Today's cities exist in a constant state of change - an endless cycle of demolition and redevelopment. This show documents these changes by exploring our citiscapes, and the objects, materials, and patterns.

Using a variety of media the artists address the enormity of this particular moment in history, with work relating to women's ongoing struggle for dignity, visibility, independence, equality, and the power to make our own personal, sexual and health decisions.

The City of Somerville is home to a wealth of vibrant printmakers and print studios. The Somerville Prints! exhibition showcases the work of Somerville printmakers and other artists using printmaking techniques in their work. Organized by artist Debra Olin and on view at the Brickbottom Gallery – part of the Brickbottom Artists’ Building, itself home to a number of printmakers and a rich printmaking history – this collection emphasizes the community connection to printmaking and highlights the working shops in our city. The exhibition features both established Somerville artists, and emerging printmakers.

This exhibition is open to all members of the BAA to submit to, and additionally features one piece by each artist participating in Brickbottom Open Studios. This exhibition overlaps with Brickbottom and Joy Street’s Open Studios event, November 18-19th 12-5 PM.

Opening reception Saturday, October 21, 3-5PM

Since 2013, the Somerville Toy Camera Fest has celebrated the quirky and creative results that can happen when photographers are forced to loosen their controls, submit to the light and embrace the accidental. Each year since, the Festival has brought a wide range of toy camera photography by US and international artists together in simultaneous shows at galleries throughout the city (or online, in pandemic years).

In conjunction with the Somerville Open Studios citywide event (first weekend of May), this is a show open to all BAA members. A concurrent show, “Salty”, will be in the Bakery Lobby, across the courtyard. BAA members are encouraged to bring a piece for each exhibit.

The thirteen artists in “Above Us Only Sky II” speak of the infinite + euphoria in dark times. Romantic + hopeful, dream-like paintings elevate while embracing the light + lightness through imagery of stellar cascades; avian night flight + starlike bouquets; a luminous energy field; the legacy of passion; meditation + a flow state; motion + stillness; murmurations; community + seeking new worlds.

We invite you to visit the group exhibit “Inspiring Change for the Climate Crisis @ Brickbottom” curated by artist and scientist Adriana G. Prat.

This exhibit presents work by the i3C (inspiring Change for the Climate Crisis) Artists Group and Brickbottom Art Association (BAA) guest artist Pauline Lim, with the goal of encouraging creative action to help reverse the environmental crisis.

Twenty two multidisciplinary artists explore environmental themes such as consumerism, pollution, climate crisis impacts, and the beauty, vulnerability, and interconnectedness of the natural world.

Brickbottom Artists Association members invite a guest artist to show alongside their own work and tell a story about their friendship. In this article you can get an idea about this show grouping: https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/artist-friendships.

Members show one artwork apiece so you can plan your visit to this annual event. A must see!

SALLY is an interdisciplinary, community–centered project, created by Sasha Chavchavadze and JoAnne McFarland, that focuses on using art to activate the public memory of women, like Sally Hemings, whose lives have been erased or forgotten.

Sometimes to find the light, you have to go through the deepest darkness. All visual art forms are accepted. Let the light shine out of the darkness.

“In Transit,” curated by Gary Duehr, explores ordinary people in their travels through the city via the media of photography and painting. Photographs by Gary Duehr capture people from the viewpoint of a city bus, observing mini-dramas as they play out on street corners and bus stops.

Member artists choose two contrasting, current artworks to show side by side to highlight the range of their work. This exhibit is in conjunction with Somerville Open Studios.

The Brickbottom Gallery will be showing original prints by contemporary Cuban artists, most of whom are living on the island. This is the first half of an international print exchange. In 2019, Janette Brossard Duharte, president of the Printmaking section of the Visual Artist Association of Cuba, approached The Boston Printmakers with an idea for an international print exchange. She invited members of The Boston Printmakers to exhibit in Havana and asked the organization to sponsor an exhibit of Cuban artists in the Boston area. The Boston Printmakers happily accepted, and the Brickbottom Gallery agreed to exhibit the original prints, never shown here before.

The three painters — Alexandra Rozenman, Jo Ann Rothschild, and Philip Gerstein, friends and allies in real life – come together in this show, delighting in the seeming contradiction of their styles. The intention is to present both realist and abstract paintings together, grouped in trios. This unusual arrangement will allow to contrast and compare each artist’s different, equally engaging approach to forming a composition, unifying the painterly field of action, and utilizing color in emotional, constructive and psychologically complex ways.

