Artistic Institutions in Fenway are Less Connected Than You’d Think
When many Bostonians and tourists envision the Fenway area, they see Fenway Park, the Muddy River and the many colleges in the area. Few consider that the area is a hotbed for creativity and art, with over 20 cultural destinations according to the Boston Department of Arts and Culture. From artistic powerhouses like the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, to the many arts colleges in the area, to independent studios, Fenway has no lack of creative institutions. With a newfound focus on the benefits of interdisciplinary connection, one would expect these institutions to connect, having shared programming and a sense of unity, especially as they’re all within a mile of each other.
The Red Circle Represents a 1 Mile Radius. Everything within the circle is a 20 minute walk
But they don’t.
Artists who live and work in the area say they don’t feel a sense of unity and that like minded institutions in the area rarely interact. “I got more recruiting and invitations from the Boston Bruins farm teams that I do from the major [art] organizations in town” said Dr. Ray Fahrner, Director of Performing Arts at the Colleges of the Fenway.
Dr. Fahrner oversees a program that allows students at the five Colleges of the Fenway (Emmanuel College, MassArt, MCPHS University, Simmons University, and Wentworth Institute of Technology) to take a minor in performing arts as part of their studies. In order to achieve the minor, students must take five performing arts classes and spend three semesters in an ensemble on campus. Currently, about 15 students are involved with the program and even fewer pursue the minor to completion. Fahrner blames these low numbers on the nature of the colleges. “All you have to do is look at the types of colleges here” to see that there would not be much interest in a demanding performing arts program. The only school that would provide those kinds of classes to students would be MassArt, and its focus is mainly visual art.
But more broadly, the shortcomings of the program come from a “negative feedback loop. People who haven't had the experience or understand the fullness of [arts education] are less likely to vote for the taxes or to allocate the resources in ways that support the Arts,” Fahrner said. In that, the arts are generally receiving less and less money at universities in favor of programs in “sciences or pick your marketable field, ” according to Fahrner.
Source: National Student Clearinghouse
Fahrner sees himself as “more of a whole person type of administrator.” He holds a PhD in Composition from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and leads the Colleges of the Fenway’s chorus and their jazz band. He also conducts the Cambridge Chamber Singers and has been for 31 years. He also is a computer programmer on the side. Of his many roles, “the part [he] likes best is making music.” He also sees music and performance’s “cross-fertilization. There's a lot of stress relief that come from the arts, you look at the world in different ways and I think that’s a valuable skill when you're doing computer programming” as he does. He is moved by the impact music has on students.
Fahrner notes that artistic programming at the colleges is not completely doomed. “Co-curricular programs have pretty good support. We have a lot of people in the dance program and a large orchestra,” he said. The academic side, consisting of classes in music, theater and dance, garners much less support than the hands-on side, ensembles, dance groups and theater programs. This, perhaps, is because the programs are more visible than classes, “we have about 900 people come to the concerts dance performances at the end of each semester,” Fahrner said, but more importantly, “if things grow and change here it will be because the students want it.” Fahrner reads ensemble evaluations at the end of each semester. “In general, let's put it this way, it's not uncommon to read things like ‘this is the most meaningful part of my college experience’” in the reviews, he said.
But that enthusiasm is not reflected in the rest of the Fenway arts community. Though about 900 students and parents attend the final performances, “that is not the community, that is the student community and their parents. It's not the people who live in the Longwood Medical area.” People just don’t come out for the events. In a new concert series that features “small group of soloists or a Trio playing international music, which I'm gung-ho for, and I think this is a wonderful thing. They're lucky if they get 50 people in the audience.”
This unenthusiastic trend is also reflected in the Colleges of the Fenway’s program and the larger arts institutions in the area. While the minor league teams associated with the Bruins, Celtics or Red Sox will say “hey come sing at the Garden and we will give you a discount on tickets,” “the MFA doesn't work that way, nor does BSO,” said Fahrner. While students are admitted to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the MFA for free, there is “very little” programming, events or co-branded opportunities between the two. Though Fahrner brings his students to see the instrument collection at the MFA, that is on his own accord and is as a result of a relationship he has with a curator of the collection.
