A designer for 20 years, Gaye Korbet now paints a mix of realist and abstract pieces which she likened, respectively, to prose and poetry. — Photos by Ryan DiLello

By Ryan DiLello

This past weekend, nearly 300 artists across Somerville opened their doors to the public, for the annual Somerville Open Studios (SOS) event. With the help of local nonprofits, artists, and residents, the SOS organization coordinates a series of candid gallery visits and art markets, enabling the general public to connect with the arts community in a highly authentic way.

Today, I spoke with Terry Dovidio, the Secretary of the Board at SOS, about the event. Dovidio is a freelance graphic designer and shares a studio with a friend in the Vernon Street building. Though she is technically the Secretary of SOS, Dovidio explained that this year her responsibilities extended into timeline management and communications. “We are an active board,” Dovidio said with a laugh, explaining the tremendous amount of planning and energy the event requires, especially this year. “We are the single largest open studio event, pretty much on the east coast,” Dovidio said, noting that other larger events do not restrict registration to local artists.

Jocelyn Shu took words and letters from an ancient Chinese philosophy text and distributed them on twisted wire, representing the contortions of language in translation.

This year’s event had its challenges, a global pandemic being just one. When Omicron threatened to interfere with plans, organizers were forced to push registration back to late January. “We weren’t sure the event was even going to happen or what it would look like,” Dovidio said. And neither were the artists, who were hesitant to register or canceled at the last moment, Dovidio said. In the months after, recruiting volunteers to work the event was also difficult. “We’re so decentralized,” Dovidio explained, “Artists are all in their studios during the event so they can’t help. We had to find other people. That’s always a challenge to find art lovers who actually want to do more.”

SOS also expected some challenges with masking, but Dovidio said she was happy to hear there was overwhelming compliance. The Board provided artists with mask-mandate signs and posted signs on trolleys, indicating that masks were optional, but preferred. Overall, venues had the right to choose their mask policy, but people were happy to mask regardless. “Even on the trolley, where we opened all the windows, people still masked.” Dovidio said.

Another looming issue was growing gentrification throughout the city. With artists moving between buildings, or out of the city altogether, the organization needed to address the changing environment. Thus, for the first time ever, SOS opened registrations to recently displaced artists. “People are losing their spaces,” Davidio said. “The only thing we can do is call attention to a space, show how lovely it is.” Dovidio added. “A lot of people don’t realize what the spaces are.” The annual event, which typically draws over 400 artists, renews the public’s awareness of local art spaces, Dovidio explained.

Alyson Schultz transformation of the urban environment into an emotive landscape.

Last year, SOS held the event in two outdoor spaces, but some elements of the experience were lost. “We’re about people coming into the spaces, seeing the art supplies. You know, there is that mystery and magic thing [to the artistic process] that people wonder about. You just can’t find that sort of thing when you’re going to buy art.” Dovidio said.

Despite all the challenges, Dovidio was thrilled with the turnout. “I just couldn’t believe it,” Dovidio said. “We’re very lucky.” Dovidio summarized the feedback she’s received from the community so far, “everyone’s been thankful. People were so happy to get out. One of the old town trolley people was playing music and people were singing along. People were ready to share a moment post-pandemic. It was a perfect spring weekend.”

As I was leaving Vernon Street Studios, I turned to my girlfriend and remarked that so many of the artists whom I’d met were women. And Dovidio confirmed, most artists in Somerville are women. “There is a little army of them,” Dovidio said. “They just keep on painting.”

For a directory of local artists, and to see their works, visit the Somerville Open Studios website: https://somervilleopenstudios.org/web/artists/artist_directory_list/.

Marja Lianko who is often inspired by the materials she stumbles upon to work with, constantly experiments and produces various pieces from abstract color fields to geometric constructions.

Brenda Star’s gallery ranged from collections of bonelike structures to a pile of countless glued and contorted plastic containers, but this bucket of secret agents caught my eye the most.

Sharon Armour creates bags from recycled 25mm movie film. Pictured are bags from Titanic and Harry Potter.

Carol Greenwood’s figure composed of newspaper clippings and various disposables.

Paul Arsenault sketches reproduced into laser-cut steele.