Arts Archives - Page 9 of 14 - Neighborhood View

Video from children’s visit with author Cammie McGovern

October 26, 2017 annedr 0

MATV, Malden’s Media Center, is pleased to present a video from a special author visit last year to the Malden Public Schools. A preview of the video can be found at the end of this article, with a link to the full program on MATV’s website. On June 1, 2017, Malden Reads welcomed author Cammie McGovern to a series of events in Malden. McGovern is the author of Just My Luck, a companion book for the middle grades, selected to accompany the themes of last season’s Malden Reads book selection, A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman. Just My Luck tells the story of a fourth grade boy who learns to cope with difficult family situations, such as his brother’s autism and his father’s head injury, through his kindhearted spirit and generosity.. Malden Reads hosted a reception for McGovern at the Malden High School Writers Den, a comfortable place where students can immerse themselves in writing creatively and receive tutoring. The Writers Den, a new addition to Malden High School last year, is a place to strengthen partnerships with the community through readings and programs. […]

The Road to Morocco from Malden: Into the Sahara

October 22, 2017 bzoe42 0

By Bonnie Blanchard Part Three of Five Parts Getting on a dromedary is like straddling a furry bathtub. It’s not the most graceful of feats. You begin the mount while the beast is lying down. You have to figure out how to get your feet across both sides; their bodies are wider than that of a horse. There are no stirrups to lock your feet into, only a steel bar in front of the hump to hang onto. A layered blanket pack is the saddle. When each member of my group was finally aboard their ship of the desert, we started our journey into the Sahara. As I bounced and hung on, I had visions of rolling off to the side and being deposited on the desert floor. It was a premonition of things to come. This camel-back journey had begun after an exhausting yet exhilarating day driving from Fez to Ouarzazate, the entrance to the Sahara Desert, in another leg of our Morocco trip. As our van crossed through rosemary-dotted hills and cedar groves, […]

The Road to Morocco from Malden: The Medieval City of Fez

October 8, 2017 bzoe42 1

By Bonnie Blanchard Part Two of Five Parts Our extensive tour of Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca was overwhelming. But the journey was just beginning. We headed to our van for a 5-hour ride into the hinterlands of Morocco towards the medieval city of Fez. (Which is sometimes spelled Fes.) Along the way we stopped for a traditional Moroccan tagine (a clay cooking utensil with a vented conical top that cooks in the oven or stove-top) lunch and relaxed into our new home away from home – the van – for the next two weeks. Finally we arrived at our hotel, welcomed by most gracious hoteliers. After a refreshing buffet dinner in the hotel, and fresh from a good night’s sleep, our group was ready to explore the ancient city of Fez. Traveling out of the Ville Nouvelle (French for new city) section of Fez, we were dropped back in a time at the large gated entryway, Bab Boujeloud. Bustling cafes and markets quickly turn into narrow streets with children playing and donkeys hard at […]

The Road to Morocco from Malden: The Journey Begins

September 24, 2017 bzoe42 4

By Bonnie Blanchard Part 1 of 5 parts: Casablanca Riding a camel only looks romantic. Sore and tired, I ease myself next to a wood-burning fire; it had been a long and lumpy journey on the back of the camel into the Sahara Desert. I find myself staring up into a sky studded with stars big as dinner plates, thinking that despite my sore body, I had achieved a life-long dream. As a kid, I would pore over pages of the National Geographic, staring at the photos, and think that someday I would visit exotic, faraway places. Now, I wasn’t reading a magazine; I was actually here, in Morocco, the quiet of the desert enveloping my group like a velvet blanket. And to think I was only here in Merzouga, Morocco, because I noticed a sign in Somerville, Massachusetts, 12 years ago. It happened like this: As I drove through Union Square, Somerville one day, my eyes caught sight of a building sign that said Moroccan Caravan, Gallery and Showroom.” As a kid, I was captivated […]

Multi Media Madness makes memories

August 30, 2017 NeighborhoodView 0

By Delilah Doeleman This summer I interned at MATV, and was a counselor for MATV’s Multi-Media Madness two week program in mid-July. My job was to photograph and document the class as I, and the kids, experienced it. This year’s workshop centered on teaching kids how to write, direct, and record their own music videos, shows, and stories in MATV’s studios. They then edited them on the computer and presented them to the rest of the class. The kids, ranging in age from 8 to 13, spent the first few days of the program brainstorming and figuring out what they wanted their individual projects to look like. Thanks to MATV’s extensive costume storage, and guest instructor Masio Dotson’s guidance, inspiration was not difficult to find, and soon everyone had come up with a thought-out idea. Among some of the more “out of the box” ideas were a My Chemical Romance music video, brought to life by Finn, one of the program participants, and his friends whom he cast as his bandmates (he was the lead […]

Wonder where she came from?

