Advertise on podcast: The Art Colony

The Artist and The Sail Loft with Elspeth Slayter

This week, we welcome artist Steven Wells, who grew up in Truro and describes the privilege and “magic” of Provincetown, its community, light, and energy. He discusses a supportive, tool-filled upbringing influenced by his father’s blacksmithing and biochar work, his siblings’ creative paths, and his own wide-ranging practice (woodworking, leatherworking, ceramics, metalwork) that feeds into painting. He recounts studying through 4Cs and PAAM programs, early street-art influences, and learning how to be an artist through mentors and framing work, leading to Pilgrim Framing (founded 2012). Wells explains running a working studio in the MacMillan Pier trap sheds, balancing art-making with constant tourist interaction, and developing his bright, vibrating Provincetown landscapes and night scenes. He also covers teaching oil-painting workshops at PAAM, traveling to Ireland with artists for Beltane-related festivals, and shares where to find his work and contact info (Instagram “Subjective Steve,” studioprovincetown.com).

This week, we interviewed playwright Joe Paprzycki about Eugene O’Neill’s life and formative Provincetown years. Paprzycki describes his own work and the Truro Playwright Collective’s free winter play readings at the Truro Public Library, then traces O’Neill from his 1888 birth, theater-filled childhood, Catholic schooling, and expulsion from Princeton to his seafaring years and arrival in Provincetown in 1916. With the Provincetown Players (Susan Glaspell, Jig Cook, Mary Heaton Vorse and others), O’Neill’s “Bound East for Cardiff” premiered at the Lewis Wharf fish house theater, gaining acclaim. O’Neill wrote prolifically, lived above the A-House, later had a Peaked Hill lifesaving-station home that fell to erosion, and left for California after marrying Carlotta in 1929. The conversation covers O’Neill’s sea influence, “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” family tragedies, the rediscovered “Exorcism,” and Paprzycki's play “Players on the Harbor.”

This week, we interviewed costume designer and performer Eric Auger, who describes growing up in rural Burrillville, Rhode Island in an artistic family, early homemade Halloween costumes, and formative painting lessons that fueled his imagination. After earning a BFA in photography/graphic design and working in visual merchandising, he was inspired by street performers in Montreal and began performing as living statues at Providence’s WaterFire, launching 1031 Productions (“We make pretend”), which provides living art and themed entertainment worldwide. Now a Provincetown resident, Auger performs on Commercial Street in elaborate characters (including Count Orlok, Beetlejuice, Count von Count, Borg, Penguin, White Walker, Krampus) and played Jacob Marley at the Provincetown Theater. He also DJs on WOMR with “The Reminiscence Bump,” discusses costume fabrication materials and process, and previews possible Halloween street performances.

This week, we interviewed artist Paul Rizzo, a year-round resident and “process painter” known for a distinctive personal style and unmistakable work. Rizzo recounts growing up in Marshfield, studying painting at MassArt, formative childhood art classes, a semester in Pont-Aven, France during his father’s sudden death, and moving to Provincetown (first summer 2011, year-round 2012). He describes early jobs (houseboy at the Gallery Inn, selling paintings on the street), a two-year move to New Orleans (museum job, then Rawhide), and returning around 2016. He discusses working/showing at Patty DeLuca Gallery and 411 Gallery (annual shows, now living above it), his sketchbooks as public-facing art, recurring themes (self-portraits, dream houses, Muppets, text, rainbows, vintage gay porn references, fabric), and upcoming Queer Zine Fair in NYC on Oct. 3 at the LGBTQ Center.

The amazingly talented Qya Cristál joins us this week on The Art Colony podcast! Qya describes early musical roots singing Whitney Houston at age three, performing in an adult church choir, growing up in Missouri with a musician father, and being inspired by her polished, powerful grandmother. She discusses a strict Southern Baptist upbringing, coming out, evolving identity exploration, and rebuilding family ties. Qya explains starting drag while working at Hershey Park, creating the name Qya, and launching in Boston through a live-singing performance of “I’m Every Woman.” She details mentorship and drag family with Sapphira Cristál and Lakeia Mondale, sobriety, Provincetown’s housing challenges, and her career there, including the live-singing trio show DIVA, solo gigs, and seasonal work in Puerto Vallarta.

