Making Light: Past Events
March 17
Helen Grimm is an artist who embraces the shifting nature of the infinite present, surrendering to each moment that is all moments within a universe of constant change. Using a visual language evolved from nature, she explores cycles of attachment and release by moving paint around her canvases, layering color and texture, and cutting away form. With degrees in painting and art history from Cornell University (1990), Helen is also an herbalist, nurse, and parent who returned to her painting practice in 2006. Represented in Provincetown by Four Eleven Gallery since 2010, her work is in private collections all around the world.
Grace Emmett is a visual artist, writer, naturalist, educator, and serves as PAAM’s the Curator of Community Education. Her place-based art practice is dependent on an intimate relationship with the land informed by her foraging and natural ink making process. She has shown in galleries, museums, and universities across the Northeast and her artwork can be found at Frying Pan Gallery and Farm Projects. Grace has taught workshops at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Cultural Center of Cape Cod, and the Arlington Center for the Arts. She is the author of Solstice Tree: A Story of a Forest in Times of Darkness and Light and the substack Sundog published seasonally.
Susan Lambert has acted and sung in Off-Broadway, stock, regional, and European tours. Her newest solo show is a musical memoir, If You Could Read My Mind. She will appear in next year's short The Hot Club (Claude Kervin). This spring she continues to tour her solo shows The Couch and Moons and Junes and Moments in the Woods and will appear as Sharon in The Roommate from In The Balance Productions and Woods Hole Theatre Company. She played JoJo in the world premiere of Meryl Cohn's The Fade Away Advantage and Masha in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. She is the creator/host of the podcast In The Balance and producer and narrator of The Wild Edge of The Heart audio book to benefit women’s reproductive rights.
February 17
Art Devine is a prominent multi-talented theatre artist, currently serving as a resident playwright and associate artist at the Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster. A Vietnam veteran (Special Forces/Green Beret), his military background deeply informs his creative work and community initiatives.
Padraic (Paddo) Devine is the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the band Club9Ball. He is also a playwright, actor, professional set carpenter, stage combat instructor, and arborist.
Seamus Devine is a drummer, songwriter, and business manager for the band Club9Ball. He is also a playwright, actor, professional set carpenter, and arborist.
January 20
Heidi Jon Schmidt is the author of five novels and story collections, including The House on Oyster Creek and The Harbormasters Daughter, both set on the Outer Cape, where she has lived since 1982. She has also written for The Atlantic and the NYT among other publications. On Night Owl, her Substack column, she promotes a culture of empathy, hope, and truth— the antidotes to fascism with weekly essays and current news roundups. heidijonschmidt.com
Jay Critchley’s visual, conceptual, and performance work and environmental activism have traversed the globe, showing and/or performing in Argentina, Japan, England, Holland, Germany, Columbia and the United States. His social art practice includes running the Provincetown Community Compact, which works with artists and the environment and sponsors the annual Provincetown Harbor Swim for Life & Paddler Flotilla, a fundraiser for AIDS and women’s health, founded in 1988.
Dinah Mellin was classically trained on violin, and has played with the Cape Cod Fiddlers and various other bands over the decades. She is the founder of Allegretto Outreach, a group that took music demo programs to Cape Cod schools. Brick Hill House Concerts, where folks can hear every note, take place regularly in Dinah’s living room. She is a host of The Fiddle and the Harp on community radio station WOMR.
December 16
Cody Sullivan is a playmaker based out of Provincetown. His community theater project CODY PLAYS runs weekly in the summer and monthly in the off season, Mondays at 7pm in the Wilde at the Gifford House. His work is supported by the Provincetown Cultural Council, The Commons Changemakers Grant Cycle 2025 and the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. More information on his work can be found at codyplays.com.
Jon Richardson is a pianist, singer, and writer based in Provincetown. He holds a master’s degree from New England Conservatory and a bachelor’s in history from Grinnell College. Originally from the Twin Cities, he grew up immersed in musical theater from the age of eight. Since moving to Provincetown in 2017, Jon has released four albums of original music, has performed hundreds of shows annually, and is half of the "gay Simon and Garfunkel" duo of Donnelley and Richardson. His first musical, The Jack Of Hearts Club, recently played to sold-out shows and garnered enthusiastic critical acclaim.
Sheryl Jaffee has been exhibiting her artwork throughout New York and New England for over 30 years. She works with organic materials, handmade paper from local and exotic plant fibers, and found objects to create two- and three-dimensional works. She studied traditional hand papermaking in Japan and China and has taught papermaking worldwide. She has a Masters degree in Art Education and a BA in Multicultural Art Education, both from the University of Massachusetts. She volunteers in the community with the ArtPeace Makers, the MLK Action Team and in bringing Wampanoag Culture and Education to the Outer Cape.
November 18
Grace Emmett is a visual artist, writer, naturalist, educator, and serves as PAAM’s Curator of Community Education. Her place-based art practice is dependent on an intimate relationship with the land informed by her foraging and natural ink making process. She has shown in galleries, museums, and universities across the Northeast and her artwork can be found at Frying Pan Gallery and Farm Projects. Grace is the author of Solstice Tree: A Story of a Forest in Times of Darkness and Light and the substack Sundog published seasonally.
Amy C. Davies is an award-winning video and film producer who has specialized in local storytelling on Cape Cod for over twenty-five years. Amy is a visual artist who regularly exhibits work around Cape Cod and New England. In her previous career in hyperlocal media, she taught thousands of people video production, anchored local radio newscasts, and wrote for various local newspapers. Amy currently serves as the Digital Content Officer at Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM).
Ken Field is a saxophonist & composer. He leads the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, an experimental & improvisational brass band, a longtime member of the electronic modern music ensemble Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, and he performs & records with a number of prominent Outer Cape musical groups. His solo releases document his work for layered saxophones and his soundtracks for dance and film. Field's music is heard regularly on the children's television program Sesame Street. He is the host of WMBR & WOMR’s The New Edge and co-host of WOMR’s Trash or Treasure.
October 21
Fermin Rojas is a producer, filmmaker, playwright, and composer, and the founder of DKR Films, a film production house specializing in imaginative, inspiring, and socially conscious documentaries. InAlumbrones—a documentary about artists living and working in Cuba—one of the artists shared: “All I can do is leave a record of what I’ve done for my country.”
Denise Coffey is a writer, a reporter for the Cape Cod Times, and a poet. She is a bird enthusiast and Marc Chagall aficionado.
Mike Carroll is an artist who also writes and speaks on art and exhibition spaces, being himself the owner and director of the Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown. As an artist he’s attuned to hidden forces at play in each work; as an artist a gallerist he is a nurturer of others’ expressions of joy or pain.