This year, The Umbrella Arts & Environment is partnering with OARS to host fun outdoor activities for Riverfest 2021! Join us at The Old Manse on Sunday, June 20 at 1PM to make fish and turtles out of recycled materials. Pick up the One Revolution Art Challenge, copresented by The Umbrella and Minute Man National Historic Park, using our activity sheet to fill in an imagintive drawing of the nearby Old North Bridge.

Umbrella Artcubator artist Jeff Kasper has been hard at work during his 2021 residency. A new series of flags he designed are currently on view at the Queens Museum in New York City as part of the exhibition Art As Social Action. If you are interested in participating in a digital flag-making workshop with the artist he will be holding a free event June 2 from 6:00-7:30 PM via Zoom.

In recognition of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, in a year that has been particularly trying for so many members of our community, The Umbrella appreciates and supports the work of AAPI artists who have shared their talent with us before and especially throughout the pandemic.

As we slowly work our way back towards in-person classes and workshops again, The Umbrella is happy to announce three new and unique photography workshops with Brent Mills! 

Brent is a professional photographer and videographer, and the owner of Brent Mills Photo and Video based in Cambridge, MA. He has taught photography and videography classes both in the States and internationally, and has displayed his work in galleries around the world.

Here Comes The Sun is a collaborative mixed media and lighting installation conceived by Umbrella board members and artists Ellen McHale and Gail Burr. For this installation, community members are invited to contribute origami doves made of recyclable Tyvek and inscribed with messages of hope, wishes, and dedications to the heroes around us.

As a bustling nonprofit organization with many public programming areas, The Umbrella Arts Center depends heavily on the generosity of volunteers to help deliver performances, public art installations, classes and workshops, community celebrations and more all throughout the year.

Musketaquid Earth Day celebrations at The Umbrella will be different this year. In accordance with state guidelines, all activities will be outdoors and limited in capacity. All attendees will be required to register in advance, wear masks, socially distance, complete a health survey prior to participating, and follow recommended health and safety protocols.

The Umbrella Arts Center is now registering for its second Spring 2021 session of virtual, hybrid and select in-person arts classes and workshops for all ages and in a variety of media.

Although The Umbrella's classrooms at 40 Stow Street remain largely closed for in-person arts instruction due to the pandemic, it has spent most of this year innovating The Umbrella @Home programming, with virtual arts instruction delivered through multiple distance-learning methods and platforms.

Current Umbrella Artcubator resident Julia Csekö is excited to share some updates about her work, both with The Umbrella and with other art organizations.

The Somerville Arts Council has selected Csekö as a Somerville Arts Council Fellow for 2021! This fellowship, awarded to individual artists in a variety of disciplines, provides support for selected artists to continue their work, including a community benefit component where artists contribute to the Somerville community with their art. Csekö will be announcing her community benefit program soon.

“I think grievance is: ‘We’re Asian. People are attacking us.’ And we have this sense of a kind of ethnocentrism to defend ourselves. But justice is something more meaningful and something much larger than that. Justice is the way to move forward.” - Renee Tajima-Peña, filmmaker, Who Killed Vincent Chin?