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?

With planning for return of in-person summer camps well underway, The Umbrella Arts Education has announced it will participate in a new series of virtual summer camp fairs for regional families hosted online by Macaroni Kid Acton-Concord-Lexington-Bedford. 

We are so happy to congratulate Elise Woodward, former chair of our Building Committee, as the Town of Concord’s 2021 Honored Citizen. 

The Umbrella is delighted to welcome our new ceramics technician, Zachary Mickelson! Zachary is a ceramics artist and educator, with a decade’s worth of experience teaching ceramics to diverse sets of students. Mickelson has added in the development of ceramics studios and programs throughout the Boston area, and we’re lucky to have him helping to guide us as we begin the phased re-opening of our studio facilities next month.

The Umbrella Arts Center is now registering for its Spring 2021 session of virtual and hybrid 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.

Arts & Environment artist BARD, previously featured in Artist in Your Residence, Earth Month Exhibition, and Go Out Doors, is pleased to announce that she will be featuring her new piece, Unseen Burden, in the Shelter in Place Gallery.

Are your kids all Zoomed out from online classes? Do they want to learn new skills and express themselves creatively without a preset schedule? If so, then The Cartoon Animation Lab (@ Home) and The Mixed Media Animation Lab (@ Home) from The Umbrella Arts Center will be the perfect opportunity for your child to learn and create at home.

This week, The Umbrella's Executive Director Jerry Wedge will join Barry Alexander, Chairman and Chief Operating Officer at Alexander & Buono International, and Lena Galperin, Director of Visitor Experience at ARTECHOUSE™, for a virtual Sip & Chat hosted by Arts Administration Association New England. Together, these three will reflect on the challenges they have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they are continuing to move forward.

Join us on Thursday, January 14 from 4-5 PM EST