Latest news with #PaintMeaRoadOutofHere
Boston Globe
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Free summer fun: Juneteenth celebrations, a new audiobook walking club, and more
REVISIT REVOLUTION This year marks both the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the 200th anniversary of the laying of the Bunker Hill Monument. To mark the milestones, the Bunker Hill Monument Association will recreate the setting of the monument's Charlestown cornerstone, as it was first performed on June 17, 1825. Prior to the organization's evening grand ball, a free gala hour featuring live music and toasts will be open to the public at the Old South Meeting House downtown. June 16, 9:30 a.m., Charlestown Navy Yard, 1st Ave. & 3rd St., Charlestown. Gala hour event, 6 p.m., Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St. RIVERFRONT CINEMA Coolidge Corner Theatre's outdoor screenings have returned with movie nights popping up at the Charles River Speedway, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and other notable Boston green spaces. This week, the 1997 teen comedy 'Good Burger,' starring Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson, is ready to June 18, 8 p.m. 525 Western Ave., Brighton. For a full screenings list and locations, visit Advertisement Oak Long Bar + Kitchen will host a complimentary whiskey tasting in its dining room on Juneteenth. PAH Creative Advertisement TASTING HISTOR Y If you're able to discern notes of vanilla and spice in your whiskey — or if you just enjoy a dizzying glass of the amber drink — you may gain a new appreciation for the history and artistry of the grain liquor at this Juneteenth event. The Fairmont Copley Plaza's Oak Long Bar + Kitchen will host a whiskey tasting in collaboration with Tennessee-based Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. In addition to sniffing and sipping samples, participants will learn the legacy of the brand's namesake, Nathan 'Nearest' Green, the first African American master distiller, who June 19, 5 p.m.-7 p.m. 21+. 138 St. James Ave. Still from "Paint Me a Road Out of Here" (2024), by Catherine Gund. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston HONORING BLACK STORIES This Thursday, in honor of Juneteenth, multiple cultural institutions will present special events to remember and celebrate the turning point in American history. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, locals can get free admission to the galleries and a full day of special programming that aims to elevate Black artistry, history, and resilience. As the sun sets, the museum will host a free Q&A and screening of 'Paint Me a Road Out of Here' with director Catherine Gund. The film details the whitewashed journey of the 1971 painting 'For the Women's House,' a piece dedicated to incarcerated women at Rikers Island. June 19. 465 Huntington Ave. Advertisement SOLSTICE SOIREE Harvard's Museums of Science & Culture will host a celebratory Summer Solstice party, featuring circus performances, lawn games, and flower crown crafting, culminating with a sunset countdown for the longest day of the year. Galleries and exhibits at the museums — including the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology — will be open for attendees to roam, learn, and explore a cultural (and air-conditioned) escape. June 20, 5 p.m.-9 p.m. 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge. WORTH THE DRIVE Though the kiddos are out of school, there's no time like the present to keep developing active and curious minds. Discovery Museum — the burb-based museum dedicated to the learning development of young children — is opening their doors to the community every Friday, starting this week. Families can explore a variety of indoor and outdoor exhibits, and learn everything from the properties of water to using a cash register. June 20-Aug. 29, 4:30 p.m.-8 p.m. 177 Main St., Acton. PAGES & PAVEMENT If you have an audiobook collecting dust in your downloads, a nudge from your local spoken word enthusiasts may be what you need to finally hear that happily ever after. Side Quest Books & Games, a genre bookstore in Bow Market, is jump-starting an Audiobook Walking Club this Sunday. The weekly walk starts at Side Quest, where attendees can lace up their sneakers and put on their headphones before the hourlong stroll. The journey ends where it began, and participants are welcome to hang out for a caffeine fix and a chat about their tale on tape, or continue binge-listening all the way home. Sundays starting June 22, 9:30 a.m. 1 Bow Market Way, Suite 32, Somerville. Advertisement Tacos from Loco Taqueria are half-price to celebrate Taco Tuesday every week. Diane Bair Deals & steals SHELL YEAH At Loco Taqueria's Fenway and Southie locations, tacos are half-price all day on Tuesdays. Customers can choose between the likes of classic carne asada or crispy coconut shrimp, served on 6-inch corn tortillas — or they can get one of both, because, hey, it's Tuesday. 11 a.m.-1 a.m. 412 W. Broadway, South Boston. 61 Brookline Ave. Send info on free events and special offers at least 10 days in advance to . Marianna Orozco can be reached at
New York Times
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Paint Me a Road Out of Here': Faith Ringgold's Gift to Prisoners
In 1971, the artist Faith Ringgold received a grant to make a painting for a public institution in New York City. She decided to ask the prisoners in the Women's House of Detention on Rikers Island what they wanted to see in a painting. 'I want to see a road leading out of here,' one incarcerated woman told her. Ringgold took that idea and ran with it. She didn't paint a literal road. Instead, her canvas — entitled 'For the Women's House' and installed at the prison in January 1972 — is divided into eight sections. In each, women are depicted performing jobs traditionally held by men at the time: bus driver, construction worker, basketball player, president. The road is implied: Seeing women in positions and roles they don't always occupy can open up the viewer's world. She might be in a prison for now, but there's a place for her worth aspiring to beyond these walls. This was Ringgold's imagination at work, always depicting what a more just and beautiful world might look like, particularly for the people whom the powerful prefer to ignore. Ringgold and 'For the Women's House' both appear in the documentary 'Paint Me a Road Out of Here' (in theaters), directed by Catherine Gund, and hearing and seeing her talk is reason enough to see the film. Ringgold died in 2024 at 93, and is widely considered one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, a native New Yorker who was unflagging in her activism and commitments to dismantle racism wherever it surfaced. As a Black woman and an artist, she insisted on coupling political meaning with her work, which is suffused with curiosity and joy. 'Paint Me a Road Out Of Here' is not a biographical film about Ringgold, even though you'll learn a lot about her biography from it. The film has bigger aspirations, connecting art, prisons, activism and an expansive life. One major subject in the film is the artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, an executive producer of the film whose prison reform work often draws on her own experiences while incarcerated. Shortly after her own arrest, for example, Baxter went into labor — 43 hours while shackled to a bed. The film is about other things, too — so many that at times it feels scattered, though every piece of it also feels urgent. One major thread critiques the ways that prisons make incarcerated people feel less than human, and calls for major reform, specifically within Rikers Island, which New York City is required by law to close in 2027. (This is proving to be a challenge.) It's also about the ways that art and activism are inextricably linked. The wildest part of the film, though, is the tale of what happened to 'For the Women's House' — a story that feels like a thriller as well as a metaphor for the way societies treat incarcerated people. I won't spoil it (though it's been well-documented), because the film includes interviews with many of the major players. But as one of the participants says, art takes away abstraction about incarcerated people. The painting's saga, and others told in 'Paint Me a Road Out of Here,' is part of that work.
