Cate McQuaid
@catemcquaid.bsky.social
Being called to be yourself, being called to transfigure what has hardened or been wounded within you, is also the heart of creativity – John O'Donohue
https://catemcquaid.substack.com/
https://catemcquaid.substack.com/
Linda Pagani's delicate works cradle change. They're like sand slipping through fingers. She has work on view in Caira Art Editions’ show at MO Gallery in Newburyport through Feb. 13. Her monoprints "Traces (fleeting)" started when she burned her journals. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/from-silen...
From silence to form
Linda Pagani, who has work at MO Gallery, on crafting her "Traces (fleeting)" monoprints
catemcquaid.substack.com
January 20, 2026 at 4:41 PM
Linda Pagani's delicate works cradle change. They're like sand slipping through fingers. She has work on view in Caira Art Editions’ show at MO Gallery in Newburyport through Feb. 13. Her monoprints "Traces (fleeting)" started when she burned her journals. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/from-silen...
I've had, at times, a romantic draw to men of the cloth. So did my mother. And hers. In Ocean in a Drop today, chapter four of my memoir, in which my mother initiates an affair with a Catholic priest. What patterns spiral through generations in your family?
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/violating-...
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/violating-...
Violating vows and family spirals
What stories weave through the generations of your family?
catemcquaid.substack.com
January 18, 2026 at 7:31 PM
I've had, at times, a romantic draw to men of the cloth. So did my mother. And hers. In Ocean in a Drop today, chapter four of my memoir, in which my mother initiates an affair with a Catholic priest. What patterns spiral through generations in your family?
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/violating-...
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/violating-...
"I can empty myself and allow things to come to me," Patti Smith told Anderson Cooper on All There Is. "Ritual Practice | Sacred Space," Robin Hauck's exhibition at The Beehive, evokes the sustenance ritual and retreat provide amid relentless productivity. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-vessel...
The vessels that hold us
On "Ritual Practice | Sacred Space" at the Beehive, and allowing things to come
catemcquaid.substack.com
January 11, 2026 at 8:10 PM
"I can empty myself and allow things to come to me," Patti Smith told Anderson Cooper on All There Is. "Ritual Practice | Sacred Space," Robin Hauck's exhibition at The Beehive, evokes the sustenance ritual and retreat provide amid relentless productivity. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-vessel...
Good new year. As we look into the face of what's to come… how do you ground yourself and begin (or even continue?). For today's Ocean in a Drop, I asked Adria Arch, Matt Brackett, Jamaal Eversley, Julia Shepley, and Zainab Sumu how they begin a new project. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/jumping-of...
Jumping off the cliff
A new year, a new start. Zainab Sumu, Julia Shepley, Jamaal Eversley, Adria Arch, and Matt Brackett share how they begin to create.
catemcquaid.substack.com
January 4, 2026 at 5:29 PM
Good new year. As we look into the face of what's to come… how do you ground yourself and begin (or even continue?). For today's Ocean in a Drop, I asked Adria Arch, Matt Brackett, Jamaal Eversley, Julia Shepley, and Zainab Sumu how they begin a new project. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/jumping-of...
You’ve heard of resting bitch face? I have resting stern face. It can be an armor. So much disappears behind it! Joy, goofiness In an era of social performance to the point of caricature, how do we remove our masks? Slowly, kindly. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/resting-st...
Resting stern face
On seeing, and gently removing, the masks we wear with others
catemcquaid.substack.com
December 21, 2025 at 4:38 PM
You’ve heard of resting bitch face? I have resting stern face. It can be an armor. So much disappears behind it! Joy, goofiness In an era of social performance to the point of caricature, how do we remove our masks? Slowly, kindly. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/resting-st...
Most of her career, Prilla Smith Brackett has focused on depicting what she sees. Recent pieces made during her husband’s decline and after his death are less about seeing and more about being. New work in "The Long View #2" at Suffolk University Art Gallery.
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/flying-int...
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/flying-int...
