Tiny houses have recently made a gigantic splash, attracting a lot of attention from the media and even starring in their own cable television series. The Umbrella Community Arts Center has joined the party, with two tiny houses on the front lawn for the past year, and the 2nd Big Tiny House Festival coming up on Saturday, July 16th. The event will feature over ten experts in the tiny house movement and six tiny houses open for tours.

Suddenly, it feels like summer! As "Accumulations," the late-summer show of my year's work as artist in residence approaches, I wanted to take this time to remind the Concord community about a group-sourced artist's book I will be binding as a part of the exhibit. 

-written by The Umbrella's 2015-2016 Artist-in-Residence, Sarah Fagan

It's Earth Month at the Umbrella. As a nod to the gallery's current Mother Earth-revering show entitled "It's About Time," I write about just that.

"Politicians don't bring people together. Artists do."
–Richard Daley, Former Mayor of Chicago

Great places depend on their artists in order to thrive.

-written by The Umbrella's 2015-2106 Artist-in-Residence, Sarah Fagan

Development Intern from Lesley University - Emily Laird
By Alice Lesch Kelly
Alice is a writer in Newton who specializes in health and the arts. Her website is alicekelly.net.
     

*Update: Emily is now working as a staff member in The Umbrella's Development office! 

-written by Saran Fagan,
2015-2016 Artist-in-Residence

"All art is quite useless." Thus states playwright Oscar Wilde in the introduction to his sole novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. 

-written by Saran Fagan, the 2015-2016 Artist-in-Residence

A logic problem I first heard in grade school has jumped to the forefront of my mind upon changes and revelations in the decades since. Allow me to share the problem as I remember it:

"A farmer dies. He has left 17 sheep to be divided a certain way amongst his three sons. One half are to go to his eldest son, one third to his middle son, and one ninth to his youngest son. How are the sheep divided?"

Throughout the summer and fall, the community of Miranda's Hearth built a tiny house on The Umbrella's front lawn as a public art project.  

The exterior of the house was finished on November 21, 2015 and is documented in a two minute timelapse video, shown below.  It took nearly 800 hours, spread out over 34 weekends days with 3-4 volunteers per day to build the exterior of the tiny house.