But the Museum of Fine Arts see the relationship differently. Not only does the "Museum’s University Membership program [offer] free admission to students, faculty and staff" from many area colleges, but collaboration between the MFA and universities is widespread, said Public Relations Coordinator Sarah Drumm via email. Recently, "in May, the Museum hosted the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) Senior Animation Show, premiering short animations created by students from the graduating class of 2018," she said. Also, she continued, "Many professors and alumni of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design have had their work collected by and exhibited at the Museum—currently, photographs by Laura McPhee, Stephen Tourlentes and Abelardo Morrell are on view in the exhibition Ansel Adams in Our Time."
But smaller, more independent institutions in the Fenway arts scene don't see many collaborative efforts. Anne McGhee is an artist who works in the Fenway Studios, a space which holds about 50 independent artists in individual studios. Housed in a landmarked building, McGhee’s studio is small, but it feels smaller because of the close to 1000 paintings McGhee estimated are housed in the studio. One subject that McGhee paints the most is Fenway Park. “You think of Fenway Park it's like in organic creature. I got to know a lot of the security guards while I painted. [They’d] bring me bottles of water while I was out there.”
McGhee gained her artistic instincts from her father. “My father was a painter, but there were five children, so he also was an art historian. He taught art history at Amherst College.” After deciding she wanted to study art in college and enrolling at “an Ivy League college which I won't bother to name,” because it’s “not important” to disclose the name, McGhee studied art abroad in Italy. After she graduated, she continued to pursue art at the Arts Student League in New York City at night, working as a salesperson and designer at Tiffany’s by day. After her husband found a job at WGBH, they moved to Boston. She found space at the Fenway Studios for her work and was hired by the Harvard Graduate School of Design to teach primarily architecture students how to draw, “It was like intensive drawing. So I can do what I wanted with the class and it morphed as time went on.”
On top of all of this, McGhee figure skates four or five times a week. Needless to say, she’s quite busy. But it’s partially this packed schedule that keeps her from interacting with the rest of the Fenway arts community. “You just get busy. Do I have time to walk over to the MFA? It takes a long time to paint, it's not like a digital photograph.”
But that’s not to say McGhee would interact with the community if she had time. “A lot of artists, especially those who paint on site, paint with a group of other artists. I don't do that because I like my one-on-one relationship with whatever I'm painting, just like a musician has to go into a room and close the door to practice” sometimes. The lack of desire to work with the rest of the arts community is not a malicious choice, it’s simply a question of style.
Though, McGhee is invested in an interdisciplinary approach to the arts. In her final evaluations for her Harvard students, McGhee assembled a team of architects, painters, figure skaters and other artists to evaluate the work. “You know even in the modern world, even at Harvard everything is not whittled down to a specific sort of category. It's something much bigger. I don't know if that makes sense, but I was trying to expose the students to something that was not just what I picked up from being at Harvard. I picked up all the architectural lingo, but how much of that was actually connected to the art of drawing or seeing or the interaction between your seeing and putting something down. I was trying to break that barrier.”
McGhee is still disgruntled by the lack of opportunities to experience different institutions' programs. McGhee went to the Boston Conservatory, just down the road from Fenway Studios, “and I asked if I could do a ballet class there because I figure skate. But no, you have to be enrolled there as a student.” She also discussed the interesting idea of using dance students from the Conservatory as figure models. But as of now, “there hasn't been, as far as I know, a lot of interaction between arts groups” in the neighborhood.
McGhee and Fahrer are open to bridging the art community's gaps in interaction. McGhee would love to turn one of the empty studios at the Fenway Studios into a space “for the community. It should be open to be used as a gallery or at least as a place where we can be teaching. I love teaching, I would teach there.” Dr. Fahrner expressed interest in “a joint program with the local high school or the local elementary school” and the Colleges of the Fenway performing arts department. But he recognized the difficulty in securing funding for such a project, as it “seems outside the purview of what the colleges are looking for.” And, like McGhee appreciated her personal relationship with her subjects, she recognizes that many artists also need that distance, making an open studio less likely again. Regardless, Fenway continues to stand as a world class arts district, attracting many tourists annually and cementing the importance of the neighborhood.