Flying into the unknown
Prilla Smith Brackett on the path to making "Flight #9," on view in "The Long View #2" at Suffolk University Gallery
catemcquaid.substack.com
December 16, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Most of her career, Prilla Smith Brackett has focused on depicting what she sees. Recent pieces made during her husband’s decline and after his death are less about seeing and more about being. New work in "The Long View #2" at Suffolk University Art Gallery.
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/flying-int...
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/flying-int...
Haley Wood's tufted rugs are vessels of grief and magic. Her show Hawthorn is at Abigail Ogilvy. Her rugs could easily adorn the floor of your baby’s nursery. In today's Work in Progress in Ocean in a Drop, she takes us through her process with Hawthorn 8. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/lost-into-...
Lost in the fairy realm
Haley Wood on making "Hawthorn 8," in her solo show at Abigail Ogilvy in Los Angeles
catemcquaid.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Haley Wood's tufted rugs are vessels of grief and magic. Her show Hawthorn is at Abigail Ogilvy. Her rugs could easily adorn the floor of your baby’s nursery. In today's Work in Progress in Ocean in a Drop, she takes us through her process with Hawthorn 8. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/lost-into-...
Dating, avoid profiles of folks wearing their wounds. Some list the qualities they're not looking for. A lot of men don’t want "crazy" women. They're sane as salt, though. If we make space what we avoid in ourselves, it's a different picture. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/seeing-eac...
Seeing each other whole
Art is a mirror. When what you find in it changes, so have you.
catemcquaid.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Dating, avoid profiles of folks wearing their wounds. Some list the qualities they're not looking for. A lot of men don’t want "crazy" women. They're sane as salt, though. If we make space what we avoid in ourselves, it's a different picture. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/seeing-eac...
Ellen Shattuck Pierce's doll The Assholescent is soft, bendable snarky, and everything you can imagine in your beloved but unbearable teen. Small children use dolls as transitional objects to help develop independence. Now parents can, too.
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/teenage-di...
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/teenage-di...
Smells like teen spirit
Ellen Shattuck Pierce on creating her doll "The Assholescent"
catemcquaid.substack.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Ellen Shattuck Pierce's doll The Assholescent is soft, bendable snarky, and everything you can imagine in your beloved but unbearable teen. Small children use dolls as transitional objects to help develop independence. Now parents can, too.
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/teenage-di...
catemcquaid.substack.com/p/teenage-di...
We met up with Donnell Patterson at a Millennium Gospel Choir rehearsal last Sunday at Saint Paul AME Church in Cambridge. They rocked the house down prepping for concerts at Museum of Fine Arts Dec. 12-20. He's this week's Working Artist in the Globe. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/17/a...
For this inspiring director of community choruses, ‘Gospel is my big love’ - The Boston Globe
Donnell Patterson helped found New England Conservatory's Millennium Gospel Choir, which celebrates its 25th anniversary with a performance at the MFA next month.
www.bostonglobe.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:18 PM
We met up with Donnell Patterson at a Millennium Gospel Choir rehearsal last Sunday at Saint Paul AME Church in Cambridge. They rocked the house down prepping for concerts at Museum of Fine Arts Dec. 12-20. He's this week's Working Artist in the Globe. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/17/a...
Poet Elizabeth Bishop's In the Waiting Room recounts the moment as a child that she recognized she was a separate self. What's your earliest memory and how does it reflect who you are now? And chapter 3 or Communion: A Memoir of Family, Secrets, and Love. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/whats-your...
November 16, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Poet Elizabeth Bishop's In the Waiting Room recounts the moment as a child that she recognized she was a separate self. What's your earliest memory and how does it reflect who you are now? And chapter 3 or Communion: A Memoir of Family, Secrets, and Love. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/whats-your...
Marty Epp-Carter started dating, connected with someone – and was ghosted. They turned to the studio. Marty wrote about "A Fail-Safe Way to Navigate Dating Apps in 2025," the first piece in their dating series, for today's Work in Progress. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/what-to-do...
What to do when you're ghosted
Burned on a dating app, Marty Epp-Carter took to the studio
catemcquaid.substack.com
November 4, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Marty Epp-Carter started dating, connected with someone – and was ghosted. They turned to the studio. Marty wrote about "A Fail-Safe Way to Navigate Dating Apps in 2025," the first piece in their dating series, for today's Work in Progress. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/what-to-do...
