Art in the Present Tense at Lynn Museum

Lynn, Lynn where have you been! exclaimed a friend recently via emphatic Tweet after enjoying a spirited evening in the city north of Boston. It’s a sentiment you can feel in the palpable energy that has taken over the city as it awakens from decades of derision and failed promises. In recent years there have been whispers of great restaurants opening such as the Blue Ox or Rossetti’s, as well as downtown bakeries and cafes. City Hall has a renovated performance venue and the arts community is galvanized around the downtown cultural district.

Tonight at the Lynn Museum a new art exhibit opens that showcases the maturity of the local arts community with a decidedly modern dialogue in the Present Tense. This exhibit has been installed on the second floor of the museum and has been spun out of a merger of what had traditionally been the Lynn Historical Society and LynnArts. These two entities with divergent perspectives are now united by proximity and promise in a joint museum effort to connect us with the past and drive our future.

Below are some highlights form tonight’s exhibit which showcases a variety of mediums and forms from a select group of local artists.

Receeding Shadows

The snow curved liked a backward crashing wave half loosening its grip on a park bench. It’s as if for just this one warm moment a small spot was being offered to contemplar mi estado



The fountain though has not regained its function. With more icey water surrounding it than flowing within, it sits alone in the courtyard gasping for breath above the line of snow.



But the light is undeniably back and can be seen in the shadows that linger in the late hours of the afternoon, when not long ago Orion would already have completed his commute before I my own.

(Standing outside of the Lynn Museuem north of Boston.)