This week, we welcome Provincetown artist Midge Battelle to The Art Colony after buying her painting at her solo show at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (on view until Oct. 25). Battelle, a working-class Worcester native who first came to Provincetown in 1966, describes her path from cooking and gallery work (with Hilda Neely and at the Schoolhouse complex) to earning a BFA in Photography at MassArt and later becoming a painter. She discusses documenting the 1990s Dyke Drag Brunch during Women’s Week, her long friendship with artist Pasquale Natal, and her pale, grid-based paintings shaped by color theory, including “Lady Slipper” and “Rivotorto,” inspired by St. Francis. Battelle explains cyanotypes—especially wet cyanotypes—her sun-based process, and future plans for new small grid paintings and Sunday studio visits via email.

This week, we welcome poet Jeffrey Berg to The Art Colony podcast to  discuss Provincetown’s poetry community. He shares his background (born 1980, raised in South Carolina and Virginia, studied at VCU, earned an NYU MFA, lived in New York since 2004, and has spent summers in Provincetown since 2023 with his husband Colin) and describes his poetry as rooted in memory, popular culture, film, music, and time shifts, with Provincetown drawing him more toward the natural world. He reads poems including “Peace Train,” “The Almighty,” and “Pool Party,” and discusses his book Reanimator, persona poems, and balancing nostalgia with cynicism, including reexamining sheltered childhood and the AIDS crisis. They talk about approaching poetry, reading aloud, local writing groups and FAWC, Jeffery's WAMR disco/dance show Mirrorball, his publishing job and film criticism, and end with a light speed round and poet recommendations.

This week, we interviewed Provincetown native gallerist/curator Russ LaMontagne about growing up in the West End, early exposure to artists and local haunts, and how Provincetown has changed culturally and economically while remaining defined by art. He recounts co-founding a New York gallery in 2000, later opening LaMontagne Gallery in Boston in 2007, and discusses shifts in the gallery world and advice for artists. He describes curating shows with Twenty Summers’ Stanley space and his board role with the Provincetown Public Arts Foundation, including pier murals and an upcoming Penelope Jencks sculpture of Mary Heaton Vorse.

This week, we welcome Provincetown artist and Fine Arts Work Center arts administrator Naya Bricher ahead of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) annual gala, where she will be honored for Excellence in the Arts. Bricher describes her colorful oil paintings rooted in joy, featuring digitally collaged and projected imagery such as desserts, animals, and hands, influenced by childhood freedom with color, toile patterns, dreams, and artists like David Hockney. She recounts growing up in Connecticut with artist parents, studying painting/photography/printmaking at Smith College, first coming to Provincetown as a 2012 FAWC intern, and later building community through work, Zumba, and relationships. She explains her projector-based process, her large McMillan Pier mural (6.5x20 feet) and its relocation to the Provincetown Post, and shares details about the PAAM reception and gala dates.

Provincetown arts patron and fundraiser Gabby Hanna joins us this week as we talk about her background and work building platforms for the arts. Hanna, raised in Boston by an artist-psychologist mother and engineer-musician father, studied music before transferring to Barnard; after a friend’s AIDS-related death, she shifted toward nonprofit development, AIDS work, politics, and activism, including running Carolyn Goodman’s foundation and producing a youth activism documentary shown at the Provincetown International Film Festival. Reconnecting with Provincetown, she joined the Provincetown International Film Festival around 2000, became executive director in 2004 for about a decade, and is now board president. She recounts the festival’s origins, its focus on “filmmakers on the edge,” notable guests, Oscar-qualifying shorts status, year-round cinema programming at Water’s Edge, and the Gabriel Hanna Film Institute’s residencies. She also discusses co-producing theater and film and receiving an upcoming Provincetown Theater award.

