When a rainy day deterred plans for an outdoor Full Moon Lantern Celebration at The Old Manse on Wednesday, December 7, The Umbrella’s Arts & Environment Department brought the outside in. 

As the event transitioned from a night under the light of the full moon, complete with telescopes, a bonfire, and a silent, meditative walk through the meadows at The Old Manse, The Umbrella staff and members of the Steering Committee rallied to ensure that this indoor event would be just as magical for the participants.  

The Umbrella Arts Center has received a grant of $28,500 from the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, through its FY23 CIP Portfolio Program.

“In these dangerous times, where it seems the world is ripping apart at the seams, we can all learn how to survive from those who stare death squarely in the face everyday. [We] should reach out to each other and bond as a community rather than hide from the terrors of life at the end of the millennium.”

Jonathan Larson, written shortly before his sudden death during the night before Rent’s Off-Broadway premiere.

As part of a comprehensive strategic planning process, The Umbrella Arts & Environment program will invite the community to participate in an open, interactive public listening session to provide input on and ideas for future expanded programming initiatives at the intersection of the arts and environmental issues.

Since the summer of 2020, the ever-evolving and growing “Go Out Doors” outdoors public art exhibition has surprised and delighted innumerable strollers, cyclists and drivers throughout Greater Boston. Inspired by the En Plein Air exhibition on NYC's High Line, the original “Go Out Doors” exhibition of artfully upcycled doors was commissioned for the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in West Concord's Cultural District. The exhibition intended to encourage a reconnection to nature for communities then emerging from COVID-19 isolation, at-hom

The Umbrella Studio Artists are all around! We are proud to support our Artcubator resident, Hillary Kane, and her show UNEARTHED: Relics of Memory, currently on display at the Lucy Lacoste Gallery until September 24, 2022. 

From September 9-24, 2022, The Umbrella Arts Center is proud to host a series of immersive, family friendly arts experiences celebrating the 30th anniversary of Barefoot Books, the Concord-based, global multicultural children's book publisher.

Our Umbrella Studio Artists and Teaching Artists are busy creating and exhibiting work in galleries, museums, and other venues all around New England and beyond! Just a few to watch out for this summer include:

Jill Goldman-Callahan

"35 Paintings at Trinty Church"

Trinity Church, 81 Elm Street, Concord, MA

On Tuesday July 12, the publishers of Zeke Magazine and The Umbrella Arts & Environment Program hosted a virtual discussion with three world-class documentary photographers featured in the current gallery exhibition, Sustainable Solutions: Documentary Photographers Explore the Climate Crisis, on extended view through August 15.

Last week’s decision by the Supreme Court makes meaningful climate change mitigation at the federal level more difficult, at least in the immediate future. The ruling strictly limits the ways in which the Clean Air Act, the nation’s main air pollution rule, can be used to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.