Curated by Debra Olin

In conjunction with Brickbottom Open Studios, the annual Directory Show functions as both survey and visit planning tool. This year’s exhibition is open to all members, whether participating in Open Studios or not.

Pink pussy hats, white suits, red robes, dissent collars, the resistance is visual and visceral. The current political climate has put women’s rights and civil rights at risk. This exhibition is meant to bring attention to the recent resurgence in feminist art and its connection to activism and politics, as women face rollbacks in reproductive rights, the disproportionate effects of Covid 19, and a year that saw more women elected to political office than ever before. Through collections that delve into histories that are political, personal, and shared, ReSisters explores the experiences of women in a post-trump era.

The past year has shown us how great “The Great Outdoors” really is. The visual interest, the psychological and emotional connection, the freedom and also the safety it allowed. This exhibition invited artists to examine and interpret the outdoors from every angle – landscapes (natural and built), sea, sky, earth, weather. Perspective is everything. Even a window box or a bird feeder are ‘The Great Outdoors” to a cat sitting at a closed window

Urban Sketchers: We Show the World, One Drawing at a Time

“We Show the World, One Drawing at a Time,” is the motto of the world-wide nonprofit organization Urban Sketchers. For more than a decade, members of the Boston chapter have met for a couple hours each weekend at a predetermined location to draw the urban landscape. It might be a park, a neighborhood or (in case of foul weather) within a museum or public space. Some focus on the architecture, others the busy street life, yet another draws a solitary pigeon. All skill sets, and media are welcome. This exhibition features a broad range of work by members of the Boston Chapter.

We asked artists to have some fun with materials, methods, and meaning for this BAA members show. In Reuse, Recylce, Reimagine, our members have submitted a wide range of interpretations to the concept. Working with or depicting found objects or salvaged materials, or reinventing their own practice with new-to-them processes, our members turn trash to treasure in this fun and refreshing mix of pieces.

As the long global pandemic wears on (and on. and on), many of us are feeling cooped up, isolated, and stuck in surroundings that have become too familiar over the past year. Looking to shake things up a little, Brickbottom Gallery invited Mad Oyster Studios artists to exhibit in our space.

Two exhibitions: Language as Muse / Joys, Sorrows, & Concerns

The Brickbottom Gallery has been closed to the public for eight months, and counting—but our members have continued to work throughout the pandemic. During the lockdown Brickbottom residents placed tables in the gallery (six feet apart, or course) and turned it into a workspace for masked workers to make masks as well as art—an oasis. As we welcome a brand new year, the BAA asked our artist members What’s New? — and to share how they’ve been keeping busy, and how this weird and wild year has inspired them.

The challenges of 2020—the pandemic; the divisiveness of politics and the election; the outrage over racial injustice; the apocalyptic fires and storms that are undeniable signs of climate change—are complicated and overwhelming. Indeed, everything in this world today seems to be enormous, and getting bigger all the time. The Brickbottom Gallery would like to propose the opposite as a kind of antidote. Bigger is not necessarily better! This BAA Members’ Exhibition features artwork that is small, in scale, size or content.

Blue is the deep sea, the sky over the rainbow, the flowers of summer. There are blue states, and feeling blue, Toni Morrison wrote about the bluest eyes, and Pete Townshend about the bad, sad man behind them. Hey, blue! What is blue to you?

Construction surrounds the Brickbottom Artist Building and is ever-present throughout Somerville and metro-Boston. There is constant noise and disruption, and it is both distraction and inspiration! Artists may present a record of the construction sites near their studios and homes, or interpret this theme as the formal construction of a composition, the building of a sculpture, or the assembling of an installation. They may lament the destruction and loss of city landmarks or our planet through global warming. A diversity of interpretations and media will be included.

Curator: Phyllis Ewen

Curator’s statement: I have long been interested in how our imagination and memories interact with the natural world. For this exhibit I have chosen artists who celebrate this world through thoughtful observation and interpretation.. I see their work as commentaries on how we see as well as a way of celebrating the diversity of the natural world.

Visualizing data is the process of using visual metaphors to make connections, sometimes emotional connections to the data we’ve spent years collecting. Using color for visual cues, texture, directionality, position, and contrast to name a few applications in highlighting unique characteristics or trends in the numbers. I will be exhibiting examples of data visualization, expanding the definition of what people think these words mean.