August 17, 2017 jlynnmcclain 3

By Jennifer McClain She has one foot in the past and one foot in the future. Her past is a combination of Greek myth and Amazon speculation. Her future is traveling three thousand per hour on an invisible plane, wielding a “magic lasso” that non-violently compels obedience and she uses science for medical healing. Wonder who she is? Wonder Woman — the super heroine who debuted in DC Comics in 1941, who had her own TV show from 1975-1979, and who took theaters by storm this summer in a blockbuster movie. But who was her creator? He was also a man with one foot in the past and one foot in the future. His past was as a student of the Malden High School. Did he possibly study mythology in one of his classes? His future was “to fight for liberty & freedom for all women kind” through Wonder Woman. He watched the suffragists and used their imagery in his stories. He knew Margaret Sanger when she was a proponent of birth control and still […]

Cameroonian artist presents “Celebration”

July 18, 2017 annedr 1

By Anne D’Urso-Rose Cameroon-born artist Efon Elad knows adversity. But, like the manner of folks in his native country, he chooses to approach life as a celebration. Not only life passages, but daily rituals, ordinary moments, scenes of beauty and terror, songs and stories inspire in him a sense of gratitude and jubilation. Many of the paintings in an exhibit now on view at the MATV Gallery, located at Malden’s Media Center, depict moments of life in Cameroon and West Africa where the artist has lived and travelled as a youth. Other paintings are inspired by songs or Biblical stories, which have captivated his imagination. Still others depict places in his adopted homeland in the Boston area, where he has lived for over 30 years, as well as other places that exist only in his mind or memory. Well-educated in his native Cameroon, Elad is fluent in English, French and five African languages and is a lover of literature. His career began in telecommunications at a time when telegrams and Morse code were his specialty. A lost […]

Bubbles and Books brings fun to Miller Park

June 22, 2017 annedr 0

Once a place to be avoided, Miller Park in Malden has become an oasis for family fun. This became evident on June 3 when the second annual Bubbles & Books event brought hundreds of children and their families to the park to enjoy a puppet storyteller, giant bubbles and free (gently used) books. The event was hosted by Malden Kiwanis in collaboration with Malden Reads. “It felt like Christmas in the spring!” said Erga Dormevil, a Malden resident and mother of four school-age children. She added, “A book is a priceless gift for people of all ages and this event provided families with a chance to enjoy quality time together in a beautiful park. The outpouring of support from our community in the form of book donations was both heartwarming and amazing.” Robin Jorgensen, immediate past president of the Malden Kiwanis Club and a primary organizer of the event, said, “Our first year [last year] we had a great turnout. But I think our numbers nearly doubled in size this year!” The number of book […]

Little Free Libraries “Revive” Malden’s Neighborhood Libraries

May 31, 2017 sharonsantillo 9

By Sharon Santillo An international effort that encourages citizens to set up free neighborhood book exchanges has arrived in Malden. Moreover, these “little free libraries” are bringing back a miniature version of the neighborhood libraries that the city lost beginning in the 1980s. Sparked by the non-profit organization, Little Free Library, Malden residents are creating tiny spaces where anyone passing by can take a book to read or leave a book for someone else to find. The first little free library was created by Todd Bol in 2009 to honor his deceased mother who loved to read. He built a one-room schoolhouse model and put it on a post in the front yard of his Wisconsin home and filled it with books. He shared the idea and it spread globally. Now there are over 50,000 little free libraries across the United States and in over 70 countries. Soon you will see these small libraries around Malden. Malden Arts has received a grant from the Malden Cultural Council to register 10 little free libraries in Malden […]

Arts

Second year of storytelling and stargazing on Waitt’s Mount

May 4, 2017 annedr 0

A waxing crescent moon was brightly visible, as was Jupiter and the bright star Sirius. Through the telescope, event goers to the top of Waitt’s Mount got to see the close-up surface of our moon, as well as the moons of Jupiter, and other stars. They were treated to a variety of storytelling and live, acoustic music on a beautifully windy, but warm, night in April. The second annual “Sunset, Storytelling and Stargazing on Waitt’s Mount” on April 29 proved to be a successful and delightful community event. Co-sponsored by Malden Reads and Ward 4 City Councillor Ryan O’Malley, the event celebrated a central theme of this year’s Malden Reads book selection—getting to know your neighbors and creating a shared sense of community. It featured family storytelling at sunset with professional storyteller Sharon Kennedy, live acoustic Americana music from the band “Slow Boat Home,” and local folks telling their own personal stories that were honed under the direction of Malden-based writer and spoken word artist CD Collins. The telescope was provided compliments of the North […]