Mothers have been trapped in an ideal. They’re asexual, selfless founts of nurture. When we turn a person into a sentimental icon, there’s something we fear in her. Why are we afraid of mothers? Motherhood as Muse at Concord Art offers up some suggestions. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-opposi...
The opposite of the male gaze
"Motherhood as Muse" at Concord Art turns a loving eye on what patriarchy fears
catemcquaid.substack.com
November 2, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Mothers have been trapped in an ideal. They’re asexual, selfless founts of nurture. When we turn a person into a sentimental icon, there’s something we fear in her. Why are we afraid of mothers? Motherhood as Muse at Concord Art offers up some suggestions. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-opposi...
Collage artist Jane Maxwell's show "In Your Face" at Lanoue Gallery examines the push-pull between the feminine ideal and a messier internal reality. Now she's upping the ante with sculptural pieces made of Botox vials. She calls the show "a no judgment zone." www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/14/a...
Pressure for the feminine ideal shapes the work of this collage artist - The Boston Globe
"In Your Face," her latest show, has work made of Botox vials and old billboard paper.
www.bostonglobe.com
October 16, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Collage artist Jane Maxwell's show "In Your Face" at Lanoue Gallery examines the push-pull between the feminine ideal and a messier internal reality. Now she's upping the ante with sculptural pieces made of Botox vials. She calls the show "a no judgment zone." www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/14/a...
How did your parents meet? It's an origin story that can be sweet or sour. Sometimes it's both. The story can seem written in stone when we're young. Has your perspective on your parents, and how they came together to make you, changed? Mine has. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/pray-pay-a...
October 12, 2025 at 5:53 PM
How did your parents meet? It's an origin story that can be sweet or sour. Sometimes it's both. The story can seem written in stone when we're young. Has your perspective on your parents, and how they came together to make you, changed? Mine has. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/pray-pay-a...
As cultural spaces dwindle in Boston, artists get creative, founding galleries in a V-nosed trailer in a suburban parking lot, in a spiffed-up shed, in a dining room, in a studio, on a fridge.
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/01/a...
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/01/a...
With galleries dwindling, artists turn to alt spaces — be they trailers, or dining rooms, or gussied up sheds - The Boston Globe
Artist-run galleries, typically small and decidedly unconventional, are having a moment in the Boston area.
www.bostonglobe.com
October 1, 2025 at 8:28 PM
As cultural spaces dwindle in Boston, artists get creative, founding galleries in a V-nosed trailer in a suburban parking lot, in a spiffed-up shed, in a dining room, in a studio, on a fridge.
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/01/a...
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/01/a...
Painter William Collin aims to show the tension between what is seen and what is felt. "I See Myself in You," at Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol Community College in Fall River (through Oct. 16), features his paintings of Black young men and boys. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/standing-i...
Standing in the middle
William Collin on painting "BY-Product" and locating his figures within lineages of history, family, and identity
catemcquaid.substack.com
October 1, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Painter William Collin aims to show the tension between what is seen and what is felt. "I See Myself in You," at Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol Community College in Fall River (through Oct. 16), features his paintings of Black young men and boys. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/standing-i...
Here's your periodic "what the hell is going on?" update on the federal government and the arts. But also! Putting Disney in its place, how hubris leads to downfall, the force that bridges divides, and how societal upheaval parallels studio practice. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/cracking-o...
Cracking open
A periodic “what the hell is going on?” update on the federal government and the arts
catemcquaid.substack.com
September 28, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Here's your periodic "what the hell is going on?" update on the federal government and the arts. But also! Putting Disney in its place, how hubris leads to downfall, the force that bridges divides, and how societal upheaval parallels studio practice. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/cracking-o...
Meet illusionist Jeanette Andrews, visiting artist at MIT Center for Art, Science, & Technology interested in metacognition. Her October show at MIT, "The Attestation: A Performance of Illusions” uses magic to examine how polarized beliefs work. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/22/a...