Happy one year to The Art Colony! This week, we had a live recording hosted by Provincetown Commons and the Provincetown Art Gallery Association, noting 60+ guests, about 15,000 downloads across all U.S. states and many countries, grants from the Provincetown Economic Development Council and the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, and listener donations. Joined by Jill Rothenberg-Simons (OnCenter Art Gallery), Gavin Kennedy (Emergent Art Advisory), and Christine McCarthy (PAAM), the panel discusses future-focused trends including climate-change-driven and multidisciplinary work, recycled and repurposed materials, AI and technology, and a renewed emphasis on craft and authenticity. They stress sustaining institutions, galleries, and affordable housing, encourage buying art and supporting funds like the Commons’ Benji Fund, and predict continued reinvention, year-round arts activity, and Provincetown’s role as a creative safe haven. Audience Q&A covers post-COVID gallery shifts to online visibility, supporting nontraditional artists and venues, bringing Provincetown artists beyond town, balancing local and outside artists, and PAAM’s growing 12x12 fundraiser show.

Portrait photographer, Michael Joseph, joins us this week to bring us on a journey through his work documenting subcultures through long-term projects. He describes discovering photography at the New England School of Photography and shifting from studio work to street portraits, with a pivotal Las Vegas image sparking his decade-long “Lost and Found” project on the modern traveler subculture, built through trust, repeated encounters, and communication via social media; he notes ethical challenges and backlash around media exposure and explains his book used travelers’ own words. He then discusses his eight-year Provincetown series “Wild West of the East,” inspired by Norman Mailer’s book, shot with a vintage Polaroid Big Shot and often in an alley by Marine Specialties, including a Twenty Summers residency that produced a large wheatpaste mural. With pack film expired and scarce, he’s finishing the project and launching a Kickstarter (starting July 14) with MW Editions to publish a curated book.

Multidisciplinary artist Jimmy Lee Curtis (aka Mama Lee) joins us this week, kicking off by highlighting Momma Lee’s Fashion Show. Curtis explains his name’s origins at the Birch House, his path from Michigan to Atlanta to 1980s London fashion/textile study, and how the alternative London scene (including Vivienne Westwood and Leigh Bowery) influenced his aesthetic. He recalls British Vogue selecting one of his scarves for a Morocco shoot featuring Christy Turlington. After moving from West Hollywood to Provincetown, he describes the Birch House as a community hub and his role in the long-running Wednesday-night FΔg BΔsh, including themes and the Miss FΔg BΔsh pageant. He outlines his current work (painting, Polaroids, hand-painted silk scarves, upcycled fashion and hats) and how a Provincetown Commons residency led to starting the fashion show with Dave LaFrance in 2021, now expanded to include other designers; this year’s theme is “London Calling,” with the fundraiser show on Saturday, August 22 at 7:00 and tickets at provincetowncommons.com.

This week, we interviewed fashion and textile artist Daniel Hammond, a cashmere sweater designer with 25 years’ experience who studied at Parsons and worked for major 7th Avenue names including Emanuel Ungaro, Nautica, Oscar de la Renta, and Perry Ellis. He describes early sewing influences from his mother and grandmother, his technical approach to construction and knitwear, and mentorship that led him to specialize in men’s cashmere. He recounts first visiting Provincetown in 2011, buying a home in 2020 during the COVID shutdown, and opening his shop on 364 Commercial Street in fall 2021 (formerly Plush), later rebranding under his name as production shifted to primarily in-house, small-batch, hand-touched work. The conversation highlights limited runs, direct-to-consumer value, and major artist collaborations, including Gaston’s “Eclipse” sweater and projects with Trevor Makula, plus upcoming shows with Lindsay Porter (starting July 3) and Jared Heslip (late August).