Cat’s out of the bag! Some of you have already guessed who I am (there have been some fabulously funny wrong guesses too).
My last post at the end of August coincides with my taking over The Valley Arts Newsletter (previously known as “The Arts Newsletter Experiment”). This blog got neglected while I got up-to-speed managing and publishing the newletter. The newsletter is still evolving, and it seemed to be a good fit to roll the blog in with it.
I’ve missed blogging about art, and am happy to revive The Art Parlor. It was originally started as a way to challenge myself to go see a lot of local art, and small attempt to make up for the lack of local coverage of local art and artists. Local art reviews were few and far between. It was surprising to me that our largest local newspaper, had a food critic, a music critic, even a beer critic, but no art critic. Why not? In an area that has so much art going on, why not?
I thought the anonymity would be fun, and leave me free to write uninhibited. I wanted a way to write about art in a semi-critical way, without reference to myself or getting too personal. Trying for a perhaps more honest style of writing. Using “we” got a bit tiresome though 
(plans had also been in the works for this to be a small collective of “art critics,” but that never materialized. Perhaps this may still happen?).
Over a decade ago, I reluctantly returned to the Valley from London, a city that is incredibly rich with art and immensely supportive of the arts. I slowly realized that the Pioneer Valley is full of art, but so much of it is hidden.
This has been changing in the past couple years, as municipalities realize the importance of the creative economy for economic revitalization, and as more artists and creative people move to our beautiful Valley. We now have monthly art walks in three towns, some exciting new galleries and art spaces, but still a lack of visiblity and media coverage. (I’ve always wondered why something as subjective as sports dominates news media. Why not the arts?). I love that there is so much art happening here, and so many amazingly-talented artists! Let’s tell the world!
This blog is not just for artists and art-makers. As the newsletter aims to spread the news of local art to everyone in the Valley (and beyond), I hope this blog will stimulate and help facilitate more discussion about the arts.
So… more posts, more art reviews/discussion/etc, and maybe I’ll even show you some of my own work…
p.s. I’ve updated the links list, added some news ones, deleted some broken ones. Let me know if you have a link you’d like to add. I’m adding a page to this blog to list local artist websites, it’s going to be a big list, so send me links! (can you tell by now that I’m a inveterate list-maker?) It will be nice to have a comprehensive list of local artists and hopefully this will add some more traffic to their websites too.
PACE (Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton) is a gem in downtown Easthampton. They have regular open-mike comedy and jam nights, jazz twice a month, music performances, a small cafe, as well as some superb shows. Their current space is small, so larger theater productions take place at the Academy of Music in Northampton.
