The Edward Hopper exhibit at Cape Ann Museum was a jewel. Officially “Edward Hopper and Cape Ann: Illuminating an American Landscape,” it attracted national attention and the public was still crowding in when I visited. In fact, it was the most successful show in CAM’s 148 years, drawing over 30,000, beyond the usual totals for an entire year. The show was a real boost for the museum and, as the late Gloucester poet Vincent Ferrini liked to point out, art also boosts the economy. Speaking of which, the exhibit catalog is still available as well as Wayne Soini’s novel on Hopper and his wife, “Ed and Jo.”
The timing, during the city’s 400th anniversary, and the quality of the exhibited art, is a result of wise planning and hard work. These accolades can be repeated in reference to the Stuart Davis exhibit, which ran at the same time. It honored a very different painter but one who also loved Gloucester and actually owned a house on Mt. Pleasant Street. The city owes much to the taste and energy that put these two shows together. CAM itself is a jewel and is playing, as they say on the basketball courts, above the rim. My hat is off to Director Oliver Barker.
It’s right that Gloucester should celebrate painters. After all, Fitz Henry Lane is a patron saint, and John Sloan, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, the Gruppes and many others have lived and worked here. Of course, Gloucester’s welcome has extended to other arts. Sculpture’s power is evident in Leonard Craske’s Fisherman’s Memorial and Morgan Faulds Pike’s wonderful Fishermen’s Wives Memorial. Katharine Weems and Paul Manship also come to mind and others, like Ms. Pike herself as well as Ken Hruby and Robert Bliss are active today.
I can’t leave out poetry among the arts. Vincent Ferrini and the late Charles Olson are household names here and the Gloucester Writers Center is teeming with new talent. I also know from the annual Sawyer Library Poetry Without Paper contest that poetry is doing well in the schools. And for poems on the 400th anniversary, including my own “Hymn for Gloucester at 400”, visit the 400+ Stories project at www.gloucesterma400.org.
Gloucester’s embrace of the arts includes architecture, theater, film, crafts. They all deserve praise, if only there were space enough. I do want to emphasize one more form: music. A survey of music here would include the Cape Ann Symphony, Fisk Organ, the many clubs and organizations that present music, and the dozens of residents who compose and/or perform, such as composer and performer Allen Estes. On any given night there is live music at multiple locations in Gloucester. Any one of those sites might feature our mayor, Greg Verga, a savvy, smooth guitarist and bassist. It is good to have an artist at the helm! Greg has not only been active in the city’s art scene, he has rejuvenated the Committee for the Arts, the official city body which had been allowed to fade. Thank you, Mayor!
This column is about supporting the arts. I’ll close with a nod to Stephen King who famously had something to say about that: “Life is not a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
John J. Ronan is a former poet laureate for the city of Gloucester and host of “The Writer’s Block” at 1623 Studios.