An illusionist makes magic to probe our minds’ susceptibility to disinformation - The Boston Globe
Jeanette Andrews's show, “Attestation,” showcases "the really deep-rooted mechanisms at play" in human perception.
www.bostonglobe.com
September 23, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Meet illusionist Jeanette Andrews, visiting artist at MIT Center for Art, Science, & Technology interested in metacognition. Her October show at MIT, "The Attestation: A Performance of Illusions” uses magic to examine how polarized beliefs work. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/22/a...
Susan Jane Belton has spent her career avoiding the figure. Until now. For her show at Anderson Yezerski "Familiar Strangers" she painted people she found in snapshots. "In the spirit of 'if not now, when?' I decided to make a radical change," she writes. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/susan-jane...
Susan Jane Belton wades in
The artist, whose show "Familiar Strangers" is at Anderson Yezerski, on her move into figure painting
catemcquaid.substack.com
September 23, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Susan Jane Belton has spent her career avoiding the figure. Until now. For her show at Anderson Yezerski "Familiar Strangers" she painted people she found in snapshots. "In the spirit of 'if not now, when?' I decided to make a radical change," she writes. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/susan-jane...
I have house shame. I don’t invite people over. I bought my house 20 years ago, and mostly I’ve treated it like a burden. Recently, I sat with those feelings. Now, my iceberg of house shame is thawing – which is good, right? But it sure stings. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-iceber...
The iceberg of shame
When it thaws, it hurts. And then possibilities rush in.
catemcquaid.substack.com
September 21, 2025 at 3:53 PM
I have house shame. I don’t invite people over. I bought my house 20 years ago, and mostly I’ve treated it like a burden. Recently, I sat with those feelings. Now, my iceberg of house shame is thawing – which is good, right? But it sure stings. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/the-iceber...
Alaina Mahoney fell in love with metal at MassArt. Now she's a blacksmith at AM Design and Fabrication, doing ornamental iron work and fabrication for artists. Alaina has a painting studio right next to the metal shop. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/08/a...
The art and the tool are the same for a blacksmith exploring a dying craft - The Boston Globe
Alaina Mahoney is a blacksmith who also paints.
www.bostonglobe.com
September 19, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Alaina Mahoney fell in love with metal at MassArt. Now she's a blacksmith at AM Design and Fabrication, doing ornamental iron work and fabrication for artists. Alaina has a painting studio right next to the metal shop. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/08/a...
Conny Goelz-Schmitt resurrects vintage books into collages. The stories are gone. The bones remain, and they rise and dance. This may be a new language, but in it old books speak – if you’ll permit a pun – volumes. How she does it in today's Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/patience-b...
Patience, but no hesitation
How Conny Goelz-Schmitt makes art from vintage books
catemcquaid.substack.com
September 16, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Conny Goelz-Schmitt resurrects vintage books into collages. The stories are gone. The bones remain, and they rise and dance. This may be a new language, but in it old books speak – if you’ll permit a pun – volumes. How she does it in today's Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/patience-b...
On Friday night on Boston City Hall Plaza, artist Adela Goldbard returned us to a first encounter between Europeans and Indigenous people, usin pyrotechnics to burn a quarter-scale replica of a Colonial-era ship. More in Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/whose-home...
Whose homeland is this?
At Boston City Hall Plaza, Adela Goldbard sets fire to old colonialist notions of power
catemcquaid.substack.com
September 14, 2025 at 4:33 PM
On Friday night on Boston City Hall Plaza, artist Adela Goldbard returned us to a first encounter between Europeans and Indigenous people, usin pyrotechnics to burn a quarter-scale replica of a Colonial-era ship. More in Ocean in a Drop. catemcquaid.substack.com/p/whose-home...
Reposted by Cate McQuaid
Part of the statement from the @transjournalists.org on reporting details of the the Charlie Kirk shooting investigation.
Full statement here:
www.transjournalists.org/tja-urges-ca...
Full statement here:
www.transjournalists.org/tja-urges-ca...
September 11, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Part of the statement from the @transjournalists.org on reporting details of the the Charlie Kirk shooting investigation.
Full statement here:
www.transjournalists.org/tja-urges-ca...
Full statement here:
www.transjournalists.org/tja-urges-ca...