serves as a conduit for Trachtman, Ishikura, and Higgins alike—they were all educated there. Ishikura and Higgins now teach there, and Trachtman taught at MassArt starting in 1982. This is relevant to their work’s vernacular, and it may reflect the prominent place of illustration at the school today. 

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Brooke Lambert is a professional printmaker and painter. She received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has shown her work widely in New England, New York, and beyond. She is currently represented by the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition Gallery in New York and is sponsored by Akua Inks and Speedball Art Products. Brooke teaches adult art classes in MA, ME, & NH. Her work can be found in Western Avenue Studios in Studio 447 and online at www.brookelambertartist.com

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